We crossed from British Columbia to Alaska and passed through the notorious (although thankfully calm) Dixon Entrance. I think it was one of our longest days yet, although since we left at 5, and we made the time change, it didn't seem that far!!

Our our BC tour, we've travelled 710 NM, average speed around 7.5 knots over 40 days. Of course we didn't move every day. We spent 15 nights tied to a dock (usually waiting out foul weather) and the remainder on the hook (boat talk for anchor) in fabulous anchorages. We put 136 hours on our engine. We sailed with sails very little, although we put them out, and put them back many times. We departed at dawn on 6 of the mornings. (Note in most cases this was civil dawn when the sun is 0-6 degrees below the horizon and one morning we left at nautical dawn when the sun was between 6-12 degrees below the horizon). We caught about 20 crab, of which 11 were keepers. We caught two rockfish. Not enough shrimp. Cat got seasick 4 times. We can't remember how many whales we saw, or bald eagles -- we lost count.
Since our last update, we spent most of our time in Prince Rupert, waiting for a weather window to cross over the Dixon entrance into Alaska. Prince Rupert was a 'big' town. In fact, its the largest town (based on population) we've been to since we left Edmonds (its 1/8th the size however).

Given that we had a stormy day to wait out, we took the opportunity to visit the North Pacific Cannery which was great (although is a $75 CAN taxi ride from Prince Rupert -- oops, we thought it would be $10?). We had planned to take the bus there & back only to find out that bus service was discontinued 2 years ago. We were ready to pay the park staff to take us back, but fortunately two lovely people from Prince George also visiting, offered to give us a ride back to town in their rental car (thank you kind Jeff!) https://northpacificcannery.ca/ If you are ever in the area this site is worth a look, and really makes you appreciate all sorts of things. Like, thank goodness we don't have to work with fish guts every day to make our money, or be put in a small open boat for 6 days fishing, and the foreman brings us food every day and tows us back to camp on the 7th day. The site is well done and worth a visit. Canada knows how to do their national historic site right! We also enjoyed the museum in Prince Rupert too. https://www.museumofnorthernbc.com/

All in all, we enjoyed our quick mini-layover in Prince Rupert -- and even though it is often raining there, we had 3 days of mostly sun. (Although not the day walking through the cannery, as you can see from the clouds below!)

Since the part for our transmission that we had ordered to Port Hardy was not the right one, (see blog from May 12th!) Dan was also able to have a new one machined in Prince Rupert. Now we have a designer, custom built transmission dipstick. I don't know how much we've spent on that commonplace, but totally required part now..however, we do have a backup being sent to Ketchikan.


And then the time had come to depart with a clear weather window, we headed out early (one of those dawn mornings -- on our way by 5:10 am), and made our way Foggy Bay Alaska (see photo above!). Woot! We cleared customs and guess what! Its foggy! And RAINY. As you can see those are raindrops on the water. Lots of them. They are very close together. The fog is lurking in the trees. We are here in the bay with 5 other boats, and tomorrow is supposed to be really warm, so I think we'll stay here for a bit and see if Foggy Bay dries out....we'll share more photos if we are able to dry out. Onward.
Comments