You paid for the whole seat, but you only needed the edge!

I never thought I would sleep at Coghlan from the constant glurp glurps on the bow. I pulled out the sound machine, but no batteries. Drats. I didn’t want to dig some out so resigned myself to having a fitful night. I only woke up once, got up, looked around. Yep. Still in the same spot. Went right back to sleep 🙂

Underway early the next day, we had permission to stay in Butedale, but it was way too soon to stop, so we headed to Windy Bay. We saw SEVENTEEN whales along the way!! It made for such a fun cruise! The sun never made an appearance until we were anchored, so we spent most of the day in multiple layers and under blankets. We have two Pendleton blankets that we bought at Costco years ago that have been indispensable. They really cut the wind and make it cozy. I know we have a cozy pilot house but it is a totally different experience being outside all day.

We are in the fjordlands and this I think has some of the most beautiful cruising. When I said that, Jim said what about Misty Fjords? Glacier Bay? Desolation Sound? Princess Louisa? Oh yeah. Those too 🙂 I asked what his favorite section has been. So hard to choose.

It’s a long cruise to Shearwater. We were planning to depart at 7 am so we can time our arrival at Perceval Narrows. When we got up, it looked like conditions were not favorable for going through the narrows and would be downright dangerous, so we changed our route plans to head straight down Finlayson Channel. This is a big channel and it ends at Seaforth Channel – that has open water (=swells). Since we didn’t have to time any narrows we hurried up and got on the road.

It was a WONDERFUL cruise. We only saw a raft of sea otters that day. The seas were so calm, somehow it seemed like the current was always with us (impossible). But even though it was so nice, we were both on pins and needles about how the conditions would be out in Seaforth. We never needed to worry a bit. Conditions were ideal. The wind never whipped up as forecasted, so we could have gone the other route. The big water route was 3 hours shorter and it turns out we needed that time because I reached out to our weather router and it looks like mild conditions for Cape Caution — Saturday!

So, when we arrived at Shearwater, we fueled up, did laundry, filled up with water, shopped, and got rid of our garbage. We had dinner at the pub. Thankfully, we had just provisioned at Prince Rupert because the shelves were pretty bare. When we arrived, there appeared to be a world wide outage of Starlink due to a solar flare. We had to pay cash for the fuel. Good thing we carry cash with us for emergencies. Someone on the dock said she needed fuel and provisions but had no cash. It was up and running again a couple hours later though. Whew.

We got up bright and early and left at 6 am. We planned on being at Fury Cove and thought no one else would possibly be there yet. Boy howdy, we were wrong. There are seven of us staged to cross tomorrow. And 5 of us arrived at the same time which made anchoring stressful. We ended up in the right spot though. I feel sorry for any poor saps who show up later!

Today was the dreamiest cruise – sun, no wind, current with us. I do not think Fitzhugh Sound can possibly be any calmer. And to boot TWENTY SIX whales!!

We’ll let you know how the big crossing goes!

Talk Soon.