Chronicle 11 South to British Columbia

June 24 to August 10

Sunset from Frosty Bay. Why have we been complaining about the weather???

In the past two or three weeks, we have spent more time than we care to think about waiting for good weather. One of the things we enjoy about cruising is meeting people in the towns and on the docks. When it is RAINING and THE WIND IS BLOWING, people don’t get out much. And when they (we) do, they’re (we’re) grousing about not being able to go anywhere safely.

Weather stories abound, but mostly it is just bitch, bitch, bitch. Fortunately. You don’t want to have stories to tell of broken gear and heroic acts. We did hear that a fishing boast sank earlier this week in Chatham Straits; all of the crewmembers were rescued. We waited three days in the (very small) town of Wrangell along with a few other large and small boats for a safe window to head south.

The residents of Wrangell may not notice any downturn in the economy. They may have already turned. The two small cruise ships that used to stop in Wrangell canceled this year, decreasing the number of tourists from 40,000 to zero. Yachties don’t contribute much to the economy: people on small boats don’t have any money to spend and people on large boats (yachts don’t come to Wrangell) don’t need anything. Logging is dead and there are few fish. Wrangell knows about downturns in the economy.

Moving South

August 1 We put away our Alaska charts today, except for the one we need to cross the Dixon Entrance in the morning. That dragon area had 8-to-11 foot seas last week and equally disgusting winds. We had a calm crossing.

Part of the magnitude of Dixon Entrance (in addition to the terrifying weather forecasts) is in our minds. The Dixon Entrance is definitely a “marker” on any trip up the Inside Passage. When we were puppies, we use to listen to the weather forecasts for the Queen Charlotte Islands and the Dixon Entrance and dream of going north. We visited the Queen Charlotte Islands by car and ferry fifteen years ago, which is fortunate because the islands are poorly charted; that (and the 60 mile crossing of Hecate Straight which can be quite nasty) makes Shaman nervous. Its hard to get out of harm’s way at five knots.

We cleared Canadian Customs at Prince Rupert August 2nd and headed for 40-mile-long Grenville Channel, (aka, The Ditch) the next day. People in Prince Rupert were lambasting the weather (and they are used to lousy weather in “Rainy Rupert”), but the long -awaited summer pattern may be in place. We had the current with us, strong afternoon winds behind us, and SUNSHINE down Grenville, anchoring in very protected Klewnuggit Bay.

Kenny nestled in with the anchor line and his leash.

This was our first experience anchoring with Bruce and Kenny. Bruce is our smaller, spare anchor that we swapped out for Mr. Delta in Petersburg and Kenny is the kellett (lead ball) of unknown weight that Ben and Doug purchased in Petersburg. The theory is that you (Doug) lower the kellet down the anchor line reducing the angle of the line to the bottom and, hopefully, also reducing the probability that the anchor will drag. (The anchor line is called a “rode” but this is already so confusing, I didn’t want to make it worse.)

We tied a lovely piece of bright blue skinny line to Kenny, Doug clipped Kenny to the anchor rode (I decided you were up to using the new vocabulary) and gravity whisked Kenny out of sight. The sun was out, the scenery was excellent, and we luxuriated in the sunny harbor.

We got up ‘way too early the next morning to get the ebb tide out the second half of Grenville and discovered that bright blue skinny polypro line is almost impossible to get back on board with Kenny attached. It does not have a “good hand” and Kenny’s whole reason for being is his weight. Bad combination. It was kinda’ like using dental floss. We replaced bright blue skinny polypro line.

Shaman ran down Grenville at 9.4 knots. Well, not for all four hours, but for some time. Our cruising speed is a leisurely 5.5 knots and the ebb tide kept us well above that the whole trip.

Naviagating is SO difficult, especially when you have to lie on your side to read the chart. Our internet connection thinks they look better this way.

We were looking forward to Hartley Bay at the south end of Grenville. We stopped there in June and were told that the “café” (the front yard of a small house) that we enjoyed so much last year would be open in July. The café was not open. The docks were almost empty. There was no activity in the tiny town. The fellow who came to pump fuel was sullen. Our warm fuzzies about Hartley Bay became a fond memory.

Ah, but it was a Canadian Holiday! Maybe all of the residents had gone to Rupert to celebrate. Canada has a lovely tradition of celebrating a holiday each month during the spring and summer, thereby creating a three-day weekend. The clerk at Safeway in Prince Rupert told us the name of the man the holiday was named for, but we promptly forgot it. She wasn’t sure of his claim to fame, but thought that it had something to do with maple syrup.

How does Mother Nature do this??? ‘Headed south from Harley Bay down Fraser Reach toward Butedale. I wanted to tell you that this is in Princess Royal Channel because I like that name better, but you would have recognized it in an instant as Fraser Reach, and then my stellar credibility would be zilch.

August 4 We awoke to sunshine and headed out of our anchorage into THE FOG. We were astounded to discover that the new radar at the helm is much more beneficial than the old radar sitting below at the chart table showing itself the coastline and occasional boat. (This innovation was part of our Christmas packages.) Since we are now in “Fogust” (and you thought it was August), the summer weather pattern is: Fog. Sunshine. No wind in the morning. 15-20 knots of wind in the afternoon. But not to worry. There is another weather front moving in.

Are you ready for another lie-down?

“Do not use these charts for navigation” If you are actually trying to follow each mile (nautical or otherwise) of this adventure, you will notice a black hole. The rest of you can simply enjoy the spirit of the journey with a global understanding that there are a gazillion islands and Shaman visits some of them. (The blue line is the route of the 12-story-high cruise ships.)

View from our anchorage in Wolf Song Bay

Eighty degrees and WOLVES! Well, not at the same time. We are making our way up Roscoe Inlet, anchored in a bay that we have named Wolf Song Bay. It was HOT this afternoon, the water temperature was 71.6 degrees (We know this because of another feature of the Christmas packages; we didn’t order it.) and we sat in the cockpit as dusk and The Insects settled in, listening to the loons. Then we realized those were not all loons. We had two packs of wolves, on opposite sides of the bay, singing to each other. We didn’t feel left out that we couldn’t know the lyrics; we felt fortunate to be able to share the songs.

Twenty–one-mile-long Roscoe Inlet reveled “some of the most scenic and striking granite faces and domes that you can find along the entire Inside Passage” (This time our well-worn Hemmingway-Douglas cruising guide didn’t exaggerate.) We spent the day “ohhhing” and “ahhhing” and then ran longer than planned through very tricky Troop Narrows (shallow, narrow, with rocks and islands) to ...

..........Discovery Bay near Shearwater.

Spending time in all of these dramatic, remote places, pretending that we are self-sufficient, and that we are leaving a very small footprint, has its price. At Shearwater and Bella Bella, we took on water, got fuel, did laundry, dumped our aromatic garbage, changed the engine oil, got rid of the dirty oil, gave Shaman a bath, and bought a few groceries.

Shaman is hiding on the far left.

Shearwater has the only repair facility between Pt. Hardy and Prince Rupert and, although they have a huge travel lift, if you see boats that look more viable than these vessels...

......it means someone had a large, expensive problem

Flashback:
I’m inserting some pictures of Shaman that Darlene (El Buccanero’s mom) took last June just because they feel like our journey!

We’ll continue south in search of more days like this. Our next Chronicle will be from Pt. McNeill on the north end of Vancouver Island; five days if we don’t have to wait for good weather to cross Queen Charlotte Sound.