One of the coolest things we did as a family was boat up to Princess Louisa Inlet in British Columbia from the San Juans. I think there were 3 trips total and 2 that I got to participate in. The first trip was in ~1980, before I was born, aboard the S/V Snowflake. The second trip was in 1989 aboard the S/V Romany before Jubal was born - I believe my dad took in-kind payment for a job he had done and we took the client's boat out for a week. And the third trip was in 1996 on Dad's Glasply towboat, the M/V Polaris II, without Joyce or Graeme.
I remember stunning views throughout the trip, Chatterbox falls, cruising around on the dinghy, fishing from the dock, and Barry catching a dogfish. This is probably a pretty ambitious trip for a young family but I feel very lucky that we got to do such a unique and cool trip and that my dad felt confident enough on the water to make these trips happen.
During the 1996 trip, on our way home, we motored about halfway out of the inlet and went swimming in along the northern shore. I remember the water was warm on the surface, but frigid ice-melt just a few feet down.
I asked dad about that before he died. I had no clue how on edge he was with us swimming in the water in the middle of nowhere – the nearest people were over 2.5 miles away, and not much help if we needed them!