Civilization is okay.

We motored into Cow Bay Marina for a two-day stay.  They have a thing for cows here. One early entrepreneur barged in a herd of Holstein cattle to provide milk, meat, and cheese to the early settlers.  That seemed to be a big deal because the town has gone cow crazy ever since. Some of the traffic bollards and sidewalks are painted like the side of a Holstein cow. There is the fiberglass couch cow in front of the local tourist store. I was up early one morning and headed to the local coffee shop for a double Cowppuccino. 

It was a relief to reach Prince Rupert for several reasons. A good hot shower at the marina for one thing. Showering on Ruthie Jeanne is much like an act you might see in Vegas at a Cirque du Soleil show, complete with a tight tuck and half rotation necessary to wash the feet, a Double Twist Del Mar to reach the backside and elbows bent the wrong way to get those areas under the arms.  A full attention position works for reaching the ah…the ah, the gr, gro…the private area.  Washing the hair should be the easiest task to complete, but by this time in the cramped tiny shower I was almost too tired to lift my arms over by head and my elbows are bruised. 

We were glad to be here for another reason, too: walking. Being couped up on a boat is a wonderful thing but there isn’t much exercise to be had, particularly if the boat is bouncing around on choppy seas. Being able to get off the boat and walk as long as you want is a treat.  Walking bow to stern on Ruthie Jeanne is roughly 40 feet so to get any exercise at all would take several hundred laps around the deck and make me look crazy in the eyes of my shipmates.  

Thirdly, we got to replenish our fuel and food supplies so we are independent for another week or two until we arrive at another port. We can then be confident when reaching into the galley cabinet that there will be enough Skinny Pop popcorn to go around. We’ve spent so much time away from people and towns in a quiet, calm, relaxed environment, that I thought, “sometimes, civilization is ok”.

Prince Rupert is amazingly productive. As per our Douglas Guide that gives info on ports and anchorages, Prince Rupert has the deepest natural harbor in North American. Their burgeoning port operations load and unload container ships, one after the other. When their expansion is complete, they’ll process about 75% of what goes through a major port like Vancouver, BC. They are now rivals to the west coast ports in California and Seattle/Tacoma.

Besides containers, they also ship grain and forest products. The grain elevator was the largest one I’ve ever seen, towering over everything, including the ship it was loading. The proximity to coal, oil, and gas fields means shipping those products also.  When discussing all those industries it’s easy to forget it is a major fishing port, both commercial and recreational. We saw many fishing guides, out early and returning early with catches of big salmon. Hard to understand all this industriousness comes with a relatively small-town population of 12,000.

Eddie the Eagle.

There were many eagles flying around Prince Rupert. However, one in particular seemed to be the Sergeant-At-Arms in Cow Bay. He or she would maintain a serious No Fly zone around the marina and chase off any intruders. For the trouble, the fishing guides would occasionally flip him a salmon carcass they’d just finished flaying.  He would catch it in the air with his claws and fly off for a snack. He passed so close to the boat with a carcass in his claws we could have reached out and grabbed it. 

Prince Rupert had a good vibe to it. That positivity carried through to the big green refuse bins that carried uplifting messages. We called it Garbage Can Wisdom.  

We finally left Prince Rupert and Cow Bay Marina after a couple days of rest and recuperation from some long travel days. It was a beautiful sunny morning motoring through Venn Passage, that had a series of twists and turns, sometimes in water that wasn’t very deep. Prince Rupert airport is across the channel on a different island. We passed the airport ferry dock in a “strictly enforced” No Wake zone.  All the boating information suggested the same strict enforcement. That was probably for everybody except fishing guide boats. Six or seven of them passed us traveling around 20 knots with wakes that made us grab our coffee mugs before they spilled onto the deck.  Maybe they weren’t enforcing that day. 

We passed Matlakatla, a First Nation fishing village a few miles west of Prince Rupert. Then a funny thing happened.  A crow flew down and landed on our bow railing. Ive never seen a bird of any kind land on a moving boat. The crow stayed for 30 seconds, not enough time to grab our phones and take a picture.  Then he flew off. Unusual to say the least.

We moved through Venn Pass out into the wide-open spaces of Chatham Channel, dotted with its many small islets.  Then we turned north towards the Dundas Island chain which is just south of the US/Canadian Border at Dixon Entrance. We passed Green Island Light house, one of the Northern most light houses in BC. Dixon Entrance is approximately 15-20 miles of open ocean water, not as long as our passage through the Queen Charlotte Strait, but still a body of water to reckon with. 

Green Island Lighthouse.

We started out early from our Brundige Harbor anchorage on Dundas Island with an iffy weather report and turned back due to increasing wind and sloppy, choppy water conditions. We returned to our anchorage and decided to try again a few hours later. When those hours were up, we made our way out of the anchorage and it was “Yee Ha” all over again with conditions worse than our first attempt hours before. Back to the anchorage for the night and just in time for Terry to catch a 10-pound salmon.  It was worth the wait. The menu for dinner was salmon cakes. 

You can't see it, but there's bad water out there. This was in an protected anchorage. Tried twice, but its a no go to transit the entrance. 

The following morning, we left at 4:00 a.m. to very little wind and seas that were only 2-3 feet then they calmed altogether. Piece of cake and completely different from 12 hours before.  

Beautiful morning. It's a go to cross Dixon Entrance.  

We crossed the border in Dixon Entrance and the app for US customs made it a breeze to call in and clear customs. The rest of the day was calm waters and calm nerves. We cruised up Tongass Narrows and found a slip in Bar Harbor in Ketchikan.

Ed out.

Immense, Wild and Quiet

Immense, Wild and Quiet

Leaving the safety of a dock is part of the adventure of cruising to new destinations. Such is life, I suppose. We become explorers in a wilderness that we’ve not encountered before. The waterways, inlets, bays and anchorages are all new to us. It’s part thrilling and exciting, part scary, and part heightened sense of awareness, all wrapped into one.  Kind of like a wilderness funhouse, not sure what to expect next but looking forward to it.

What jumps out first when boating through the north coast of British Columbia is just how vast and towering the mountain ranges are compared with our tiny little boat. Ruthie Jeanne was in water 1800 feet deep, 50 yards from the shoreline and the cliffs would shoot out of the water almost straight up with some of the peaks on these islands reaching the 3000-5000 foot range or more.

And it’s wild, that’s for sure. Like having your very own aquarium or zoo, sans the glass or fence. Dolphins playfully danced in and out of our bow wave. Eagles were everywhere. Looking for water spouts to spot whales is always on the list of things to do.  We saw our first two humpback whales yesterday as they rolled over and dove with their huge tails following them down. Then they were gone. There are waterfowl, seals, and sea lions galore. Bears are next on the list of things to see.

And all things being equal, it’s so very quiet in this part of the world that you can hear the birds, waterfalls, rain and the sounds of nature without the drone of background noise found in the city. It is very peaceful and calming out here in the wilderness. It reminds me why I love being on the water. I was hooked the first time I sat in my first watercraft, an innertube, and floated lazily down the Little Big Horn River where I grew up in Sheridan Wyoming.

(Shearwater ramp and dock in the early morning before we headed to Rescue Bay.)

We found our way from the small fishing village of Shearwater into Seaforth Channel, north through Perceval Narrows, and ultimately to Rescue Cove, a safe anchorage out of the wind and seas, just like its name would suggest.  Early the next morning we headed out through skinny Jackson Passage and out into Princess Royale Channel on a long day to Bishop Bay. Princess Royale Island has the most Spirit Bears in all of Canada.  Spirit bears are brown bears that have a white fur and have great spiritual meaning for the First Nation People in the West Coast of BC.

                                     

(Rescue Bay on a pretty evening)

Waterfalls were everywhere. There were so many waterfalls in the mountains and cascading down into the saltwater I lost count. I stopped taking pictures of them because they seemed to be everywhere I looked.  Who wants to see 30 pictures of waterfalls? If I was lucky, maybe a couple of my family members would endure something like that but not many others.

(Here are 3 waterfalls. I have 27 others if you're interested.)

We traveled 8 hours out of Rescue Cove so we could enjoy the hot springs that overlooked Bishop Bay. The information about the Bay suggested there were three buoys that could be used in which to tie up instead of anchoring. Anchoring in this bay is somewhat difficult because it’s deep. We were a little worried about getting a buoy because some of the boaters we talked to in Shearwater were also headed to Bishop Bay to enjoy the hot springs.  We rounded the corner into the bay and saw one buoy and to our luck, it was empty. We seemed to have missed the crowd.

(This is the immensity of the mountains surrounding Bishop Bay. Big doesn't describe it.)

We tied up to the buoy and headed for a warm soak.  There was a bath pool and a soaking pool. It was so relaxing we almost melted after traveling many hours in a rocking boat. 

Two humpbacks swam into the bay but I couldn’t get a picture because they were so far away. So, although we’ve seen them, we’ve had no close encounters. 

When cruising through the inside passage there are frequently long stretched without cell or wifi availability.  Being so connected all the time it’s easy to forget that there are places with no coverage. Not having coverage kind of gives me the Heebie Jeebies.  It’s a strange feeling not being able to grab the phone whenever or wherever you are and request any information you might want. It’s been a long time since I’ve been more than 6 feet away from Siri except for a recent knee replacement surgery.

Like most of my friends and family my phone is within reach 24/7. I’ve been thinking it’s possible that Siri is not my best friend after all and I don’t have to respond immediately every time I hear the ding of an email, text or voicemail that just landed. Do I really have to get back to someone within minutes? It’s aggravating not being able to use the phone for any variety of reasons, but maybe that’s ok and I might be the healthier for it.

Day 22.  Still in Bishop Bay due to weather. Gale force winds are where we want to go. So, we sat safely in the bay. This is day 3 here and I imagine we’ll be here at least one more day before the weather improves and we can move.

Raining constantly. And the cold isn’t any fun either. There are mountains on all sides, that’s part of why we are protected.  The one across the bay is dusted with snow or what the Canadian weather forecaster calls “ice pellets”.  It looks to be at the 1000-foot level. Burrrrrr.  But I’m not complaining. Being stuck out of the wind and choppy seas in a beautiful place with a hot spring nearby and a waterfall 50 yards from the boat just doesn’t seem worthy of a complaint.

The Canadian Mounties cruised by, then stopped to do a “courtesy visit.”  They requested all manner of information about us and the boat. Passports, boat registration, title, etc. Then they wanted addresses and phone numbers. Then, why we entered Canada, how long we’ll be here, where we’re headed, and when we would be leaving Canadian waters. And lastly, what brand of Canadian Maple Syrup was our favorite. Just kidding about the syrup, ‘eh?

As irritating as their stop was, cloaked as a courtesy visit, they have a job to do keeping tabs on cross border crime and if we needed help in this neck of the woods where there are literally no services for miles on end, they’d probably be the first ones here to assist. 

                                                       (Ruthie Jeanne in Bishop Bay.)

Day 23. Rain. Gale force winds in the areas we’d like to go today. Storm and hurricane force winds where we’ve already passed through in the North Vancouver Island area. Looks like tomorrow will calm in our area, the central coast of British Columbia, so we’ll be able to take our leave and happily head toward Prince Rupert.  

Actually, no. Unfortunately, we woke this morning to issues. The head didnt work well, (but everything came out ok). Batteries are low. Engine won’t start. The heater was connected to the starter battery for some unknown reason. It was chilly last night so the heater was on quite a bit which ran down the battery. Normally, nothing is wired to the starter battery so it has enough juice to start the engine. We’ll rewire it in Prince Rupert. Luckily, our little Honda generator was able to top off the batteries enough for a start. Big relief. The only thing we couldn’t fix was the cold and rain, so no problem really.  We spent the day problem solving boat issues with our onboard mechanical engineer, Scott Wilson, then made our last voyage to the hot springs for a soak.  It was a good one.

The following day we left Bishop Bay behind, finally.  We turned into Frasier Reach and headed to Kumealon Inlet for a long 10-hour run. Terry, Scott and I were all in the upper helm looking at the snow on the mountain tops when a humpback whale jumped entirely out of the water. It was shocking to see that such a massive creature had enough energy to move that body clean out of the water.  We all saw it. We all shouted “WOW” at the same time. The huge splash when the whale landed back into the water was almost as impressive as the jump. The whole thing lasted maybe 5 seconds but I’ll remember it for a long time. Then, we watched the whale roll once and didn’t see him again. What a great way to start out a long day. 

We arrived and found a safe anchorage in Kumealon Inlet, anchored for the night and hit the hay.

Day 25

    (Leaving Kumealon Inlet on a calm morning.  This picture taken with an iPhone when it was dark.)

Up early to catch a good tide and calm waters, we travelled 5 hours to Prince Rupert from our protected anchorage in Kumealon Inlet.  Nearing a major port, you would expect to see increased traffic and we did.  There was a tug towing a fishing lodge on a big barge. Connected to the barge were 17 aluminum fishing boats, one after the other like a mother hen followed by 17 offspring in a single file. The barge will be towed to wherever the fish are running, anchored and the guests flown in by sea plane.  There were water taxis, fishing boats, shrimpers, container ships, BC Ferries, tugs towing a little bit of everything, pleasure boats and an American Coast Guard cutter, probably headed to Alaska. The oddest thing we observed was a “houseboat” that seemed to be out of place in an area where weather and water conditions can be severe. It’s the type of boat used in relatively protected waters like Lake Roosevelt or Lake Coeur d’ Alene. And it came complete with the fiberglass slide off the back end which would be a thrill until you hit the 50-degree water. Yikes.

All for now.

Ed out.

Ride ’em Cowboys!!!

