The Adventures of SV Lil’ Ollie and Her Crew

⚓ Welcome to Lil' Ollie's Adventures: Reader Guide & Housekeeping Welcome aboard! Whether you’ve been following our voyage from the start or just stepped on deck, here is a quick guide to navigating our blog: Where to Find Archived Posts: If you want to read about past days or look for a specific anchorage, scroll down to the bottom of the page (or check the right-hand sidebar if you are on a computer) to find the Blog Archive . You can expand the months to see every single day's journey right from our June 4 launch! Comments are Welcome! Please feel free to chime in—we love hearing from you! Just make sure to hit PUBLISH when you are done typing. If you aren't signed into a Google account, your comment will show up as "Anonymous," so please type your first name and last initial in the comment box so I know who I'm replying to! Check Back for Updates: I quite often write and update this blog as the day goes by. If you want to catch the whole story...

⚓ Back at It — Housekeeping Monday, July 27, 2026 Well, our friends Brian and Donna have gone home. We had a terrific time with them from Saturday through Sunday, when they had to leave for an appointment and work. So it's back to work and picking up where we left off—getting Lil' Ollie ready for our next trip, this time to Telegraph Harbour Marina for the C&C Rendezvous! Greg is taking the 2-stroke motor off the boat and transporting it home to make a, hopefully, quick repair. We lowered it into the dinghy with the help of an outboard crane. That makes the job so easy and saves our backs! Next, the dinghy goes over to the main dock and the motor gets lifted onto a hand truck (also known as a dolly). Then it gets rolled up the dock ramp and loaded into the back of the RAV4. He also filled the water tanks. The starboard tank needed a total fill, while the port tank was down to 4 of 9 dots, so it only needed a partial fill. While he was doing that, I went through my clothes ...

⛵ Day 50: Clam Bay to Home & Reflections Last night’s sunset in Clam Bay. Wow, the bay did not look like that this morning. When we awakened at around 7:00ish, I could feel the boat swinging at anchor due to the bit of wind that was starting to build. The start of the building waves in the anchorage. By the way, that is our motor on the back for the dinghy but it wouldn't start so we used the electric one the whole time. Hopefully Greg can get it fixed before Port Browning because we usually anchor out there and the anchorage is a ways from the dock. Photos never accurately show the height of the waves but they sure seemed like one foot to me! It was beginning to feel like Tribune Bay all over again with the wind blowing from the south. As soon as we got past the point where Penelekut Island's strip of land juts out at the end of Clam Bay, Greg unwrapped the working jib. We never did put up the genoa during this trip. We had amazingly managed so far with just the working ji...

⛵ Day 49: Coffee, Solar Magic, and Full-Circle Moments  Last night we went to bed shortly after this beautiful sunset: A beautiful sunset to end the day in North Cove. (Courtesy of Greg) ...and awoke to this! Clear blue skies, glassy water, and pure bliss out the cockpit at 7:20 AM. Waking up at 7:20 AM to that view out the cockpit was absolute magic. In moments like that, a part of me really doesn't want to go home—I’d love to stay anchored right here until this summer spell disappears! But reality calls: we have things to tend to at home and our trip to Italy to prepare for, so we need to start wrapping up this leg of the journey. ⚓ Hop to Clam Bay & A Real Barista Treat We pulled up anchor and departed North Cove around 10:30 AM for a short, easy hop over to Clam Bay, dropping anchor around 11:30 AM. Earlier in the morning, before we headed through the cut, I squeezed in some piano time—playing The Entertainer and Passacaglia while listening to the calm morning water. Once a...

