There be dolphins!

This is actually a shot of Pruth Harbour taken a week ago - I just though it looked good!

Turnbull Cove

We stayed in Turnbull Cove for 3 nights, waiting for summer.  It did not happen.
If you have to spend time waiting for the weather, there are few places that would be better than Turnbull Cove.  Even though the winds my be howling down Queen Charlotte and Johnston Straits, here it is always calm and peaceful.  We have been very lazy, getting up late, reading books and playing Monopoly (the card game), and watching the 2nd season of the TV show 24 (not that great).  Because the days have remained overcast, our solar panels have not been able to keep up - we probably could not do this for much more than a week without having to start the engine, unless we gave up our fridge, freezer or TV.  Still, not too bad.

Our anchorage here is quite near the site of an avalanche that occurred in 2005, nearly swamping a couple of boats that were anchored close by.  As one of the near victims expressed: "Of all the ways I've imagined dying on a boat, I never thought I'd be killed in a landslide."
These types of slide areas are actually very common throughout these waters.  Just one more thing to worry about.



Sullivan Bay

Today, we finally decided to move on, and we motored the 6 miles or so to Sullivan Bay, where we are paying for moorage for the first time since Shearwater.  They have a store where we can do some re-provisioning and a floating restaurant where we can indulge ourselves.

This is a very interesting (quirky) kind of place, with some very swanky looking float-homes.  Pretty isolated, so the owners (these are really just summer homes) commute via private yachts, planes or helicopters.  Odd seeing a landing pad on a house.

Normally this is a very busy marina in the summer with reservations recommended, but right now, it is almost empty.  Talking to the manager, it appears that the last couple of weeks of gale warnings in Johnston Strait have kept most of the boats from getting this far north.  They are really hurting here, so we are doing our part by consuing the somewhat pricey fare at the restaurant (although to be fare, the food is rather good).

We will probably stay here another day and then start moving further south again.  Tomorrow (Sunday) night is roast turkey dinner night, and that sounds pretty good to us right now.

Note: The big bonus today was when we were motoring a few miles out of Sullivan Bay, and were suddenly surrounded by a small pod of dolphins playing in our bow-wave and leaping along side the boat.  We have heard of them doing this but this is the first time we have had any such experience - moments like this make the whole trip worthwhile.  Unfortunately they did not stay long enough for me to get a camera organized, so I don't have any proof.

Misty Moments

Fog!

I forgot to mention that yesterday's excursion around Cape Caution was accompanied by fog. Not real bad, probably had almost a mile of visibility at all times, but combined with the dreary, overcast sky, it made it difficult to see what was coming in the busy waters around the Cape. As a result, we had the radar on for most of the way. We haven't had to use this much on this trip and it took a few minutes to remember how to get it turned on and synchronized with the chart plotter image, etc. Indeed, while I was fiddling with the settings, both Sue and I saw a boat approaching from our port side. Noting that this now corresponded with a small purple blob on our display, we started congratulating ourselves on our brilliant observation, when we noticed a much larger blob on our starboard side on the display. We looked up to see a huge ferry steaming past us. Boy, are we on the ball or what?

This morning, we left Blunden Harbour to continue our way southward down Queen Charlotte Strait. As soon as we left the shelter of the harbour, we were able to launch our genoa and had a nice, slow (maybe 3 knot average), two-hour sail to the start of Wells Passage, which we then motored up an into Grappler Sound and then through a couple of narrow channels to an anchorage called Turnbull Cove. While under sail we encountered more fog and had to resort to radar again for about an hour.

Turnbull Cove is a beautiful spot, completely land-locked and very protected from all winds - a big improvement over Blunden Harbour. It is also very busy. I counted 14 boats at anchor here, not including us (all but 3 are power boats). And since we were the last boat to arrive today, they were all treated to a little demonstration of our anchoring techniques - I am sure they were all impressed!

We may stay here a couple of nights so we can explore a nearby trail that is supposed to be worth a look. It would be nice if the weather would cooperate though; it has been overcast and cool for the last couple of days - not at all what we expected for the middle of summer.
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Back to Blunden

After waiting three nights in Frypan Bay, we felt we had a window of opportunity to make the rounding of the Cape.

Upped anchor at 6 AM and motored towards Cape Caution into light south winds (predicted NW of course). The forecast winds never appeared, which was probably just as well, and the only seas we had to contend with was a slightly confused 2 meter swell coming in from the SW. A bit rolly and uncomfortable being partially beam-on to the short swell (lots of thing flying around in the cabin), and the crew was caught feeding the fish as we approached the Cape around 10 AM.

After that, the going should have gotten better, but instead we encountered more and more following seas as we motored SE down Queen Charlotte Strait. It got really nasty as we passed the entrance to Slingsby Channel with a combination of a strong Ebb tide and big steep chop on top of the SW swell. Crew was again contemplating the side of the boat from close up. Still no wind.

We basically reversed the same course we used when going northward a few weeks ago, all the way to Blunden Harbour. A total of about 50 miles in just over 8 hours. We used the engine the entire way as there was no wind until we got within a couple of miles of the anchorage. And naturally it then started howling out of the north.
So here we sit, the boat being tossed around violently on the anchor, wondering if it will ever let up. But at least we are here safe and sound once again. Tomorrow we will try and find a more sheltered spot in the Boughton Islands somewhere.

Conversation overheard on the VHF today:

"Hey Joe, if you are coming this way, better get out your camera."
"Why is that?"
"I see a sailboat and it actually has a sail up!"

Nuff said?

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Out of the fire...

and into the Frypan!

Listening to the weather forecast, it appears that in the next few days we could be in for some large seas and high winds around the Cape. When we woke up this morning it was dead calm and the sun was shining in Pruth Bay but, based on the winds we had yesterday, it could get quite nasty here if the winds pick up in the afternoon again. We were securely anchored but it is not that much fun when the boat starts sailing back and forth on the chain when the NW winds start funneling in.

Looking at the charts, I found a promising anchorage on Penrose Island, much closer to Cape Caution, so if the opportunity arises for us to make a move in that direction, we will be well poised to take advantage. So this morning we upped the anchor and headed through Kwaksua Channel, back to Fitz Hugh Sound. Once we were in the Sound, the winds started to pick up and we were able to sail south for 2-1/2 hours on a single down-wind tack, on a bright sunny day, down and across the Sound and around the south end of Penrose Island.

Penrose Island is the place we first stayed when we came around the Cape in the other direction. But this time, instead of pulling into Fury Cove on the west side (the most popular spot for most boats to wait out bad weather at the Cape), we motored up the east side of the island and dropped the anchor in Frypan Bay.

Frypan Bay is a completely land-locked cove, with good protection from all winds, especially the forecast NW winds. Indeed, this turns out to be beautiful spot. We have the anchor down in about 55 feet of water, with lots of swinging room on all sides. There is only one other boat in the bay and he is a long way away from us.

While the winds whistle out in the Sound, here we are just getting the odd gusts (from seemingly random directions) and we are confident we could handle anything the weather gods could throw at us. Listening to the updated forecasts, it appears we may have to hole up here for a few days before making any move to round the Cape. But we have lots of food, the solar panels are keeping our batteries fully charged, and it is a lovely spot to hang around. The sun is still shining and we are almost warm again.

One additional note. As we were rounding the south end of Penrose Island, and entering a narrow channel between two smaller islands, a whale surfaced right in front of us. We only got the one glimpse of it before it spouted and dove, probably right under us. We proceeded very slowly and cautiously up the channel but he never reappeared.
In the bay, we have only seen a couple of seals, and the usual bird life so far.

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The Truth about Pruth

The Pacific

Today we left our beautiful, secure anchorage in the McNaughton Group to venture out into the open Pacific.  Instead of the usual NW winds, we found ourselves facing a light south wind instead, right on the nose.

The bad thing about a light south wind is that we really could not sail at all.
The good thing is that there was virtually no nasty wind-waves to contend with, just a somewhat confused westerly swell coming in from Japan or Hawaii or somewhere out there.  A little uncomfortable but not particularly exciting.

The dinghy was quite happy riding on the deck, although I don't think it would have been any worse off being dragged along behind in these conditions.

We made it OK to Pruth Bay on the northern tip of Calvert Island by 1 PM, and are anchored very securely.  Good thing too, as the wind did get blowing a bit in here - I am not convinced that Pruth Bay is as protected as I was led to believe.

The weather is a bit cool and overcast and we are getting pretty tired of being cold all the time.  What happened to summer?  Maybe it is always like this up here.  NOTE: While it seems we are so far north, sometimes it is easy to forget that we are actually considerably south of our old home in Edmonton, closer to the latitude of Red Deer.

The forecast for the next few days does not sound too encouraging - overcast with chances of showers and a bit too much wind for a comfortable sail around Cape Caution.  So we may be lingering around this area for a while.