16C sunny
Another hot one yesterday!
M and girls heading enroute to Salmon Arm today.

Bob headed back to Parksville.

  

(vii)

Bob was humming quietly as he drove by Kennedy Lake. He was about a half hour or less out of Ucluelet, his signed contract was in his briefcase, he had talked to Alicia the night before when she had reconfirmed that she would participate in the project, his house had sold two weeks earlier; he thought to himself, ‘I know it can’t get any better, but I wonder why she wanted me to come over this morning.’

When they had talked the night before, Alicia had suddenly concluded the contract discussion and had quietly said, “Bob can you leave tomorrow before noon?”

He had replied that he could as now that his furniture was in storage and the contract start-up date wasn’t until January 5^th, he had little to do.

“Good,” Was her reply. “If I’m not home when you get here, I’ll leave a note.”

“Okay see you tomorrow.”

He had got away about ten thirty and was feeling a burgeoning excitement at being with Alicia again.

He pulled up in front of her house right on the dot of twelve and immediately spotted a slip of paper taped to the door.

He got out of the truck and hurried over to the door and took the note down and unfolded it.

Hi Bob: Something has come up and I had to run over to my island. I got your boat uncovered and put a few things in it. I’ll watch for you from the signal point, I love you.

He frowned at the note, ‘that’s odd’, he thought, why didn’t she wait?’

He turned the truck around, backed up and hitched up his boat trailer. “She must have been in a hurry, her car’s not here.” He muttered.

He wasn’t sure weather he should be worried or not, but just thought it strange.

By one o’clock he was shoving off from the boat ramp. He saw a couple of plastic wrapped boxes in the cubby but didn’t examine them.

As soon as the last “GO SLOW sign was behind him he opened up the twin outboards. There was about a two foot surface chop from a south east wind so he had to low down to avoid being bounced around. As he cruised along it suddenly hit him that he didn’t really know exactly where the island was. He had seen it on a map and he had looked back a couple of times the day they left together.

Finally he slowed right down trying to find a speed that would match Alicia’s probable speed then made allowance for the distance he had already covered. After the first hour he spotted an island that looked like it could be the one but once near by he realized it wasn’t. He continued on, now doing a zigzag course that generally took him south easterly. He was starting to get frustrated and even a bit panicky when he spotted a curl of smoke coming from a promontory. He turned and ignoring the chop headed towards it at full speed.

Ten minutes later he could see Alicia’s small figure waving from the clearing. When he waved back she turned and disappeared from his view.

He slowed then idled into the beach, as luck would have it the tide was very high and he saw that he would be able to nose right up to the heavy logs that were high on the beach.

He unhooked his anchor and packed it to the stern and attached a coil of rope to it, then paying out the rope with one hand he continued in until the bow grounded in the sand just short of the logs. He cut his motors and raised them out of the water, then tied the bow to a tree that curved out onto the beach. Next he pulled and tugged on the anchor rope until it was as tight as he could get it.

Satisfied that the boat would be safe he started to get out when he remembered the boxes and turned to get them but the splashing of pounding feet stopped him and he turned to see Alicia running towards him her hair flying around her head.

He jumped out as she arrived, she leapt into his arms laughing and half crying.

“Oh Bob, I am so stupid, I realized only an hour ago you might not know how to find me!”