Laura Domela 
Today’s weather was mainly rainy and windy and we were pretty happy to be tied at a dock with good scenery all around us (and three different float plane landings/takeoffs right here in the chuck as daytime entertainment!). We hiked when it wasn’t too nasty out, and enjoyed the coziness of the insides of our boats the rest of the time. This Cessna landed, picked up people over at the … Read more
We left Ketchikan this morning after a quick refresh, reprovision, and celebration dinner for arriving in Alaska – and headed north up Clarence Strait headed for the quaint village of Meyers Chuck. On the way, we had to dodge cruise ships, floatplanes, ferries, tugboats, sailboats, and other traffic coming and going from Ketchikan’s bustling port. But current was with us and we were soon back in relative solitude for the … Read more
After a very hard rain early this morning, we woke to this: Just as we were pulling our anchor we noticed a black bear at the head of the bay, beyond Ithaka… …and then realized there were two! And on our way out through the narrow exit, one more on shore there munching on some grass, watching us as we puttered past. Those three, plus the two seen yesterday on … Read more
Up again at 4am (okay 4:30am) to check the 4am forecast and conditions for a Dixon Entrance crossing today. The Dixon Entrance East forecast for today looked about the same as last night: Last night at 7pm Green Island was reporting 5ft moderate, and the wind at Grey Islet was SSE 25kts. We were hopeful that things would mellow overnight. This morning, conditions seemed to have improved, except we were … Read more
Well, we made the call early Saturday morning to stay in Prince Rupert instead of crossing Dixon. Conditions weren’t bad, but the threat of the weather coming in later that afternoon sounded like it could make for a not-so-great experience. The Dixon Entrance East forecast was seas 2 meters becoming 1-2 meters. SE wind 5-15 but increasing SE 15-20 near noon, then SE 25 early evening. Maybe okay with the wind, … Read more
We left Lowe Inlet this morning at 7am after a very windy night at anchor and not a great amount of sleep. We turned north in Grenville Channel and had a couple knots of current against us for the first few miles, that eventually tapered off, as did the rain and gray skies. We had originally planned to go to Kelp Passage today to stage our crossing of Dixon Entrance, … Read more
Today was an early one and a long one. We departed Khutze Inlet at 6am for the 55nm cruise up to Lowe Inlet. It was gray and rainy the entire time, but the wind and waves were on our stern all day (as was the current!) so we had a very calm cruise and arrived about an hour before we thought we would! Most of our day looked about like … Read more
We pulled up anchor in Bottleneck Inlet this morning at 7am and headed out into Finlayson Channel for a four-hour cruise up to Khutze Inlet — one of our favorite anchorages on the northern BC coast. We wanted to arrive at Khutze early enough to leave us with plenty of time to explore. We had favorable current the whole way, and dropped anchor around 11am. It was a beautiful, sunny … Read more