We warmed up the engine, readied ourselves and the boat, and headed out of the bay from Port McNeill on a misty early morning.  The seas were relatively calm but with enough chop to give a boost to the coffee that helped wake us up.  Our destination was crossing the Queen Charlotte strait or a safe anchorage if the weather and water wouldn’t cooperate. Although the conditions continually changed with wind, choppy water, and rain, they didn’t really worsen (until later). We decided to make the transit after passing the last safe anchorages in Miles Inlet in the BC mainland.

The swells continued to increase in size from a couple of feet to 4-5 feet.  Now, I’ve never been out in ocean swells before, so my experience in these types of conditions is zilch.  Terry and I have been in some terrible sea conditions but usually in areas where we could duck in out of hazardous conditions if we had to.  But this time, we passed the go-no go point as the swells built and there was now no place to go but north.

Rounding Cape Caution is the halfway mark in Queen Charlotte Strait when heading to Alaska. It’s one of two places in the entire journey that take place in open ocean conditions. That means ocean swells, which eventually built to 8-9 feet and were 9 seconds apart. If I were riding a bus, I would have been hastily grabbing the stop cord to exit at the next corner.

But no such luck. It was a carnival ride for the next 4 hours. I looked over at our crew mate, Scott Wilson, for some reassurance because he’s had blue water experience and his only comment was, “this isn’t bad”.  Ha, it sure seemed bad to me.  I was ready to call the Coast Guard for a rescue and had visions of being stranded in the dinghy that was bobbing up and down like I was riding a bucking bronco while watching the boat sink. But in the end the swells drew down, the chop lessened and the seas calmed, as did my nerves. And my rookie ocean swell experience helped me get though a similar but shorter version of the ocean swells the next day. I now land somewhere between a rookie and a veteran ocean swell rider.  I think they would call that JV, junior varsity. 

On a positive note, the clouds were beautiful. The open ocean has a beautiful landscape all its own. We boated though a number of squalls along with the pelting rain and wind. There were periods of cool temperatures when we passed through the squalls then the sun would peek through the clouds and warm us.

We rounded the south end of Calvert Island to calm waters and into protected Pruth Bay where Hakai Institute is located.  They conduct long term scientific research at remote locations on the coastal margins of British Columbia.  Go here www.hakai.org if you’d like more information.  There is a path to the west side of the island where there is a sandy beach a mile wide, wind swept and desolate but gorgeous at the same time. It was open to the ocean, so there were plenty of driftwood treats to look at before we left. 

So, despite the horror of ocean swells, it’s been a couple of pretty good days.  We are in Shearwater, BC, a fishing village. We head out tomorrow.  No pictures in this blog.  Not enough band width to send. 

Ed out. 

Hello All, 

This is day 10.  We are in Port McNeill at the northern end of Vancouver Island waiting for our crew, Scott Wilson, who will accompany us part way to Ketchikan. We’ve come this far many times before, but no further. From here it's a gateway to the Northern BC coast, the Broughton Archipelago and its many islands and the primary route for those lucky boaters headed to Alaska.  

Our trip up through the Gulf Islands and points North has been relatively uneventful.  One day is beautiful, the next two days it’s like someone turned on a faucet. A large faucet. a Couple days ago, in a rush to get inside the boat and out of the rain, I hastily grabbed the cabin door and pulled. Unfortunately, I was able to get all of me inside the cabin with the exception of my ring and middle finger of my left hand when the door slammed into my hand. I screamed like a 4-year-old who skinned his knee. Terry wasn’t having it and suggested some ice. I now have two regular-colored digits on my left hand and two with a purplish hue.  And just so you know, the ice didn’t help much. 

This is a quiet anchorage in Port Harvey.  Pretty, safe and quiet. 

Part of the enjoyment of this trip is watching all manner of watercraft passing by. Tugs towing large barges of logs fresh from the cut. There was a plethora of fishing boats, fast inflatables taking people to bear and whale sightings, boats for crabbing and shrimping, water taxies, and other pleasure boaters, both sail and power. We were passed by a National Geographic “small ship” taking guests to Alaska. The ship reminded me of Jacques Cousteau, with his French accent, narrate his underwater documentaries on TV when I was a kid. I can still hear him say, "We shood nevair, nevair take our environment for granted."

Several hours before we got to Port McNeill, we motored through a maze of logs in the water, hundreds of them. That was more than I’ve ever seen in one spot, but on the shore of the islands we passed, were thousands of logs. There must have been a barge or log boom mishap somewhere along the way for that amount of timber to be floating around the water. There was enough wood to build a small development, no kidding.  I would think a salvage outfit would make a killing gathering up the number of logs we saw.

Besides the rain, it’s just a little bit chilly as Terry would say. But that’s what it’s like here at the end of April and the first part of May at the North end of Vancouver Island. 

Ed out.