A New Year’s Cruise Only Slightly Derailed By A Dreadful Daycare Bug

And then there were four. Our second child, Carina, was born on June 24, 2024. She went sailing for her first time when she was just over two weeks old. We had taken her older sister, Vela, sailing for the first time when she was around the same age; she’s two-and-a-half now.

It was harder for me to get excited about going cruising now that we had two. Postpartum emotions were running high and low, and staying in our home bubble felt easier and less stressful. Packing and planning with two kids (and a dog) in tow was just that much harder to mentally wrap my head around.

My husband, Ches, was going to be super busy with work through the fall—he wouldn’t be taking his paternity leave until the spring—and we were both feeling the pressure to make the most of the summer. As I oscillated between crippling mom-guilt for choosing not to go and anxiety when we did choose to go, we made it out only a few times together as a family before the semester started at UBC and Ches was working seven days a week, every week.

Leading up to the winter holidays, we had been talking about going out for a week or so around New Year’s. We rang in the last two New Years at Sucia Island, and this year we planned to make our way over to the Gulf Islands. As we had gotten settled into a rhythm with our expanded family, the anxiety had dissipated, and I was excited to get out on the water. We kept our eyes on the weather and, as we kept explaining to friends and family, we were looking for a safe wind window, not rain window. As I’m sure you know, avoiding rain while cruising in the Pacific Northwest in December and January is nearly impossible.

We headed down to Point Roberts, where we moor our J/40 Velella, on the Saturday before New Year’s to get settled and provision. I loaded up on groceries at the International Marketplace and the woman at the checkout said that I won the award for biggest cart of the day. It had been a while since I had to stock up for such a long trip, and I probably overbought. But it’s better to have too much than need to break into the backup stash of canned soup for every meal. We tucked away the groceries and all the baby gear, and spent the night at the dock.

We headed out first thing in the morning to make it to Active Pass for slack. There wasn’t much wind, so we motored our way across the Strait of Georgia. With two kids with often competing needs, we found ourselves needing to divide and conquer the childcare responsibilities. Ches usually found himself up in the cockpit with Vela keeping an eye out for whales (we saw two pods of orcas on this trip!) while I was often down below feeding Carina or putting her down for a nap. Ches’s biggest challenge was Vela refusing to wear mittens and my biggest challenge was wanting to bash my head against the wall listening to the engine in the close quarters of the salon while breastfeeding. Still, we were out there—a young family of four underway for a week-long winter cruise!

We made it through Active Pass and headed towards Sidney to check into customs at Canoe Cove and get fuel at Van Isle Marina—thankfully one of the few fuel docks we could confirm was open around the holidays. From there we headed to Royal Cove on Portland Island, where we anchored and stern-tied to shore (there are rings that are marked with paint on the rocks but can be challenging to spot). Portland Island is part of the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve.

The girls were napping, so Ches took our dog, Laska, to shore for a romp around in the woods. Royal Cove has a convenient dinghy dock for access to the trails and campsites on shore. The trails are well maintained with boardwalks and bridges to navigate some muddier sections and a small stream.

Vela woke up just before sunset, which gave her and Ches just enough time to row out and drop the crab traps. We kept our fingers crossed for a tasty treat for the next day. Throughout the evening, Vela would wiggle her fingers around and tell us that the crabs were looking for the chicken that we used as bait and climbing into the traps.

We had dinner under the lamplight from our kerosene lamp and, before putting the kiddos to bed, Ches and Vela climbed up top to check for stars. I was feeling a bit under the weather, probably from some virus that came home with Vela from the germ factory also known as daycare, so I was in bed shortly after Vela and Carina.

Just after 10 p.m. Ches and I were jolted awake by a loud thud and the feeling of Velella hitting something. I groggily said, “What was that?” as Ches rushed over to the nav station to turn on the instruments and check the depth. “We hit the bottom,” he said. “Can you check the tides? The depth sounder says we have 17 feet.” A ferry wake had gone by and as we went up and down with the waves, the keel had bumped the bottom. We only draw 5.5 feet, though, so there was either a rock or a shelf under our keel that wasn’t picked up by the depth sounder forward of the keel.

As Ches pulled on a jacket and grabbed a flashlight, I pulled up Navionics. Looking at the closest tide marker, it was at 0.8 feet and, thankfully, it was the bottom of the curve, and the tide would start rising again at any moment. Ches hurried up top and let out the stern line as much as he could and then took up some of the anchor rode, moving us away from shore. He looked out over the stern, and it looked shallow, certainly shallower than the 17 feet that depth sounder was reading. Anxiously, we kept our eye on the depth sounder until it was clearly going up before we climbed back into bed. Both kids slept through the whole ordeal.

Before we had children, we rarely stayed in the same anchorage for more than one night. With changing priorities that traded exploration time for nap time, combined with the short winter days, we decided to stick around for two nights so we could have a full day to explore Portland Island.

After breakfast, we all suited up and hopped in the dinghy for a walk on shore. With Carina in the backpack and Vela walking (mostly) on her own, we took a meandering, toddler-paced walk along the path towards the little spit to the east of Royal Cove. We stomped in puddles, threw sticks in the stream, and had a snack with a view of the sun peeking through the clouds over Moresby Island.

