Day 44 - A family day at Lake Topaz
The pool is appropriately named. Surrounded by mountains it truly feels like a a pool in the middle. Visions of my childhood when we would all gather at the local pool on the hottest days of summer where the only relief is the water. The pool here suffers greatly from lack of breezes. This is our second summer visiting this gunkhole and we love it greatly, and it is batting 100 for being hot and stuffy. Needless to say, I haven’t been sleeping well. The mosquitos come out in force starting as early as 8:30 and we haven’t done the greatest job of shutting the doors early enough so we are all just laying in bed, hot, sticky and getting eaten alive. Tonight, I will try and get the screen doors closed a bit earlier and look forward to a little later this week where the night temps are predicted to drop into the 50’s (!) and we can all get a good nights rest.
Captain and I were both up pretty early. We made some breakfast and once our belly’s were full we decided to get Sidney back on his trail home. As we prepared to leave I gave him a boat sticker and our card and asked him to please check in with us when he safely gets back to his car (even though it may be a day or so before we have cell service) He pulled out his wallet and tried to give us some cash but we refused saying to just pay it forward in a way he finds appropriate.
We sent him on his way just after 9am and Captain and I returned to Ciara for a slow morning. I got caught up on some chores and we enjoyed the stillness of the pool while I looked for bears and turtles. I rigged up our shade to offer some relief to the sun as it came higer in the sky. The kids were itching to go back to Topaz Lake and were all packed and ready to go when Captain fell victim to the heat nap and we delayed about an hour.
I woke Captain up it was nearly 1pm already. We loaded up the dinghy and headed to shore. As we approached, we saw there was a boat from the lodge at Killarney at their dock as well as the large tourist boat from Little Current. It would turn out that Tuesdays at 1pm is when all the local tours comes to this little slice of heaven. We hiked up with a crowd of about 40 people. Kona carrying her stick and staying with us.
When we arrived at the lake it was busy with the crowd, but Kona didn’t care. She got all excited and started her high pitch happy bark. I couldn’t possibly throw that stick in the water fast enough for her, much to the joy of all the tourist.
We all jumped in and Kona took turns finding tourists as her new best friend to throw the stick for her. The crowd only lasted about 40 minutes before they all had to hike back down to their tour boats so we were then all alone in paradise. Bert cliff jumped another 9 times bringing his overall total of that cliff to 27! Cory and Dani did a few jumps and then Dani and I float/swam to check out the cliffs further down the lake. It was really nice to relax in the water with them.
A few other independent boaters came and went through the afternoon. We had no desire to leave quickly and enjoyed snacks on the rocks and more swimming and throwing sticks for Kona. Cory and Captain hunted blueberries and would lake make blueberry lemonade (vodka for those over 21) which was really good!
Back at Ciara we had some boaters stop by and tie up and chat for about two hours while the kids watched a movie on their phones. After they left, I was so hungry so we got tacos made for Taco Tuesday! Last Post at 9 and Captain and I went over to Mangata (Jodi and Brooks) to get just enough internet to check the weather and see if we got a text from Sidney (not yet!) with their Starlink. We are sold on Starlink and that will be a thing next year! The invited us aboard to see their boat. It is a center cockpit and while 4 feet shorter than Ciara feels so much larger. There were some jealous rays, but mostly we all take notes on what we can buy and improve life aboard Ciara. Jodi gave us a signed copy of her new children’s book from her own library. It is a beautifully illustrated book about non-traditional families and that being a step-up parent and step-up sibling can be full of love and joy. Captain and I could relate very much to her story and hope that we have taught our kids the same so that when they are adults, they will see the value in giving someone a safe home if they are lacking one themselves. The book is called “You can share my Daddy” by Jodi Swanson and illustrated by Siri Sagunasing and is on amazon.
We called it a night and as we left Jodi and Brooks the mosquitos were in full force. We took Kona to shore and let her run off the dinghy all by herself while we just got eaten. Quickly enough Kona was back aboard and we were back inside Ciara. Now after 10pm, hot and muggy, its time for one more night of hot muggy sleep. I am looking forward the predicted cold front tomorrow night!
