Port McNeill – Riveted

Airship to Alaska | Day 8 | Echo Bay to Port McNeill, BC

Laura Domela — Sun, 15 May 2016 15:48:47 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska 2016

We got up fairly early this morning at Echo Bay, chatted with Pierre a bit more while he showed us some of the work he'd done recently on the rental cabins. We pulled away around 7:30am, saying goodbye until September, when we stop on the way south again. Calm water, gray sky, and a pretty chill cruise over to Port McNeill. I didn't take any photos, but we did see one humpback tail as it dove…so that's two humpbacks now with no proof.

We're staying at the North Island Marina, where we stayed on the way up last May. (Hey look at that! On Day 8 last year we were in the same spot!) We walked up to the IGA and re-uppped on some groceries, and then up to the private liquor store (the BC liquor stores aren't open on Sundays) to get a couple more bottles of wine.

Our plan is to cross Cape Caution in the morning. The weather is looking good…but we'll keep watching the forecasts tonight and then make the call in the morning after the 4am update.

This is what the 24 hour surface observation forecast looks like (pretty sweet, is what that looks like…that high pressure system hanging out there with the far apart isobars means mild conditions):

And here are the conditions at the West Sea Otter buoy for the past 24 hours (posting just before 4pm PST).

Today's route from Echo Bay (on the right) to Port McNeill (on the left) — (26.4 miles, 3 hours 47 minutes). I'm trying a new map capture from Navionics…it's super annoying you can't change the track color from yellow to something else that doesn't totally blend into the map data though:

Day 9 – Port McNeill to Fury Cove

Laura Domela — Tue, 26 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska – Day 9

We left Port McNeill this morning at 5am (that means the alarm went off at 4am!)

We had a 60 mile day and our first exposure to open ocean as we exited Queen Charlotte Strait and crossed Cape Caution (about a mile offshore). The prediction originally was for 1.4 metre waves with an 11 second period, but during our first hour or so that changed to 1.6 metre waves (5.2 feet) with a period of 6 seconds (then 5). The general “rule” is that you don’t want the period to be smaller than the waves are tall…and this was, um, THAT. It certainly was not as comfortable as an 11 second period would have been, but we didn't think it was too terrible. The boat handled it well, and we were never nervous. We knew we could duck into Port Hardy for the night, or anchor out at the Walker Group if it was too rough.

Mark led us through the Walker Group so he could show us the (beautiful) anchorage there (in case we need it on our return trip).

We rounded Cape Caution and now we’ve had our first open ocean experience in our boat. Not bad, not bad.

Fury Cove — our anchorage for the night:

Our new view:

A couple sailboats were anchored in Fury Cove when we arrived. They’d been here for two days, and told us they’d seen a mama grizzly bear and two cubs on the beach both days, so we’ve been keeping an eye out for them.

Some of us met on the beach at 4pm to do a little exploring. (Don't worry, we made lots of noise and carried bear spray.)

The beach is called Clam Beach and is covered with white clam shell:

There’s a shack built just up some stairs from the beach (which is odd, because I think this is marine park property).

Hey look…an eco roof!

Kevin and I had taken our kayak and paddled over to the beach, so after our wanderings we kayaked around the cove a bit more. Here’s Margaret saddling up her dinghy. I love Margaret! (She said that Mark, even with his back to camera, is still pretending not to know her.)

Airship anchored (Thelonius in the background):

Opposite direction back out into Fitz Hugh Sound:

Fury Cove, kayak, and Xtratufs:

Next stop: Ocean Falls!

Day 8 – Pierre’s Echo Bay to Port McNeill

Laura Domela — Sun, 24 May 2015 21:14:47 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska – Day 8

We said goodbye to Pierre this morning at 8am and headed for Port McNeill. The waters were calm, the sky was gray, and it was a beautiful foggy/misty cruise over to the North Island Marina.

This is our last stop before crossing Cape Caution (unless we duck into the Walker Group for weather, but the forecast looks good for tomorrow so far, with seas about a meter with a 6 second period. Check the West Sea Otter buoy here.)

The plan is to listen to the 4am weather and make the Go/No Go call, and if Go, then leave at 5am. It'll be a 60 mile day to Fury Cove, where we'll be anchoring and potlucking on the beach (weather permitting). AIS (see the "Where's Airship? button in the right column) hasn't been picking us up for a couple days, but don't worry…we're doing just fine and eventually it'll connect back up with us.

Today has been mainly about doing a few chores: a trip to the grocery store, liquor store, laundry, fuel, topping off water, doing a little boat maintenance, napping…stuff like that. We'll be meeting at 6pm up at Gus's Pub for dinner, and then I think we'll all be heading early to bed. This is a perfect place to re-provision because everything is in walking distance, and the marina hosts are SUPER nice and very helpful. Each dock has its own fuel line, so you can fuel right from your spot. Pretty sweet!

Also, there are eagles fishing RIGHT next to and over our boat, so here are some more eagle photos:

This one's my favorite:

And here's today's track (25.88 nautical miles, 3 hours 35 minutes):