this is the lovely sun rise we had leaving Queen Charlotte City across the Hecate st...remember the saying "Red Sky at morning sailors warning" it was a rolly crossing!
Leaving Prince Rupert
We left Prince Rupert in a heavy rain, having to back out of our slip while dodging fishing boats rafted three- and four-deep, we managed to do it without hitting anything, and filled up with fuel and water at the fuel dock ...
Looking back at the dock in prince Rupert
It's been raining for a few days now.. some of you may recognize this look from 9 years ago!!
Baker Inlet
Our first stop out of Prince Rupert was Baker Inlet. The highlight of Baker Inlet is not necessarily the inlet, which is nice enough, but the entrance to it, which is called Watts Narrows, aptly named as it is, in fact, VERY narrow, and the current through it can turn it into a virtual rapids!! Luckily we reached it four minutes after flood slack, after an eight-hour trip from Prince Rupert, fighting currents and the wind.
Dress up passes the time in the rain!
Lowe Inlet
Underway to Lowe Inlet, a male Orca dove three times quite close to the boat. This is the second time this trip we've seen a male alone ...
Its not just whalws we keep an eye out for... there are lots of logs like this along the way that have following of log booms or barges and want to avoid.
We anchored quite close to a large waterfall, which drops about 15 feet at high tide, and about 30 feet at low tide. We had a great walk to the base of the falls through the woods, with lots of singing to let the bears know we were there (we had seen a fine Grizzly on shore earlier), and ate loads of wild blueberries on the way ... In front of the falls, therewere tons of salmon jumping, waiting for high tide to jump over the falls.
Heading towards Verney Falls
the boys checking out the salmon jumping up the falls
the boys checking out an old Salmon weir at Lowe Inlet
The suns out .. a game of Uno in the cockpit
Europa Bay Hot Springs
the mountains of Gardener Canal were incredible in the sunshine on the way to Europa Hot Springs
The hot springs here are excellent! They are a little out of the way, and so are not very busy: we were alone.
Hanging out at the hot springs
We anchored for the night (although the anchoring was "marginal"), as the weather forecast was good. We had all our alarms set (depth, wind speed, etc.) but the night was uneventful. the boys even put on a puppet show.
We left early and had the ebbing and flooding tides with us all the way on the 54-mile trip. On coming through Wright Sound we spotted a mother and young Minke blow and dive a few times.
Khutze Inlet
We're just wrapping up two days in Khutze (pronounced Kootz) Inlet, a beautiful "bomb-proof" anchorage surrounded by snow-capped mountains, with a stunning waterfall cascading several hundred feet down a mountainside. (A lot of the anchorages through here are similar, in that the mountains rise steeply out of the water: it feels as though you could reach out and almost touch the snow ...) The weather in here has been hot and sunny for most of the two days. As we explored in the dinghy near the
base of the waterfall, a young grizzly bear wandered into the clearing and we spent 20 minutes watching him eat grass not 20 feet away!!
There is also a large river estuary feeding into the inlet, and the mouth of the river is full of seals, almost cheek by jowl, waiting for salmon to start the trip up the river. It was here we also saw a very young grizzly cub playing, running through the grasses, and standing on this hind legs.While we explored the estuary in the dinghy we spotted the cub's
and mother's tracks in the mud.
We've dropped both traps (crab and prawn) here, already had success with the crab trap, had crab linguine for dinner!! We'll pick up both traps on the way out tomorrow, hoping for lots of prawns, we had a great catch when we stayed here 10 years ago!
Conor Bringing us back to the boat after setting the prawn trap.
You can tell we are getting back into more popular cruising grounds as we go south: there are three boats at anchor here tonight.
It was such a great stay, we broke out granny's Christmas pudding. Yummy!! All four of us went for seconds, and finished the pudding in one sitting!!
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