We headed back to Velella and Ches and Vela rowed out to check the crab traps while I put Carina down for a nap. When I heard the dinghy bump gently into the side of the boat, I stuck my head up the companionway. “Crabs!” Vela yelled excitedly. “Catch ‘em, cook ‘em, crack ‘em, consuuuuume them!” Ches read that alliteration can help kids learn letters and consonant sounds, and of all the examples he and Vela have come up with, this is by far their favorite.

Deciding to stay two nights meant that we had to generate some power to charge up the batteries. We don’t currently have any wind/solar set up, so our only way to do this is by running the engine. After lunch, I climbed into the V-berth with Carina and shut the door to try to get away from the engine noise. I was rapidly starting to hate the sound, really hate it. In retrospect, the fact that I felt unwell probably also was contributing to the feelings of frustration and overstimulation.

I cooked up the crabs for an afternoon snack. Ches helped Vela crack them and dip the tasty morsels in melted butter. “Look at this good bite, Mom!” Vela yelled in excitement before popping it into her mouth.

The next day was New Year’s Eve and, at this point, I was feeling like garbage. Ches took Vela and Laska to shore for a walk and I tucked myself up in the V-berth with Carina. I tried to fall asleep, but mostly my mind spiraled through how much easier it would be to manage this situation if I were home. I missed the comfortable chair at home that I have for nursing Carina, I missed the dishwasher, I missed having hot water all the time and not just when we run the engine. Other issues relating to my cold joined the parade of gloom running through my head: Do I have strep throat? When am I going to feel better? Would I be getting better faster if I was home? I kept reminding myself that the view from Velella was better than the view of my bedroom and, if I had to be laying around feeling bad, at least I was doing it somewhere pretty.

When they returned from their walk, we motored to the nearby James Bay on Prevost Island. I stayed tucked down below with Carina while we were underway, only suiting up to drop the anchor when we arrived.

James Bay had been on our bucket list for a while, and we were not disappointed. The anchorage was filled with seals which caught the attention of both Vela and Laska. We motored past one other sailboat anchored when we arrived who we gave a gold star for ingenuity: they had a Big Green Egg smoker going on the foredeck. What does one have to do to get a dinner invite, I wonder?

Our New Year’s Eve celebration was subdued. Ches and I sipped glasses of prosecco after we put the girls to bed. We conversed in whispers sitting on the settee across from a sleeping Carina. At East Coast midnight (9 p.m.) we clinked glasses and, shortly afterwards, crawled into bed.

Two sections of Prevost Island are part of the Gulf Island National Park Reserve, the land around James Bay on the northern tip of the island and a portion on the southeastern side surrounding Portlock Point. Most of the rest of the island is still operated as a sheep and cattle farm. We headed to shore to explore in the morning, rowing past a group of seals and landing the dinghy on the small beach in the nook on the western side of the bay. We walked up the hill through an old orchard and into the woods. Vela spotted deer tracks in the mud, we examined every mushroom, and, of course, stopped at the picnic table for a snack. We followed the path around to the head of the bay where we could watch another large group of seals that were curious, but wary and were easily spooked when Laska started charging towards them in the water.

That night, after the girls were asleep, I told Ches that I wanted to go home the next day. We were both frustrated and annoyed that our first vacation in months had been derailed by illness—damn it, daycare! I wanted so badly to tough it out, but I was miserable, and our collective morale was low.

We hung out at James Bay until lunchtime since slack at Active Pass wasn’t until 1 p.m. The wind forecast wasn’t in our favor, it would be 10-15 knots on the nose. We didn’t have enough energy or daylight hours to sail, so we motored straight into the wind—not a very pleasant journey. We begged the wind to abate so we could put a resistant Vela down for her nap, but the Strait of Georgia had its own ideas. I was closed up with her in the aft cabin holding Carina and trying not to puke. Ches came down to check on us right when I was about to give up and took over with Vela. I am very grateful that he swooped in at that moment before I started to lose my mind or my lunch, both of which would have made the situation so much worse. Thankfully, we made it back to our slip before dark and were able to get everything packed and loaded into the car to head home.

I learned a couple years ago that there are three different types of fun. Type I Fun: It’s fun while it’s happening. Type II Fun: It’s not fun at the time, but you look at it fondly in retrospect. And there’s also a Type III Fun: This is when it seems like it would be fun in the planning stages, but is not fun at the time or looking back on it. The jury is still out on whether this trip was Type II or Type III for me, but I think it’s making its way back into the Type II category.

You might think this struggle was enough for us to throw the towel in and say, “If it’s not fun, why do it?” But the truth of the matter is that, as parents of an infant and a toddler, we have our share of challenging moments even amidst the comforts of home. When raising kids and exploring on boats, there’s always an opportunity to say, “It would just be easier if we didn’t.” Yet then I think about all we would be missing out on if we stayed home.

No matter how poorly I felt, there were so many positives from our holiday excursion. When I recall the wonder and excitement of Vela seeing the orcas and catching crabs, the collective enthusiasm that Ches and Vela share for stargazing and looking at the moon, and the magic of eating dinner together under lamplight in a secluded anchorage to ring in the New Year—it makes me want to do it all over again.

This complicated experience will always be Carina’s first winter cruise, and for better or worse, we’ll remember it forever. I am so glad that we upheld our tradition of celebrating New Year’s in our preferred fashion—tucked up together in a beautiful place, dreaming about the adventures we will have in the year ahead.

Lauren Upham and her husband, Ches, call Vancouver, British Columbia home. They sail as much as possible out of Point Roberts on their J/40 Velella with their daughters Vela and Carina and golden retriever Laska.