*Now* we’re at that point – the all-time low of the trip. *Now* I admitted to myself that I hated it and I wanted to go home. So *of course*
now I got warm due to the paddling, and we got to the Ranger Station at Huxley Island where – no, really – 
the sun shone for 20 minutes and a rainbow showed itself (cue sappy music if you must). Best of all, the UVic research team there invited us in (to a dry building! With a woodstove and clothesline!) and served us coffee and told us lots of interesting stuff. And – I am so totally not making this up – pulled freshly baked chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. And got a case of beer out of the fridge (ok, I made the last one – but only that one – up).
And then, they explained the bit about it being wettest by the mountains and told great tales of sun and chirping birds (instead of screeching ravens and already taken for granted bald eagles, go figure) further east. And I, caught up in a warm rush of chocolate chip cookies and caffeine, fell under the spell and demanded that we go further east – to the vicinity of Hotsprings Island – Right. Now. What’s a 15 km crossing to us? (“peanuts”, Sam said.) And who needs to listen to a weather forecast (“I don’t need to hear another way of saying rain and gale”, Frank said.) and – once again ignoring the now returned to the group Jim’s strenuous (and in retrospect reasonable) protests, we set off chasing that particular rainbow. Right. Now.
Turns out, in 2m or greater swells, my stomach doesn’t like the world very much. Turns out, you can puke a little bit and not stop paddling (and if it’s raining as heavily as it was, once again, no big deal). The crossing seemed to take forever. I finally made it close enough to Lee to tell him how I was feeling, and though I declined all offers of being towed, I was grateful that he and Jim stayed near me for the last few kilometers to Ramsay Island.
Where it was raining. And the site we had hoped for appeared taken, and the much smaller one we investigated was marginal at best.
So Lee checked out the big site, 
where he was enthusiastically greeted by the group already there, and we were waved over – turns out
they were waiting for a pick-up, and happy to give us the site. Not only that, they kept their fire going while they waited, so we
already had one made (it turns out it’s a lot harder to make a fire in the rainforest than I thought. There is simply nothing that is not
moss-covered and damp, and even white gas doesn’t work its usual magic).
And then the usual flurry of activity when we hit a new site: tarp-hanging (by now most of us were copying Bill’s approach of hanging a
tarp over tents), tent setting-up, kitchen construction. And then the 
expected tarp-sitting, and then the rain eased off to a very light
occasional drizzle and we actually sat by the fire for a bit. Bill discovered an outhouse, we were visited by deer, and then there was
birthday cake and rum. Turns out it wasn’t the Worst Birthday Ever after all.
We spent two nights on Ramsay Island. During that time we:
1. sat under… whatever. Tarp. Some rain. Deer.
2. went for an exploratory walk
3. entertained ourselves with the camp slug (slugs have literary tastes – at least, Jim’s novel was quite popular with the slug. So was Sam’s cup, and Peter’s tent)
4. had another fire (retreated under tarp)
5. went to the cove on the other side of the isthmus for lunch, where it was not raining
6. enjoyed about 16 minutes of hazy sun
7. paddled to Hotsprings for a long soak in the three pools, not to mention tea and cookies with the Watchmen
8. had a hot shower at Hotsprings
9. sat round being lazy. See point 1.
And then? And then it stopped raining! No, really. It was one of those “could go either way” days our second morning at Ramsay, but I had developed pessimism (to balance Peter’s eternal optimism) and assumed it would develop to rain. But no!