Day 17 – Lowe Inlet to Prince Rupert

Laura Domela — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 02:22:30 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska – Day 17

Today was a 60 mile day form Lowe Inlet to Prince Rupert. We left Lowe Inlet at 7:30am and the cruise was pretty chill. No dolphins or humpbacks, but we did see a couple of deer attempting to swim across the Grenville Channel.

It's a pretty wide channel and we were all uncertain whether they'd make it (or why they were heading out in the first place). Perhaps they were running from something (bears)?

Cool rock textures:

We arrived in Prince Rupert at 3pm today. It's quite a change from where we've been the past couple weeks. Cranes! Giant ships! Trucks!

On either side of this tug, there were places that said "Tug" with an arrow. Looks like he missed:

We're at the Prince Rupert Rowing & Yacht Club for the night:

We finally had some good internet and cell service, so we did a TON of work in a short period of time, and I was able to post the past four days of posts that I'd written offline. At 6:15pm we all headed up to the Waterfront Restaurant at the Crest Hotel for a nice dinner. This was the view from our table:

Kevin and I shared a beef carpaccio starter, a caesar salad, Haida Gwai halibut and a BC salmon entree, and all was delicious.

We're hitting the sack early tonight (10:30pm!) because the plan is to depart Price Rupert at 4:30am tomorrow and go all the way to Ketchikan (80 nautical miles) rather than stopping after 50 miles to anchor in Foggy Bay for the night (with permission from U.S. Customs), because the weather looks good for tomorrow, but by the next day a front should be moving in that could make our crossing not as pleasant. Although I'm sure Foggy Bay is lovely, no one really wants to hang out there for three days waiting for weather to clear again, so we voted to go go go!

We'll listen to the 4am weather and make the final decision in the morning, but probably we'll see you next in Ketchikan, Alaska! Wish us luck!

Here's our track from today (60 nautical miles, about 8 hours):

Day 16 – Bishop Bay to Lowe Inlet

Laura Domela — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 00:46:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska – Day 16

We left Bishop Bay this morning at 8am. Margaret had set a crab trap out last night, but this morning it was gone. She dinghied around trying to find it this morning, but no luck. On our way out, someone spotted it in this gigantic snag that had come off the shore and became its own island in the middle of the bay, so Mark maneuvered alongside it and Margaret was able to grab it with a boat hook.

No crabs, however.

Today’s cruise was a gorgeous one. More Pacific White-Sided Dolphins surfed our bow wake, and the weather was perfect.

We got to Lowe Inlet and a few of us had a little trouble anchoring in here (deep deep deep in the middle, and then very quick to super shallow around the edges) but we all eventually got settled. Mark came over to show me how to clean out the sea strainer (super easy) and then we had Mark and Margaret over for dinner later on. (That’s the deal…help with boat things equals dinner.) Margaret baked cupcakes and passed them out via dinghy to all the boats (along with our briefing for tomorrow). We’re going to be sad to part with these fabulous guides when we get to Ketchikan!

Pulling into Lowe Inlet:

We set out two crab traps tonight but didn’t catch anything. Oh, and Mark tried my patented “Domela Knot” on his dinghy when he came to visit, and it worked just as well as mine worked at Teakerne Arm.

Kevin and Mark retrieving Mark’s dinghy. (Sorry Mark, I know I said I wouldn’t post it, but look how nice the light was!)

Tomorrow is another long passage (~60 miles) to Prince Rupert. Back to civilization for a night!

Lowe Inlet – Riveted

Day 17 – Lowe Inlet to Prince Rupert

Day 16 – Bishop Bay to Lowe Inlet