Prince Rupert – Riveted

Crossing Dixon Entrance and Homemade Salsa

Laura Domela — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 16:49:19 +0000

I set the alarm for 4:30am yesterday morning in Ketchikan — after 4 (so we’d have the 4am weather report), but 4:30 for a little extra sleep since sunrise wasn’t until 6am. No point having more than about an hour of pre-sunrise cruising. The alarm went off, I checked the conditions (they looked good for us to go) and then promptly talked Kevin into another half an hour of snoozing.

We actually left the dock in Thomas Basin at 6am. The water was calm and there was no wind in the channel. We saw several humpbacks as we neared the entrance to Behm Canal. They say you’ll know what Dixon is going to be like once you’re halfway between Mary Island and Foggy Bay. (Foggy Bay is a good stopover if you need to wait for weather, or if you want to split up the 80 nautical mile day from Ketchikan to Prince Rupert…it’s beautiful, and there’s good fishing in the area.)

Conditions were great, so we continued on. We saw a bunch more humpbacks, and got a little escort from half a dozen Pacific White-Sided dolphins. Once out in Dixon, the swells picked up a little but were no big deal at all.

Approaching Dundas Island:

That turqouise hose on the bow is the raw water (salt water) washdown hose, for when we pull the anchor. The anchor rode goes down into a locker inside that’s right at the head of the bed, and if you don’t rinse off the kelp and mud before pulling it in, it can get a bit stinky. So…the washdown is important. Also, attaching the hose to the pump inlet is a pain in the butt, so these days (and since we’re anchoring quite a bit), Kevin leaves the hose attached and on the bow. That means it’s in all of my pictures. We replaced the raw water pump a month ago or so and it came with a dark blue hose…I’m lobbying for him to swap out this turquoise one for the dark blue one. Being married to an artist is rough sometimes.

We called Canadian Customs and were given our clearance by telephone about three hours outside of Prince Rupert. Once through Venn Passage, we decided to anchor for the night in Pillsbury Cove rather than go to the marina. We didn’t need anything in town, and Pillsbury Cove looked nice (and we heard there’s good crabbing in there). Kevin got the crab traps ready while I navigated us through the last of the twisty, shallow canal, and we dropped them before anchoring.

It was just after 6pm when we got in and we’d picked up more veggies for fresh salsa (since we pretty much mowed the previous smaller batch we made two days ago). Buying store-made salsa is fine, and there are some good ones, but there’s just nothing like homemade, and it’s easy! I bought double what I bought last time…here’s a look at the grill:

Five roma tomatoes (cut in half), two habaneros (yes really, the salsa still is not that hot, I promise), 3 anaheim peppers (if they’d had poblanos or pasillas I’d have done a mix, but all they had in the larger mild peppers were anaheim), two jalapenos (I do two on the grill and two fresh…seeds removed).

Inside while the veggies were grilling, I mixed together two cans of fire roasted diced tomatoes, a large handful of cilantro, chopped, the juice of two juicy limes, liberal sprinkling of Penzey’s roasted garlic powder (the BEST!), similar sprinkling of cumin, and maybe a tablespoon or so of white balsamic vinegar. Once the grilled veggies are cool, chop them up and add them to the bowl. (I removed the seeds from the habaneros, too.) There’s no fresh garlic and no onions in this salsa, but if you taste it and feel the need to add some, by all means go for it. Also, I don’t add salt or pepper. I know, weird, but just taste it first. Here’s the finished product:

We grilled up some fresh halibut (given to us by a neighbor) for dinner and had that with some sauteed shaved Brussels sprouts and a baked potato. Kevin cooked the halibut perfectly.

Today we will head down toward Grenville Channel, and maybe anchor in Lowe Inlet tonight. We’ll grab our crab traps on the way out and who knows…we might have fresh crab for dinner tonight!

Here’s a map of yesterday’s Dixon Entrance crossing. (Dixon Entrance is that middle part with no land sheltering it from the open Pacific Ocean. Foggy Bay is the bay is on the right, just before Dixon Entrance, across from Duke Island.)

