Cape Caution – Riveted

Crossing Cape Caution | BC

Laura Domela — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 01:46:39 +0000

This was our fourth crossing of Cape Caution. The first one was the only one that was a little bit uncomfortable (6 foot swells at 4-5 seconds apart). The rest have been relatively calm and uneventful. (When you have the time to wait for a good weather window, you can be picky about when you do your crossing.) This one was boring. I napped for the actual crossing of the Cape. Yawn. Sleepy. There was no land in view, barely any water in view, and only an occasional other boat on AIS (also not in view). We had radar going but mostly the screen was blank. See? Boring. (Wind was 5kts or less, swells were around 3 feet…around 8 seconds or more, and as you can see…visibility sucked. We’ll take it!)

While Kevin was napping I passed an otter chillin’…he was only about 25ft from the boat as I went by and he just floated there watching me pass. I said hello (actually I said “Hey buddy!”) and took his photo.

As we got a ways into Queen Charlotte Strait, the fog started to clear and we could see land.

Behind us, out toward the Pacific (that dot is a fishing boat):

Ahead of us, toward Port McNeill (today’s destination):

It was sunny and warm as we arrived. We got settled at the North Island Marina and then walked (T-shirts only, no jackets!) up to the IGA market to stock up on veggies and a few other things. Our plan is to head back across the strait tomorrow and hang out in the Broughtons a bit…maybe go to some places we haven’t been yet (along with a few repeat favorites).

They had giant bunches of fragrant (local) fresh basil at the market, so tonight we’re going to make some tortellini and toss it with fresh basil, grape tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and a little olive oil and salt.

Airship to Alaska | Day 9 | Crossing Cape Caution

Laura Domela — Mon, 16 May 2016 05:30:46 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska 2016

5:00am at Port McNeill

Current Weather:
Queen Charlotte Strait: Wind light
Queen Charlotte Sound: Wind light
Central Coast from McInnes Island to Pine Island: Wind light. Seas 1 metre or less
West Sea Otter Buoy: Waves 0.7 metres at 15 seconds. Wind WSW 6 gusting to 8
All the way up at South Hecate Strait: Waves 0.8 metres at 15 seconds. Wind WSW 10 gusting to 12

Couldn't ask for better. Follow us around by clicking "Where is Airship?" in the right column! Next stop: Fury Cove.

Catching Up (and, we are now past Cape Caution!)

Laura Domela — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 20:41:00 +0000

Shearwater, Pruth Bay, and Sullivan Bay, BC

While in Shearwater on Wednesday afternoon we got a few groceries at the market there, and hung out at the Fisherman's Bar & Grill and worked for a few hours. Shearwater is great, but the internet there kinda sucks. The free internet didn't work at all, so we splurged on the "Premium" internet (13 bucks) which only barely worked (but none of it worked from the dock). Oh well.

We were hanging out after dinner with a glass of wine and our books when we got a knock on the door. It was Ray and Denise, who've also been exploring Alaska by boat all summer. They follow the blog and we've kept up via email, but until Shearwater BC we'd never been in the same place at the same time (save one night in Juneau when we were on the hard and they were leaving early the next morning). It was great to finally meet in person! We were both heading south and decided we'd both head to Pruth Bay together in the morning if the weather forecast for crossing Cape Caution and the open waters of Queen Charlotte Sound continued to look good.

The weather for crossing on Friday looked good, so we headed to Pruth Bay on Thursday. Thursday was warm and gorgeous at Shearwater as we headed out.

Passing Bella Bella:

The cruise to Pruth Bay down Fitz Hugh Sound looked mostly like this:

Until we turned into Kwakshua Channel, where we eventually were running in some pretty dense fog. Ray and Denise were already anchored in Pruth Bay when we arrived. We saw them on radar long before we saw the actual boat:

We anchored a little further into the head of the bay and then got in the dinghy to go to shore and explore a bit.

The dock for the Hakai Beach Institute:

The Hakai Institute is a research center specializing in long term ecological research. It has active research programs in archaeology, earth sciences, terrestrial ecology, and marine ecology.

They have internet that they let visitors use (and it gets all the way out to the boat!) There's a 100MB cap per device, but we just needed to check weather in the morning so it was plenty!

We decided to hike over to West Beach. The trails are a nicely kept up combination of boardwalk and gravel/dirt:

We've been told that West Beach is one of the most beautiful beaches on the coast here, with white sand beaches and gorgeous ocean views. Unfortunately, it was still totally socked in with fog, but it was still very pretty. I'd like to come back when it's sunny though!

These rocks look a little too Disney, don't you think? All those straight lines look kinda fakey.

A pixely log:

Sand and fog:

Back at the dinghy dock I managed to get a couple of cool jellyfish photos:

Hey, we've got a new neighbor:

We got back to the boat and were in the middle of cooking dinner and just like that, the fog went away.

We invited Denise and Ray over for a glass of wine after dinner…we had fun catching up and telling Alaska stories.

Here's our route from Shearwater to Pruth Bay (44.1 nautical miles):

We set the alarm for 3:55am the next morning (Friday) so we could get up and check the 4am forecast for Queen Charlotte and Cape Caution. All looked good so we pulled our anchor and headed slowly out in the dark and the fog. It was a little eerie…we've never been in these conditions before in our boat. The other times we left at 4am it was earlier in the summer and not actually dark. Here, it was dark. We just went slow, watched the radar, and Kevin did bow watch until it brightened up enough to see any logs from inside the pilot house. It helped that our first stretch was this long 4.5 mile channel, too, but it was still trippy.

I made us some breakfast eventually and then went down to take a nap. I came back up and swapped with Kevin so he could go get a little nap as well. Most of our day today looked like this:

Here's us, crossing Cape Caution (quite a bit more chill than on our way up…6ft waves 4 seconds apart):

We had one short stretch with some gentle 3ft swells and a little bit of chop on top of that (about a foot) but it was calm and foggy for the majority of the day. As we rounded Cape Caution and turned into Queen Charlotte Strait, not much changed either. Due to the pleasant conditions (and the gale warning on deck for tomorrow) we opted to go all the way to Sullivan Bay today, to get in out of the Strait. Today's cruise was 84 miles of pretty boring scenery, but I'll take it!

On our way into Sullivan Bay we stopped to watch a single humpback lunge feeding.

Sullivan Bay is really cute. It's a nice marina with a general store and a restaurant and fuel and stuff, surrounded by a little floating home community.

They are pretty much closed for the summer now though, so we'll head out tomorrow sometime. I tried to see if there was an opening for dinner at Nimmo Bay, but they're booked until September 17th. (Check out their gig…it looks amazing!)

So tomorrow we may head over to Pierre's at Echo Bay…then maybe Kwatsi Bay, then back by Port Harvey…not sure yet. We'll see how the weather looks.

Here's our route from Pruth Bay to Sullivan Bay, crossing Cape Caution (84.5 nautical miles!):

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!