Half-way

Thursday, May 17, 2007
We are now about half way to Alaska. We left Shawl Bay with our clean clothes and about 200 prawns; not very big, but very tasty. We made a six hour hop to Blunden Harbor and left the next morning, May 14th, to cross around Cape Caution. The weather report sounded great, and it was! There was no wind and the ocean rocked us gently with low, almost unnoticeable swells. We arrived at one of our favorite anchorages, Fury Cove, after an 8 hour crossing. It has become tradition for us to spend two days in Fury, usually we need to recuperate after the crossing... We had great, sunny weather and enjoyed walking on the white shell beaches finding Kodak moments. There were two boats with us in the anchorage each night. There was also a marine biologist who was doing a survey of the beach for the nearby First Nation village. He is researching and testing clams in order to make the beaches available for winter harvest by the First Nation tribe. From Fury, we cruised NW up Fitz Hugh Sound to Fancy Cove in Lama Passage.
Our great weather had departed overnight with a rain storm, and we found some rough water just outside of the anchorage. As we moved farther up the Sound the weather and the water both improved. We anchored in a tight little spot behind a tiny island in the cove where we had been in 2005. It turned out to be an amazing afternoon... Bob spotted our second black bear of the trip on a nearby shore. It was the fattest bear we have ever seen. As it disappeared into the trees, we noticed a Sand Hill Crane standing as still as a stick within a few feet of the bear. Later Bob was looking up at the head of the cove and saw a wolf! He (yes, he showed us that he didn't pee like a puppy when he marked a tree) walked the whole shore of the bay and we got several Kodak moments from that. We also spotted one of the big cruise ships cruising slowly by in Lama Passage. We didn't even feel the wake in our snug little anchorage. Later in the afternoon, we heard a helicoper overhead. They buzzed us a couple of times; even low enough to return my wave. Don't know the purpose, but they completed our interesting afternoon.
The crew of Last Class

Continuing On

After spending two nights anchored at Newcastle Island in Nanaimo, we decided that the weather sounded good for a crossing of the Strait of Georgia on May 6th. Whiskey Golf was not open, always a good thing. WG is a naval training range that is directly in the path of cruising boats leaving Nanaimo to cross the Strait. When they are open, both U.S. and Canadian navies use the range for unarmed torpedo practice. Unarmed or not, we wouldn’t want to get hit by one. When closed, we cruisers are free to transit across the range. That was a good thing, but the swells from the SE kept us rocking and rolling for the 3 hour crossing. At one point even the captain and his chair got upset. Mac nearly had a nervous breakdown and the first mate wasn’t far behind. It was our worst crossing ever, but it could have been a lot worse. We didn’t even take any salt water over the bow! We anchored in Pender Harbor for two nights after hearing dire weather warnings. Malaspina Strait can be very nasty, too. From there we went on to one of our most favorite anchorages, Squirrel Cove. With only 5 other boats at anchor it looked a lot different than the July-August fiasco when over a hundred boats are often there. From Squirrel we have to time our departure in order to arrive at the Yuculta (yew-cla-tah)Rapids in time for slack water. Actually, there are 5 rapids to transit, Yuculta, Gillard, Dent, Green Point and Whirlpool. We usually stop after the first three, but with a fairly low current speed due to the phase of the moon, we were able to go through all of them and anchor in Forward Harbor. This is a natural stop to wait and see what Johnstone Strait is going to dish out. Early the next morning we got the weather report stating that winds were supposed to ease, so off we went. It was a very nice 3 hour cruise on water that had been nearly impassable just a few days before due to Gale Force winds of over 40mph. We went on to Lagoon Cove Marina, always a must stop. We fueled up there at $1.10 a liter!!! As we came through the Blow Hole, we spotted our first bear of the trip on the Minstrel Island shore. A very pretty, shiny, black bear. Even though we were the only visitors at the dock, Bill cooked up some prawns for us and we had a nice visit with him and his summer crew. On to Shawl Bay Marina to have another traditional visit and do laundry. We’ve done our first pawning here with catches of about 50 per pull. Our next challenge is Cape Caution, our longest ocean voyage. It’s 86 miles from Shawl Bay to Fury Cove. About 50 of that is open ocean. The weather has been nice, so we are hoping it continues.

Newsletter from trip to Alaska

Originally sent to friends and family after leaving the dock on May 1st.
After a long month at the dock waiting for people to finish work that we had contracted to be done over the winter, we are finally underway. The boat is loaded down with food, water, fuel and the many unnecessary items that we seem to pack with us. However, our pockets are empty after paying our maintenance and repair bills. The most frustrating repair was the nonfunctioning alternator. After several trips to Bellingham and much head scratching by the experts, we found out that the wiring harness had been wired wrong at the factory. Fuses kept blowing and we even left the dock once, thinking it was fixed, but no.....When we did leave the slip in Anacortes on May 1, we had a bit of a scare when the engine gave a big shudder and shut down. Guess it was air in the fuel lines as it started up and has been fine ever since.We are in Nanaimo BC now and hope to cross the Strait of Georgia ASAP. Barring any other unforeseen happenings we are on our way to Alaska; our 4th trip.Will be sending out updates when possible.
Judy, Bob, two cats and a dog

Back to the Boat

We returned to the boat after spending the winter in Idaho. On the way home we spent about two weeks at Long Beach visiting with Frank, Ingrid, Peter and Mom. Frank is Bob's brother and their mother has moved into an assisted living facility at the Beach. After leaving "our" Beach we drove up to Ocean Shores to spend a few days in an area that we had not visited before. We still like "our" Beach better. We are now busy off loading our stuff from the motorhome onto the boat, a twice a year procedure.