82.4 nautical miles, 11 hours 26 minutes:

Airship to Alaska | Day 16 | Prince Rupert to Ketchikan

Laura Domela — Mon, 23 May 2016 21:38:45 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska 2016

Last night's Prince Rupert view from Airship:

We set our alarm for 4am this morning to check the 4am weather and forecasted conditions for Dixon Entrance to make the final call about whether to go or wait. At Dixon Entrance East, waves were 1-2 meters. Hard to know what that means without the period of seconds between waves. At Buoy 46145, which is smack in the middle of Dixon Entrance, north of Haida Gwai (so quite a bit further out to sea than we'd be), they were 6-7 feet high at 9-10 seconds apart. So as they got closer to land they'd likely be quite a bit smaller than that. The Green Island lightstation report said "Partly cloudy, visibility 4 miles, fog, wind calm, seas rippled." (Foggy usually means calm.)

Here's what the 24-hour surface forecast looked like:

The high pressure system and the really wide/far apart isobars…? That's good for us!

Side note: It's occasionally difficult to make the decision to "Go" at 4am from a soft cozy bed while it's mostly still dark. The decision, however, is made easier when you know the weather window might not be open for all THAT long. Here's the 48-hour surface forecast:

Here we are passing the Green Island lighthouse:

Fog….check! Light wind…check! Seas rippled…check!

We took turns napping, and then I made breakfast for us (bacon and eggs underway!). Once out in Dixon Entrance we had some swells (about 6 foot swells) but they were far apart and gentle and it was all no big deal, really. (Still, I'm glad I wasn't cooking breakfast at that point.)

And just like that, we're in Alaska again!

I think the worst/choppiest conditions we had were in Revillagigedo Channel on the way into Ketchikan, because we had wind over current (wind against us, current with us), but it was still fine.

Arriving in Ketchikan is always a bit of a shock when the cruise ships are all there along the shoreline. One enormous cruise ship (as opposed to a small cruise ship) was just leaving (we watched as it headed north out of the channel) so there were only three when we arrived:

Hey, Ketchikan…I know you're in there somewhere….

The city floats are just around this cruise ship's stern:

Oh hey big guy:

We called the US Customs office in Ketchikan while we were about 4 hours out (but hey! cell service!) to let them know our ETA and give them our information. Super friendly! They told us to give a call when we were about 10 minutes out, let them know where we were going, and they'd send a customs officer down to meet us.

I called when we were just outside the cruise ships and said we were going to Casey Moran/City Floats. She asked if we were there yet, and I said "Nope, I'm just coming around the last cruise ship though." She laughed, said to call when we were docked, and she'd send a guy down. We docked, I called, the guy came down. He hopped on board, checked our passports and customs decal, asked if we had anything on board that we shouldn't have, and then wished us a great trip and was on his way. Super low key and easy.

Last year with the flotilla we started out north of town at the Bar Harbor Marina (close to the grocery store and laundromat), and then moved over to the city floats at some point. I like it down here. It's closer to town, there's a lot going on, and yeah, it's in the shadows of the cruise ships during the day, but they're mostly gone by 6pm (and there are still hours of daylight left at that point!). Plus, the city bus that runs up and down the main road here goes right to the grocery store, which is still in the free zone. Score! We'll do that tomorrow after Kevin's conference call. We need some milk, eggs, fruit, veggies.

Airship and cruise ship, for scale:

For a late lunch/early dinner (like 3:30pm early dinner) we went over to Alava's Fish-n-Chowder to get some fish and chips (only instead of chips, we got asparagus and zucchini, done fish and chips style…so good…we had some last summer and wanted to c) and then walked around town a bit. We stopped back in at the Alaska Eagle Arts gallery (where I got my salmon necklace last year) and…well, I got another Marvin Oliver necklace. This one is a salmon egg, representing the salmon in egg form, as well as the circle of life…it's really nice and I love it. I'll get a photo and post it…but for now, this is one of the art cards, showing the red salmon, as well as the salmon in egg form (the embossed image…that's what my pendant looks like):

We wandered around town a bit more and then headed back to Airship to relax a bit. Today's route was 83.7 nautical miles, and took us 10 hours and 52 minutes:

I think next we'll head around into Behm Canal and check out Misty Fjords. A new place!!

Airship to Alaska | Day 15 | Hartley Bay to Prince Rupert

Laura Domela — Sun, 22 May 2016 20:13:31 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska 2016

Whoa! We made it to Prince Rupert! Two weeks after leaving the San Juan Islands.

We left Hartley Bay this morning at 6am. The cruise to Prince Rupert was almost 80 miles, so we had a long day ahead of us…

…a long day in Grenville Channel, that is. (Also known as "the Ditch.") This time in Grenville Channel was not nearly as exciting as our trip south was. (See here what I mean, in our post from last summer called "Bubblenet Bonanza".)

We did see a couple of humpbacks on our way though, also heading north like us.

Today's cruise was long and gray and pretty chill. I made breakfast under way (used the last of our crab for a little crab/benedict/florentine concoction), and we took turns showering, working out, and napping.

Fairview Terminal cranes as we entered Prince Rupert:

We arrived at Prince Rupert around 4:30pm and are staying at the new Cow Bay Marina. It's super nice! They've got power and water on the docks, trash and recycling, and their showers and washrooms go in…maybe tomorrow. So they're almost there! We walked up and had an early dinner at the Cow Bay Cafe (so good!!) and we're checking weather to see if tomorrow looks good enough for a Dixon Entrance crossing. If so, it'll be another 80 mile day. Woohoo!

Today's route from Hartley Bay to Prince Rupert (78.7 nautical miles, 10 hours 47 minutes):

The Ditch and The Payoff (Spoiler: More Humpbacks!)

Laura Domela — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 22:16:27 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska (and BC)

Prince Rupert (AK) — Lowe Inlet (BC) — Khutze Inlet (BC) — Jackson Passage (BC) — Shearwater (BC)

Sunday was a 58 mile day and a good chunk of it was in Grenville Channel. Grenville Channel is a 42-mile long narrow channel that locals call “The Ditch”. It can be rather boring. On our way up to Alaska it was not boring (even though it kinda was) because “Hey! We’re going to Alaska!!” but on Sunday, it was a bit boring. It was rainy and foggy and so there was not much scenery. The scenery in the first place is pretty much just trees and waterfalls which, yes, I know, is nice…there’s just not that much variety. Anyway, I didn’t take many photos because it was kind of a boring cruise day.

Here’s a container ship being loaded (or offloaded, I couldn’t tell) as we left Prince Rupert. Needs a little off the starboard side, or more on port.

There were three other boats in Lowe Inlet where we anchored for the night…all boats we’d seen before this summer (some a few times): a big yachty-yacht called Serengeti, a Nordhavn called Arcadia II, and a super cute wooden boat called Poplar:

We got underway first thing and headed the rest of the way down Grenville Channel and toward a spot we picked that we hadn’t been before (therefore skipping Bishop Hot Springs…awwwww): Khutze Inlet. It sounded really pretty and was about 50 miles, so another day of making miles.

Leaving Lowe Inlet on Monday morning:

The weather was again rainy and gray and often foggy, and so there was even less scenery than the day before, and a few times we just looked at each other and shrugged. We haven’t had many (if any) boring cruise days, but we were feeling the boredom of The Ditch, for sure.

As we neared a little cove toward the south end of Grenville, Kevin spotted a few humpbacks. Yay! Wildlife! Then, he said “Hey, what is that bubbling? Is it just whales hanging out on the surface?”

Nope.

And so began the HOURS of humpbacks bubble feeding that we happily added on to our long day of making miles, as we slowly paralleled three (maybe four?) separate groups of humpbacks, bubble net feeding. This was the best yet.

Bubble net feeding is a really cool cooperative feeding thing that humpbacks do, where a group of whales swim in a shrinking circle blowing bubbles beneath a school of fish. This shrinking column of bubbles surrounds the school of fish and forces them up to the surface where the humpbacks then eat 'em all up.

We could SEE the circles of bubbles long before the whale mouths punched through the surface…over and over and over and OVER again. It was insane. And for a total change up, Kevin took stills with my (sad, disabled) Nikon (and then I processed them and made ‘em all shiny), and I shot video with my iPhone (and Kevin edited the video together and made IT all shiny). First, here’s the video:

And here are some stills (circle forming, the first whale's fin punches through the water's surface on the right):

I'd trade 42 miles of boring fog and limited scenery for a couple of hours of that, wouldn't you?

Well, we finally had had enough of all this bubble feeding nonsense (not at all) and broke away (after about 23 “okay just one more”s) so we could get to our next anchorage before dark.

