Friday June 11 - Day 26

After spending a relaxing day in Lowe Inlet, we were all pretty anxious to get “back on the road” per-say.  So early Friday morning, we motored back out into Grenville Channel with intentions of getting all the way to Prince Rupert, around 64 miles away.

 The Captain rocking his war-wound from the day before

By hanging out in Lowe Inlet for a day, we had allowed the winds to shift from NW, a headwind, to S a trailing wind.  When we arrived out in the channel, we were greeted by around 20 knot gusts coming from almost directly aft.  So we decided some sail was in order.

Genoa rigged with a whisker pole.  Very effective

The moment we got the sail all set up, our boat speed went up by about 1.5 knots.  Pretty significant.  Between the motor, the sails/wind and the current (which we timed perfectly), we were making 7+ knots through the water, which is damn impressive for our boat.  We actually broke 9 knots over-ground speed at one point.

Just cookin’ with gas

The Talofa Lee is equipped with an autopilot system, which can be a god-send for longer trips as you don't have to man the helm the whole time.  However, it takes some fine tuning and attention to operate properly, especially when sailing downwind or in choppy conditions.  It’s usually controlled by a small knob in the front of the cockpit, but you can also attach a funky little remote control allowing you to move all over the boat and still control the heading.  So after rigging the remote up, I was able to steer from the comfy seat.

18-ton remote control boat

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start!

The winds picked up a bit as we exited Grenville Channel.  By the time we were in the harbor approaching Prince Rupert, the fog was coming in and visibility went down significantly.  Perfect time for some radar practice!

We knew she was going to pop up at some point

After some excitement in Prince Rupert harbor, arrived, tying up to the Prince Rupert Rowing and Yacht Club. 

64 1/2 miles in just over 8 1/2 hrs!  That’s an AVERAGE of 7.6 knots!  Pretty amazing stuff. 

In Rupert, we were greeted by Alan’s parents, John and Joanna.  Very nice people. 

So ya, landed in Rupert. 

Thursday June 10 - Day 25

We awoke Thursday morning to a bit of a surprise in the harbor.

That you don’t see everyday. 

Remember how I mentioned that anchoring at high tide was a bad idea?  Well, case + point.  The inlet had a very large shoal that came surprisingly far out from shore (apparently further than they expected as well).  Over the next few hours, the tide came back in and the boat slowly righted itself.  By high tide, they were floating and made their way out of the inlet.

After breakfast, we listened to the weather report and decided the NW gale winds were enough of a reason to just stay put for the day.  The inlet was beautiful and there were some hiking trails on shore we wanted to explore.  So we fired up the dinghy and headed out.

Verney Falls were in full roar as it was low tide.  The photography was good, but the bugs were bad. 

We decided to take the “short hike” up to a second set of waterfalls about 0.5 mile away.  However, this turned out to be no simple walk in the woods.

Bush-wack city.

As we neared the falls, the Captain took a bit of spill but kept on trucking.

Red Badge of Courage. 

We hung out at the 2nd falls until the bugs became too much, then headed back to the boat.  The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing/napping/reading/etc.  All the other boats had departed, so we had the inlet ourselves.  I took advantage of this situation to play some guitar on the aft deck chair (no one to bother...expect the Captain and Nick I suppose).  Scenic as heck.  If only my guitar skills could have adequately represented it.

We decided on an early start the next day.  The winds were supposed to switch around to southerly and we wanted to catch the early flood tide for some added speed.  Our plan was to push all the way to Prince Rupert, around 64 1/2 miles away.  That may not seem like that far, but at 5 miles per hour, it’s a different story.

In great spirits

Dinner.  Cribbage. Reading.  Bed.  Sleep.

Cribbage

 

I forgot to make a post about my amazing cribbage achievement the other day!

For those that don’t know, cribbage is a card game involving a wooden board and pegs.  Basically its a race to the end of the board and you move along by gaining points from your hand and from the play.  I’m sure Wikipedia can give you a better description if you’re that interested...

ANYWAYS, I used to play all the time when I was younger, as both my grandfather and my dad were big fans of the game and quite good at it to boot.  I have fond memories (well, fond now; not so much at the time...) of being skunked (aka beaten soundly, by 31+ points to be exact) by my grandfather on multiple occasions.  As it turns out, the Captain is a cribbage man as well, so we’ve all been playing quite regularly this trip. 

