Our plan was to wait until conditions looked nice and calm on Monday to leave Foggy Bay and cross Dixon Entrance into BC. Saturday we saw some 35kt gusts inside Foggy Bay, but the anchorage is well protected and we were completely comfortable. On Sunday, the conditions looked a little choppy but overall fine, and the light station weather reports were reasonable, so we decided to head out a day early.
It was just a little choppy (2ft maybe) but mostly on the nose, so off we went!
As we neared Prince Rupert, the skies looked ominous, with heavy dark clouds and precipitation in the distance.
Check out this 170ft sailing yacht Tamsen, docked at Cow Bay Marina…dwarfing all the other boats there currently. Look how big it looks even from this distance. I mean, it’s no M5, but still!
We arrived around 8pm and got a spot on the outside of the dock, which has a great view, but can be quite rolly when there’s traffic.
Friends Ben and Penelope on Nordhavn 68 Razamo were just a little ways ahead of us and docked nearby, and as soon as we got our lines tied up they texted a dinner invite which we enthusiastically accepted. So sweet of them! We’ve seen them once or twice but only briefly this summer, so it was great to catch up!
In the morning we walked up to the grocery store to replenish our veggie supply. Prince Rupert was rainy but colorful!
After groceries, we left the dock and headed out. We’d planned to go to Captain Cove for the night, but when we got there we opted to continue on further to Newcombe Harbour. But like several other times we’ve been out here on the west side of Pitt Island, it’s been rainy and dreary, so we took no photos at all and didn’t do any dinghy exploring. I made us a cozy spaghetti bolognese and salad for dinner and called it a night.
Oh! But we saw two black bears (different times, different places on shore) in the evening, and one again in the morning that ended up fishing in the stream nearby.
On Tuesday, we planned to meet up with friends Missie and Russ (on Selene 53 Melissa Lynn, you may remember them from last summer’s flotilla and post-flotilla buddy boating). They’ve been up here all summer but we haven’t managed to cross paths until now. Just outside of their anchorage at Anger Inlet we joined up and continued south. We’d planned to go all the way down to Saycuritay Bay (at the bottom of Pitt Island) but we’d had the flood current against us the entire trip (same direction as the 20kt wind on our nose creating about a 3ft chop) slowing us down a knot and a half or more, and the current was about to switch to ebb (which would likely make conditions a bit uglier) so we opted to duck out and check out Monckton Inlet, which we hadn’t been in before.
We went all the way back to the head of the inlet to check it out, but it was a bit deep and rocky for anchoring, with no notable shoreline interest, so we cruised to the north anchorage instead.
It was still quite rainy, but during a lull we got out to do a little exploring in the dinghies. There were several lagoons where at a higher tide you’d be able to get in, but higher tide wasn’t until about 11pm, so just a peek.
Kevin took the Mavic up for some aerials so we could get a better look though, which is super fun to be able to do!
Some shots of the lagoons we can’t see from sea level:
Kevin and Russ went out fishing but no coho to be found here/yet. Maybe tomorrow…we’ll continue on to Saycuritay Bay!