Day 6 | 2025 Flotilla to Alaska | Staying Put in Small Inlet

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Making the decision to stay put in a location that’s not bursting with rainbows and unicorns (aka calm water, multiple bears with cubs foraging on shore, whales and dolphins frolicking around our boats) is always a tough call. Small Inlet is beautiful, and sure, there are some birds (seagulls, mergansers, an eagle in the distance), but the 20-30 knot wind (gusting to 38 knots!) has kept us all sailing on our anchors non-stop. This sailing back and forth creates quite a racket overnight as it pulls on the anchor rode/bridles, with the occasional loud creak that conjures up visions of the dark and musty beneathdeck of a pirate ship threatening to break apart in a storm. To put in ear plugs is an invitation to miss that single sound that would clue you in to the fact that you are dragging toward the rocky shore.

Thankfully, we have multiple, redundant anchor alarms, (including a really loud anchor alarm app on the iPhone that sits on my nightstand),  none of which went off last night. The earplugs helped and we did manage to get a bit of sleep.

Zoomed in and then out on the “Anchor” anchor alarm app of our track last night…I keep my circle small. The last screenshot is zoomed in on the Garmin Boating/Navionics app where I hit “start” as if we were on a course, and then just see what it maps. Nice to be able to check these whenever I wake up.

However, this morning the forecast (as well as the observed reports from Chatham Point light station a few miles north of us) had not improved.

The Environment Canada forecast for Johnstone Strait:

The 4:40am Chatham Point light station report (wind NW 25kts, waves 3ft moderate):

And an update for 7:40am (wind increased to NW 35kts and waves increased to 4ft moderate):

And here’s what Windy showed for 10am today:

And so, we are staying put, even though it still blows like crazy in here. The other options are not ideal, and there’s no promise that we would arrive somewhere where another handful of boats wasn’t already hunkering down and occupying all the most sheltered anchoring spots. So today will be a day of boat projects. We’re currently running the generator along with the water heater, washer/dryer, and watermaker, and trying not to just refresh Windy.com every 10 minutes (which doesn’t pay anyway, it only refreshes every 6-7 hours).

Sound Waves, Turnagain, and Kali, at anchor in Small Inlet. IF is tucked into the shallower head of the bay (but still getting plenty of wind).

We got a BC fishing license online, and put down a couple of crab traps. Maybe we’ll get lucky with that. 🙂

Kevin surveying crab trap locations

First pull had two too-small male Dungeness, so that told us they’re here, but the second pull: zip. Maybe next time. We had sun all day and the group spent time doing projects and relaxing, so all in all a good day!