Port McNeill, BC

I was going to put the date up in the header, then I realized I don't really know what today's date is....I do know it's Saturday. That's something.

We're in Port McNeill, where it's about 8:00am, and I'm doing laundry....$3 to wash and for $1 you get 9 minutes on the dryer....and the machines only take $1 coins.  Oops, that'd be loonies, not dollars. Anyway, laundry is a lot cheaper down here than it will be farther north, so I'm taking advantage of the extra day in port. We had a little company on our way down Johnstone Strait:

However, on a side note, Canada isn't an inexpensive place to visit....I watched a man pay $40 Cdn for a case of Budweiser. BUD, not Microbrewery beer. Good thing we're not big beer drinkers, eh? (I'm practicing my Canadian.)



Oops! Bob just told me that we're leaving right away, to catch an outgoing tide with no winds........

Sunday, June 8

Lord, watch over us. The ocean is so big and my boat is so small.

We left Deer Harbor and the USA two weeks ago today. This morning we made it around Cape Caution. We are so used to boating in Puget Sound – compared to the Midwest, where we both grew up, Puget Sound is “big water.” (Well, actually, compared to most places in the US, Puget Sound is BIG water.) After spending 3 hours in the Pacific Ocean, Puget Sound isn’t going to feel quite so big any more. We spent the night anchored in the Walker Group, a small group of rocky islands (or, actually, just really big rocks) in the Queen Charlotte Straits. At 4:00am we listened to the weather forecast from Environment Canada – specifically, the ocean buoy reports. The one we really wanted to hear was the report from the West Sea Otter Buoy, which is off Cape Caution in Queen Charlotte Sound. Unfortunately, there was no report from that buoy (so maybe someone needs to go take a look at that, guys), so we depended upon the reports from the 2 lighthouses near CC – Egg Island and Pine Island. Both of them claimed the seas were “rippled” but that’s pretty much the only thing they reported. Well, “rippled” is good enough for us, we decided, so we started out at 5:00am.(That's when I took the picture.)  After an hour into the voyage, we realized that what was missing was the state-of-the-ocean report. There were swells of about 1 meter. (oh, wait, I’m in Canada – that’s “metre”) Okay, so that’s only 39 inches, right? Yeah, well those 39 inches feels more like 39 feet when your boat is all by its little lonesome out on the briny. We saw 2 other boats while we were out there – a cruise ship bound for Alaska and some guy going south. That’s all. It was lonely out there….the fog set in, and we were just surrounded by grey – grey water, grey sky and nothing else. (Too far out to see any land, but if we could, it would’ve been grey, too. I’d have taken a picture as we went around the cape, but it’d just be a blank grey square.)  We got to Smith Sound (just north of Cape Caution) about 8:30 – and although we were in “protected” waters, it didn’t feel much different from the ocean waters. We were 5 miles from the cove where we are currently anchored, but we couldn’t see the far shore from the entrance. It’s another “big water.”

It’s raining and we’re sitting here in a little protected spot called Millbrook Cove in Smith Sound with 3 other boats. We listen to the weather reports and we’re glad we’re in here. It’s getting kind of nasty out there. On the bright side, however, this is only the first day of real rain we’ve had, which must be some kind of record for early June. As all of us Northwesterners know, summer doesn’t start before July 9, so any day that we have sun before then is a bonus.

June 9
Left Millbrook Cove this morning around 0645.....

 

The ocean swells were low, but really annoying....I'm not sure how folks handle this when they go around Cape Caution and all the way past Smith Sound and Rivers Inlet on the same day.....that's a whole lot of swells to go through in one day! We were tired of the additional 2 hours of them that we got today on our way into Rivers Inlet.

 

In about 6 weeks, this place will be FULL of sports fishermen! Rivers Inlet is where people pay big bucks to fly in and fish for Chinook. The waters are big and the fish are huge. But today, we saw only 2 people fishing (one a commercial fishing boat) and the water was calm - after we got quite a ways inside the Inlet, and away from the swells!

 

Tomorrow we'll take off from here - we're at Dawson's Landing - and head on out. Depending upon the weather (it's rainy today), we'll head up Fitzhugh Sound towards Shearwater. It should take us about 3 days to get to Shearwater and Bella Bella (they are just across from one another). We plan to stay 2 days in Shearwater. It's a fairly large settlement (about 5,000 population) with laundry, stores, etc. Actually, the store is at Bella Bella, but there is a water taxi to get there.....Bella Bella is now known as Waglisla, its First Nation name. I have no idea where "bella bella" came from, but I'll try and find out! That will be our next opportunity for Internet.

 

...and why I can't get this thing to left side justify is beyond me!