Well last week I got the highest scoring hand I have every had in my playing career.  24 points.  For reference, 26 is the best hand possible.  *edit - actually, I've been corrected.  The best hand is worth 29 points!  Thanks Scotty!*

My cards were:  6 7 7 8 with an 8 on the flop.

Count it:
15-2, 15-4, 15-6, 15-8
Pair of 7s for 10, pair of 8s for 12
4 runs of 3 for 24.

Sick.

Wednesday June 9 - Day 24

We left Swanson Bay around 8am to continue motoring north up Princess Royal Channel. 

We decided to make a quick stopover at Butedale, an abandoned town on Frasier Reach.  Butedale used to be the site of a fish cannery.  After the cannery closed, most the population abandoned the town, leaving it to ruin. 

Apparently some hippies moved in around the 1990s, but being hippies, they didn’t do much to keep the town in repair.  About 9 years ago, Lou, the current caretaker, moved in and kicked all the hippies out.  Since then, he’s lived there with just his dog and cat for company.  Pretty interesting guy.  Takes a certain kind of person to live along for 9 years. 

This is Lou

The town itself is a photographer’s dream.  I could have easily spent a week taking pictures, but sadly I only had around 30 minutes. 

Remnants of the old cannery.  

Apparently someone 'stole' the warehouse...as in took the entire building away.

This is possibly the coolest looking dog ever.

Luo has fixed up the old hydro power station.  He produces just enough to charge some batteries and run the essentials.  Pretty awesome system.

 I thought the irony of this boat’s name in this town was just perfect.

So after a brief visit, we continued heading north up the Princess Royal Channel. 

 "Isolated showers" indeed

Later that day, we were visited by 4 dolphins, which was pretty much beyond awesome.  They came out of nowhere and spent around 4 minutes playing around the bow of the boat.  Very difficult to photograph because: 1. they move really freakin’ fast and 2. I had my long lens on my D90.  So I ended up settling for a few point/shoot shots and a bunch of video.  I’ll post the video when I can. 

So awesome.

Later I did laundry.

The wind picked up (a headwind...of course) as we entered Grenville Channel, so the going was quite slow. 

Eventually we made it into Lowe Inlet, which is a Provincial Marine Park area.  Pretty neat little sheltered cove with a waterfall at the head.  There were a bunch of other boats anchored when we arrived, including the Maple Leaf, a beautiful schooner that runs charters up and down the BC coast.  Very impressive boat.

After a few attempts at anchoring, we ending up having to settle with a spot in around 100ft of water. 

Now for those that don’t know how anchoring works, you have to put out quite a bit more length of chain than just the depth of the water.  2 to 1 is pretty much minimum, 3 to 1 or more is preferable.  It’s also preferable to anchor at low tide (remember this one for later...).  So in 100 ft of water, that means a lot of chain.  We put out around 220 ft and hoped for the best.  The rest of the night, we got to listen to the groaning and creaking as the chain strained away. 

Thankfully though, it held.

Tuesday June 8 - Day 23

Leaving Kynumpt Harbor we headed west, back out towards open water.  This, understandably, had me a bit nervous.

The Captain says this ship passes his house in West Van.

How big were the swells going to be?

Would my stomach (or I guess inner ear?) decide to man up to the occasion?

Would Chicago win the Stanley Cup that night? 
Or will Philthy (no I didn’t spell that wrong) force a Game 7?

All these thoughts were running through my head as we pointed towards the big blue.  Thankfully, I felt fine for the enter 2-hour stint of open water we had to cover.

Before long we were back on the leeward side of some island, sheltered from the swell.  Before long, we came across Roderick Island, which is a landscape unit I’ve done some pretty extensive work on in my forestry studies.  Pretty neat to put an actual place to the satellite images and datasets I’ve been working with.

Roderick Island

Light station at the entrance to Tolmie Channel

Somewhere along the way, the Captain spotted his 2nd set of whales this trip (he's officially the whale-spotter on this trip).  This time there were around 4 of them, including some babies and a male.  They swam along the channel next to us for the better part of 15 minutes.  Bit further away this time, so my 200mm lens wasn’t quite enough to get any GREAT shots.  Still got some keepers though.

We've had pretty awesome luck with the marine wildlife so far.

Our long day of motoring ended in Swanson Bay, the site of an old abandoned fish cannery.  Only the old smoke stack and building pilings were still visible.  The backdrop was pretty amazing though, with some big still snow-capped peaks.  Can’t say I expected to look out a porthole and see snowy mountains anywhere on this trip.  Somehow forgot to get any pictures though.  Sawreeeee...