Day 5 - Thursday

8:30am Thursday -- We all wake up . No one has been eaten by animals or each other. Haseena complains of weird sounds. We are convinced it's Dups' snoring. Apparently, Aaron and Santhi were almost eaten by animals but were sidetracked by the food in the tent vestibule. Just found out that emergency surgery was performed last night. Aaron had to freeze Santhi's left toe with lidocaine to clean out an infected cut. On top of that, Aaron, displaying ballet-like grace, stepped into Santhi's middle toe and quite probably broke it. Dave and I had attributed the screams from the Chief Navigator's and Quartermaster's tent to other sources. Yellow duct tape is used as a cast. MacGyver, eat your heart out.

9:30 - 11:20am -- With amazing speed and agility the intrepid crew of Expedition Fishbair got ready for a day excursion to the Isle of Effingham. Compared to our usual 5 hours of packing, this only took a paltry three. The radio and Sechart had warned us the winds would pick up in the afternoon. Much to the amusement of the other expeditions we launched off with much gaiety.

1 - 2pm -- We crossed the infamous Coaster Channel and found the smalles lighthouse in the world. We are sure that by the time you say the lighthouse it would be too late. We rounded the corner of Effingham and found two sea arches carved by erosion. Fantastic. We landed on a now uninhabited Indian Reserve. Walking around we could see old middens of sea shells and perhaps a burial ground. Aaron was sad we had not brought some tobacco to show our respect. We also realized that the Flag Bearer had fallen down on his sworn duty and forgotten to bring the flag to plan on Effingham. He was severely chastised and demotion was attempted but due to his lowly rank of Private, he was forced into hard labour.

3pm -- Seeing the wind pick up, the decision was made to cross the channel once more lest we tempt the sea gods into molesting us once more.

4pm -- Back into Turret Island we campe upon a sheltered cove with crabs. Shouts of "hit it on the back of the head" ensued as our hungry crew attempted to have crab for supper. Wearily the shrewd crabs were given the victory this time and we slinked away. Aaron discovered a very very large snail pooping all over him. We were impressed. We also followed a trail to the largest cedar tree we had ever seen. Our estimate was 54 feet in circumference. We quickly rushed back in case our boats were swept away. As Aaron was distressed at the lack of portable outhouses we scrambled back to camp.

6 - 11pm -- We sat around the campfire and ate some amazing food and chatted with the expeditions that were coming back. Janet, Linda and Tina from the previous night shared with is the perilous stories of the adventures skirting whales, sea lions and high waves. We were impressed. Finally the talks moved from kayaking to politics, to doctoring to quantum physics to Tsunamis and finally, cats. By this point beds were sought by our crew leaving everyone else the warmth of the crackling fire.