⛵ Day 48: Morning Reflections, Flag Protocol Musings, and Moving On Good morning, friends! It was scorching yesterday, but thankfully it cooled down a bit last night to a pleasing, comfortable temperature. This morning there's a gentle breeze blowing and it's already quite warm in the sun—a huge contrast to the chilly mornings we’ve been having earlier in the trip! I guess Artemus was up all night and still needs his beauty rest. Isn't that a beautiful sight - so calm and summer warm. We enjoyed our usual coffee and some avocado toast in the cockpit today. We’re definitely starting to reach the bottom of our provisions as we near the end of this leg! We switched over to our second water tank a day or two ago (still showing a full 9 dots on the gauge, thankfully), and we have just enough avocados left and two crusts of bread. We’re also down to the last bit of our homemade granola, but I brought all the fixings to whip up another batch when it runs out—which always makes the...

  ⛵ Day 47: Strait Sailing, Shower Shenanigans, and a Birthday Pub Dinner We had grand plans to get an early start today, but our bodies apparently had other ideas. Greg woke up around 6:00 AM, and I didn't stir until about 6:25 AM. I must have been completely exhausted because I didn't even hear the alarm go off, let alone Greg getting up! We enjoyed our usual breakfast and coffee in the cockpit under beautifully sunny skies. Despite our talk of leaving early yesterday, we didn't actually manage to pull up the anchor and get away until around 8:30 AM. We wound our way through the islands, and the water was so agitated it felt almost like navigating a river. Once we finally broke out into the Strait of Georgia, Greg hoisted both sails and it was glorious! We had a west wind—the forecast had called for a north-west wind, so it was a little uncomfortable at first, but not too bad once we readjusted from the calm anchorage back to the wavy seas. Winding through the islands. Sa...

☀️ Day 46: Spreadsheet Victory, Morning Logs, and a Return Walk What a difference a day makes! First thing this morning, I dove back into the cockpit workspace to tackle the Expense side of the spreadsheet. I was just getting ready to save the finalized file as a template for future years when I realized I needed to clear up a quick detail about handling the year-end transitions. Thankfully, my trusty AI partner and I got it squared away in record time today! With the financial dashboard officially wrapped up and functional, a huge weight was lifted, leaving the entire rest of the day wide open to work on the blog, explore, and relax. When we first stepped into the cockpit this morning, there was the log boom from last night’s late-night drama, sitting right there in broad daylight. Seeing it in the sun really put its scale into perspective—it was a lot of logs, and they ended up staying parked there all day long. What we saw from our boat, zoomed in a bit. Before heading out for our ...

📊 Day 45: Cracking the Code and Rocky Shore Scrambles The weather was less than stellar today, which turned out to be the perfect excuse to stay inside and tackle the spreadsheet beast. I dove headfirst into the numbers, and let me tell you... OMG. I had absolutely no idea it would take that long! I kept getting completely sucked in, constantly thinking to myself, “Oh, I’ll have this sorted out in just a couple of minutes.” Famous last words. I was wrestling with a tricky formatting problem and went back and forth with an AI assistant to try and crack it. For a while, it felt like the two of us were just spinning our wheels and getting nowhere. But persistence paid off! I finally got the entire Revenue table completely finished and automated before bedtime. The Expense table can officially wait until Sunday—I earned a break. Aside from a few necessary head (bathroom) breaks, eating, stretching, and squeezing in an episode of The Resident, my entire Saturday was consumed by cells and f...

🌫️ Morning Fog, Lady Hawk, and the Lonely Bleat I arose around 7:20 this morning, stepped out into the cockpit, and what do I see? Morning fog and a wet cockpit—it rained off and on all night. The forecast claimed the rain was supposed to stop at 9:00 AM, but it hasn't yet and it is already 11:00 AM! Fog in the distance. Glad we're staying put today in this rain! As I was standing there taking in the misty view, I noticed our neighbors on the Beneteau pulling up their anchor. Because they were moving, I finally got a clear look at the rear side of their stern and caught the actual name of their boat: Lady Hawk ! Honestly, I think I liked Lady Gaga better. It had such a funny catch to it, especially after their almost-incident yesterday afternoon! While I was sitting out in the quiet cockpit, I suddenly heard a distinct bleat through the fog. The lonely sheep was back on the hillside, practically beckoning me to take her picture! I’m going to say it’s a "she"—it'...