Port McNeill, August 24-26th

Port McNeill was Dad's last stop with us. We enjoyed a delicious dinner for our last night. The harbor manager at the North Island Marina suggested a restaurant that was a bit far away but said we could take the loaner car (keys stay in the car). It was weird to drive after not doing so for almost two months. Felt weird to go so fast. Very glad we went as the food and atmosphere were both excellent. A perfect way to end Dad's trip. I'm very proud of him for staying healthy and safe on a 12-day boat voyage. I hope to be doing as well as he is when I'm his age (he'll be 90 in October!)

 A few hours after dropping Dad at the airport, my good friend Miriam Ribeiro arrived from San Luis Obispo. She's joining us for 6 days through Desolation Sound. The adventure continues...

Waddington Bay, August 23rd

Another beautiful anchorage with lots of nooks and crannies to explore:

We found a perfectly sized little sand beach to land the dinghy on a tiny island at the entrance to the main anchorage. The island had a handful of stunted trees, and a huge variety of mosses and lichens.

As we climbed around, we noticed a huge amount of perfectly cleaned out crab shells in little groups around the island. It appears that some mystery (to us anyway) critter had been hard at work crabbing and enjoying their catch on top of this little island.

Echo Bay, August 22nd

On the short run from Sullivan to Echo bay, we tried some trolling, but no bites:

We arrived at Echo Bay as six other boats made their arrivals. We missed most of the docking scramble and by the time we got in, everything was sorted out and we got a nice spot on an inside dock for the night:

We first crossed paths with Alpenglow (another George Buhler design - same guy who designed our boat) at Ketchikan. We found their boat card one morning by our door but we didn't get to meet in person. When we arrived at Echo Bay we were pleased to see Alpenglow docked right across the way. We spent part of the afternoon getting to know Kurt and Marcia and exchanging boat tours, favorite anchorages and travel stories. 

We got to spend some time with Billy Proctor at his homestead in the next cove over from Echo Bay. Billy has lived here all his life and made his living fishing and logging. He built a museum on his property to display an amazing variety of artifacts and archeological finds he has collected over the years. Billy is a great guy and we were glad to see him still living here and doing his thing. 

Sullivan Bay, August 21st

We left Allison Harbor with nice settled weather for the trip into the Broughtons, a lovely protected group of islands at the head of Queen Charlotte Straits.

We stopped again at Sullivan Bay, where we found things a lot less crowded than our first visit. 

All the nautical puns you ever need in one convenient sign:

This little guy was hanging out on a log behind the floating general store at Sullivan Bay:

Allison Harbor, August 19-20th

We started this leg of the trip with gales forecast around Cape Caution and the outer waters that we would have to transit to get back to the "inside" part of the inside passage between Vancouver Island and the BC mainland. Our original plan was to to get to Pruth Bay at Calvert Island before the winds started picking up offshore, and wait out the weather for a couple of days in the relatively protected anchorage there before crossing around Cape Caution. But... as we left this morning, the forecast started sounding like our Thursday window for rounding Cape Caution was not much of a window anymore and we might well end up stuck at Pruth Bay for an extra couple of days. This was going to throw a wrench in our schedule for dropping off Sue's dad, and picking up our friend Mim at Port McNeill. Buoy reports were still good offshore, so we made a quick decision to turn our six hour day into a twelve hour day, and make the crossing ahead of the incoming weather. As it turned out this was a good call, and we ended up making it into Queen Charlotte Straits and to a nice protected anchorage at Allison Harbor before things got bad offshore. As it turned out, the forecast was updated from Gales to Storm warning (40-50 kts) so we were glad to be around the corner and in some calmer waters.

Great anchorage for hiding out from the weather:

Lots of little lagoons and inlets to explore at Allsion Harbor:

As we picked our way through the labyrinth of passages around the anchorage, we found a secluded little beach where a black bear was casually turning over 50 pound stones looking for snacks:

Storm clouds building:

Got Sue's Dad out in the dinghy the next morning for some bird watching: