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.