We turned into Graham Reach and about 20 minutes later noticed some humpbacks up ahead breaching! Good, because we were getting a little bored. We saw probably a dozen breaches from a distance but didn’t get any photos. We did get a few shots of a pretty active fin-slapper though:

This one would hang out and slap fins on the surface for a while (while two or three others swam nearby) and then twice, just as I thought “okay let’s move on…this is cool but we’ve seen it” the fin slapper would come up and breach RIGHT. THERE. Twice I missed the shot (but saw it with my eyeballs, so that’s cool).

We continued on to Khutze Inlet and anchored on Monday night near the head by the river, then made some sockeye tacos and a salad for dinner. The fog and rain continued, but it cleared enough to get this shot of our neighbor and the giant waterfall:

Whoa! A little bit of (short-lived) blue sky on Tuesday morning:

We left Khutze Inlet and our plan was to head to Rescue Bay, or an anchorage in a little bight in Jackson Passage just before the narrows (before Rescue Bay).

We ended up anchoring on Tuesday night in the little bight (room for about one boat) and it was nice. The wind picked up significantly sometime in the middle of the night, but we were secure and slept well. (Thanks, Rocna!)

This morning we headed for Shearwater. Jackson Narrows was no big deal, then we made our way down Mathieson Channel, through Perceval Narrows (arriving right around slack), then took the Reid Passage shortcut down to Seaforth Channel (where we briefly encountered some 6-8 foot ocean swells making their way in…woohoo!). The rest of the route to Shearwater was fairly calm and just gray and drizzly.

Here are our maps:

Sunday — Prince Rupert to Lowe Inlet (58.5 nautical miles)

Monday — Lowe Inlet to Khutze Inlet (56.5 nautical miles):

Tuesday — Khutze Inlet to unnamed anchorage in Jackson Passage (42.5 nautical miles):

Wednesday/today — Unnamed anchorage in Jackson Passage to Shearwater, BC (34 nautical miles):

From Shearwater we'll continue checking weather and decide when and where to stage for our Cape Caution/Queen Charlotte Sound crossing. We may go to Pruth Bay and wait (where there is also internet) instead of further (closer to the crossing) to Fury Cove (where there is no internet, and where that mean eagle took down Kevin's quadcopter). We'll play it by ear (and by weather) for now.

Two Nights in Prince Rupert, BC

Laura Domela — Sun, 06 Sep 2015 11:00:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

We spent two nights in Prince Rupert because (1) see previous post and (2) we needed to do laundry and stock up on some produce (and wine).

Atlin Terminal and public market in Cow Bay:

There are some great murals around town! I think both of these are by an artist named Jeff King, but I need to do some research to learn more (slow internet does not make for well-researched blog posts):

This mural is in progress around the corner from Sea-Sport Outboard and Marine. Under that tarp is a really great (huge) snarling bear head:

Yesterday we worked a bunch in the morning, then dropped our laundry off at the King Coin Laundromat in town at around 1pm. (Yes, I know! I said "dropped our laundry off! Crazy!!). After that, we returned the unneeded replacement macerator pump (Kevin did this while I shopped a little bit at the clothing shop next door…bought three very cute items!), then we went to Safeway and the BC Liquor Store to reprovision. We had some less-than-awesome Safeway sushi for lunch, unpacked groceries, and hung out and worked for a bit in the afternoon.

Then later (before picking up our clean, folded laundry that someone else did for us!) we went to the Cow Bay Cafe for dinner. It was fantastic!

It's just a quick walk up from the Prince Rupert Rowing & Yacht Club (where we're staying), and the food was fabulous, fresh, and creative. We ordered all specials…nothing from the fixed menu. We started with some prawns wrapped with sockeye and a rainbow beet salad with goat cheese, and ordered the two entree specials: tenderloin with wild mushroom risotto and vegetables (amazing, cooked perfectly) and a pappardelle with seafood (prawns, mussels, clams, sockeye). Great meal!

After dinner we hoofed it back a mile or so up town to King Coin to pick up our clean and folded laundry that someone else did for us. Did I mention we didn't do our own laundry today? It's so awesome having someone else do your laundry on a trip like this…I had no idea how great it would be. The sign on the front door of King Coin says something like "Do all your laundry in 4 minutes. 2 minutes to drop it off and 2 minutes to pick it up." It's going to be tough to ever do our own laundry again. Everything was clean and folded and smelled nice and all we had to do was carry it a mile up town and a mile back.

We'll be heading for Lowe Inlet next…about 58 miles from Prince Rupert (a lot of that taken up by the long, narrow, kinda boring Grenville Channel). I think Grenville Channel is the one they lovingly refer to as "The Ditch."

