April 18

10C part cloudy here at home.
Uneventful trip home yesterday. Left salmon Arm about 0745 and at the ferry dock at 2:15 so we were on the 3 pm ferry. Home at 5.
Nice to see all the trees greening up. Spring flowers are just about finished.

Finally he gathered up enough pitch to do all that he had made.

Going inside he restarted the fire and while he waited for it to heat up he opened a tin of stew and put water on to boil. He smiled as he thought, ‘going to celebrate tonight.’ He lit a candle, put the pitch on to melt and sat back. When the Kraft Dinner and the tin of stew were cooking he sat forward and under the flickering light of the candle he pitched the arrows then put them outside.

In spite of his earlier intentions, Bob was only able to eat half of the stew and a third of the Kraft Dinner. “Won’t have to cook tomorrow night anyway,”he muttered. 

He washed the few utensils he had used, then stripped right down and had a fast body sponge in cold water.

To continue the celebration he decided to go to bed and read a few chapters of one of the pocket books. Fifteen minutes after he was in bed, he roused himself enough to blow out the candle and immediately fell back to sleep.

Chapter 4

The next morning after a quick breakfast, salal berries once again being the main course, Bob went out side and standing in the same spot as the day before he shot all twelve arrows. His marksmanship stood up to the test with all the arrows hitting somewhere on the pillow but two of the arrows failed. One when the shaft shattered at the head and the other when the metal head slipped in its slot and fell out.

“No problem, that leaves eleven and I probably will only get one shot anyway.” He told himself.

He spent some time preparing a lunch to take with him, rolling up two blankets in a sheet of plastic and added a few items to his pack, he strapped on his knife and as an after thought picked up the axe. ‘Oops, almost forgot.’ He thought, he went back to the wood shed and lifted down a single oar he had found on one of his beach combing expeditions.  As he gathered up the bow and his arrow supply he snapped his fingers and muttered, “I should have made a quiver.” He picked up the pack and after re-aligning everything he slipped the arrows into it along one side.

He struck out for the far beach stopping only to fill up several water bottles on the way.

When he stepped out of the bush a short while later, he felt a sickening lurch in his stomach when he saw the raft wasn’t in sight!

“No, God no, don’t tell me.” He cried aloud. But as he uttered the last word he spotted it a couple of hundred yards down the beach. He hurried to the raft and immediately guessed what had happened. ‘There must have been a higher tide and she drifted.’ He thought.

‘And the rope dragged and got caught in those other rocks.’

“Actually this is better, the one end is already floating and I’ll be able to push her in.” He laid his pack, the oar and the bow on the raft and sunk the axe into one log then left to go look for a pry pole.

By the time he had found a suitable pry and as an afterthought a long pole almost eighteen feet long the morning was well advanced.

The tide had risen another few inches making the launching quite easy. He waded out pushing the raft until the water was waist deep then he hoisted himself on board.