Managed to Move 25 Miles in the last Week

We spent three  enjoyable days in Port Hardy. They have a great trail network. We even saw a hedgehog. A first for me.

Then we sailed off past Pulteney Pt lighthouse to the bustling town of Port Mcneill. 

We saw the biggest burl in the world and then we could stop sight seeing.

Now we are in Sointula a small village on Malcolm Island. It was founded as a Finnish Commune in the early 1900's. It is a very peaceful quiet village with a great harbour, bakery, coffee shop and hamburger stand. Tonight we are off to the pub to see a Finnish rock band.  It is tempting to linger here or even leave the boat here while we go travelling. 

Though that is a radical departure from THE PLAN.

Depending on how things work out at the pub, we will be heading off to Alert Bay tomorrow or not.

To Port Hardy

Once the storm passed through we were blessed with another week of ultra fine weather.
We spent two days at Fury Cove because it was so gorgeous.

Going around Cape Caution was a bit of a non event. It was lumpy from the ocean swells but dead flat calm. We rested up in Skull Cove, Blunden Harbour and then crossed Queen Charlotte Strait to Port Hardy.

We are parked on the big t float in front of town. We think it is great but no other pleasure boaters have stopped here.

Our first impression of Port Hardy was very favourable. When we went to the grocery store and paid half and got twice as much , we were quite blown away. Yes, procuring provisions in Haida Gwaii and Bella Bella is terrible for quality and the prices are mind blowing.
Now we are trying to decide whether to spend another day here or start our progress south.

Storm at Shearwater

We are tied up to the dock and it is blowing about 40 knots gusting to 50. Remarkably the eye of the storm hit the coast right at Bella Bella and Shearwater. 

A super big yacht  lost one of  it's mooring lines. If it had gotten away it could have crushed our boat.  About ten bystanders got together to get it tied up again. The owners were off on an excursion somewhere.I am thankful we are not out in some exposed location today.

You ask " Where did he get those wind velocity numbers? Sounds like bullshit. "
They were taken off the instrument gauges on the sailboat parked beside us.

Back on the Mainland

Well we waited around for the perfect weather window and then left in the middle of the night to ensure a smooth crossing of Hecate Strait.

We arrived at Larsen Harbour, perched on the outside of Banks Island. The whole strait was smooth as glass and it was hot, hot , hot. We went for a dinghy ride among the rocky islets and then walked through the bush to another bay.  It was gorgeous.

We progressed south in mostly calm hot weather. Sometimes the smell of forest fire smoke intruded into our nostrils.

 We thoroughly enjoyed our anchorage on the South tip of Banks Island , Gung Ho Bay..  It was a real rock pile to get into but was great for exploring with the dinghy. 

  We stayed sort of inside on the outside.  Finally at Higgins Passage we broke through to the classic inside passage.

Now we are encamped at Shearwater Resort . There are all the amenities here and lots of boats all waiting out the current little bit of bad weather.  It feels really weird being tied up with all these yachts after being on the anchor for so long.  The back is sort of holding up to retrieving the anchor and chain by hand. 

Goodbye Haida Gwaii

 Morning Commute

 Crows chatting in front of Queen Bee Cafe

After the rain Sandspit

   

 Queen Charlotte City   Farmer's Market

We decided that yes, it would be fine to spend some winter months in Haida Gwaii either in Queen Charlotte Village (officially it is now a village and not the historic Queen Charlotte City…it has a lot less than 1000 residents) or the sleepy community of Sandspit, if you really want some alone time, solitary beach walks and more sun than QC village. QC is a friendly social place with community activities and amenities not found in Sandspit. So maybe one day this will be our winter vacation destination.

We left Sandspit at 2am to do the dreaded Hectare Strait crossing. The idea was to take advantage of favourable tide and to get across before an unfavourable wind. We bucked across the bar, an  annoying long long stretch of sand and shallow water than guards the entrance to Skidegate Channel. The swells were low and minimal once we got into deeper water.

The trip across was uneventful except for the massive apricot- hued moon that set around 4 am, sinking behind the San Cristobal Mountains of Haida Gwaii.  We had returned to the night sky, milky way and constellations that for us signalled the arrival of fall. The moonset gave us something to watch until sunrise. That, and the mysterious bright light of a boat we could not find on radar, a ghostship. Boris did some adjustments and poof, there it was, about 6 miles away. Other than that we were all alone.

We arrived at Larson Harbour 11 hours later, the same location as our take off point for the islands. The last time we were there the entrance had been a seething surging  kelp infested cauldron. This time it was a friendly flat sunny welcomed anchorage. The wind never materialized. Later we spent a couple hours in the dinghy touring the protected lagoons surrounding Larson, a wild and beautiful place.

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