Foggy Bay (AK) to Prince Rupert (BC)

Laura Domela — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 16:11:06 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

Early morning in Foggy Bay, AK:

We got up early yesterday morning (even though we stayed up pretty late the night before watching the Northern Lights) and decided to get this whole Dixon Entrance thing behind us. It was super calm for most of our cruise to Prince Rupert. Leaving Foggy Bay:

Calm, calm, calm…

…until we got out toward Green Island, where we had some pretty choppy 3-4 foot wind waves on the beam (likely due to an offshore wind and our proximity to Portland Canal).

Green Island Lighthouse:

The waves were not that big a deal (we tacked a few times just to have them less on our beam), but the bigger deal was that during one of the beamiest waves, my camera (the Nikon D7100 with the 18-300mm lens on it) fell from the pilothouse counter down to the stateroom (kinda far). It turned on and seemed okay, but when I went to use it later, it was not okay. Autofocus doesn't work, and using manual focus works if you follow the little dot in the lower left corner that tells you when your subject is in focus, because through the viewfinder…it never actually looks focused (and yes, I messed with the little diopter thingy). So we have some issues there. I can use the "live view" mode and frame a shot on the LCD on the back of the camera, and the autofocus works in that mode, so I guess that's what I'll do until we get home and to the camera shop. Dangit dangit dangit.

When we were about two hours from Prince Rupert, we called CanPass and cleared customs by telephone. (This was smooth worked as it should, unlike that other slightly annoying but comedic time in Bedwell Harbor).

Here's our route from Foggy Bay, AK to Prince Rupert, BC (about 52 nautical miles):

Here's a further zoomed out version on the chart so you can get a feel for the area we were crossing:

Day 18 – Prince Rupert to Ketchikan

Laura Domela — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 02:23:56 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska – Day 18

(Hi from Ketchikan…we made it!)

The alarm went off at 4am this morning in Prince Rupert and we got up and checked the weather for Dixon Entrance again. It was the same forecast. Waves less than a meter. Wind something something no big deal, and then by tomorrow afternoon it was supposed to pick up (both wind and waves) so our decision to do the whole trip today was still a good plan.

Mark and Margaret delivered briefings (and cinnamon rolls and chocolate covered espresso beans–so sweet!) and off we went!

Passing the Hai Qing from Hong Kong in the harbor on our way across to Venn Passage:

Working our way through Venn Passage:

Green Island Lighthouse (the most northerly lighthouse in British Columbia, built in 1905):

That thing that looks like a zip line running down to the rocks and the sea is actually how they get supplies from boats up to the lighthouse. Imagine hanging out there unloading stuff in that water by those rocks. Nope.

Entering Dixon Entrance:

We saw some dolphins or porpoises (it was still kinda dark) and then a humpback right off our nose:

Our crossing was not bad at all. A little chop early, and then some smallish swells on the beam. Just like we'd planned.

We arrived in Ketchikan after a 10 hour cruise (it didn't seem that long!). Here's Thelonius with a cruise ship backdrop:

We all stopped at the fuel dock and fueled up and cleared customs at the same time. Convenient, and painless (and even fun…our customs guy was really nice, and funny…in a dry way).

Here we are in our new spot at Bar Harbor North:

Today was gray all day with a little bit of drizzle as we arrived in Ketchikan. We got checked in and then walked up to Safeway to get some provisions.

We met tonight for dinner at some nearby pub up the street at the Best Western (not fancy, but good), and then tomorrow night we'll head to the chandlery to spend some boat dollars, then probably to Totem Bight State Park, later on to a funky pub down near Creek Street, and then we'll meet for our "farewell dinner" (sniff sniff) at the Cape Fox Lodge.

The cruise ship schedule for tomorrow in Ketchikan is thick with 8,300 cruise shippers on four boats. Two of the boats leave at 1pm, and two of them leave at 6pm (which is, not coincidentally, when most of the shops close). I think on Friday there will only be 6,400 cruise shippers in town. Oh well…we've been in the BC boonies for a couple weeks, so it's kinda fun to get to civilization (and then some) for a few days before heading back out.

The clouds cleared this evening and the light was gorgeous on our marina neighbors:

Here's today's track (83 nautical miles, 10 hours 35 minutes):

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):