Days 44-48: Khutzeymateen Inlet

So this is going to be a long entry, but it's mostly pictures, so bear with me.

With Alan's arrival on Sunday the 27th, "the crew" was officially back together.  So to celebrate the occasion (and clear out some cobwebs), we decided to go for a day sail around Prince Rupert Harbor on Tuesday June 29th.  There was a decent amount of wind, but the day was pretty gloomy but spirits were good.

We spent the afternoon tacking/wearing back and forth as much as we could, just for the practice...and to avoid running into all the freighters anchored in the harbor.

At the end of the day, we felt comfortable with our abilities and decided to plan a sort trip.  After some coffee shop discussion (with charts), we decided to do a 4 day trip up to the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary, around 30 miles north of Prince Rupert.  As the total distance was pretty small, it would give us a chance to "toodle" around, exploring different areas and giving us some more experience at anchoring with getting too far from home base.

Day 1

Day 1 was spent motoring out of Prince Rupert Harbor and starting our way north.  We had a pretty leisurely start, leaving port around 1pm.  The weather was typical Rupert style, scattered clouds with occasional rain.

The leg out of the harbor gave us some chances to practice our chart work, following all the buoys and markers while avoiding traffic.

Some really inexpensive motor yacht and the "C.S. Poopstain"

Outside the harbor, the swell and wind were pretty calm, so we motored along at a pretty good pace.  We decided to anchor in a little bay called Pearl Harbour, no relation to the that other one in Hawaii.  This one apparently got its name from a bright white rock somewhere near the entrance to the bay.

We never saw it...

Pretty nice place though.

Dropping the hook

After dinner, Nick went on deck to do some fishing.  About 2 seconds after his first cast, he "caught" a sockeye salmon...and by caught I mean some fishermen on a neighboring boat saw him fishing and offered to trade us a fish for a 6-pack of beer.  

 Not a bad trade if you ask me.

The harbor was perfectly calm all night and our anchor held no problem.  Pretty relieving as this was the first time we'd ever set the hook on our own.  Night.  Sleep.

Day 2

Day 2 we planned to push on all the way up to the Khutzeymateen Inlet.  We awoke to sunny weather and flat seas.  Always nice.

We motored through Cunningham Passage to keep out of open water for a smoother ride.  This took us right past Port Simpson, a First Nations community and fishing port.  

Well there's something we'd like to avoid...

Further north we passed the entrance into Work Channel.  Fishing boats EVERYWHERE.  We also saw some whales.  Apparently the mouth of the inlet is a good place for the them to feed.  Pictures taken by Nick.

After Work Channel, we were into Steamer Passage, motoring along smoothly.

Towards the entrance of Khutzeymateen Inlet, the wind picked a bit so we decided to put some genoa out.  Bit later, the wind was up to 20 knots blowing straight up the channel.  In order to maximize our attention towards spotting bears, we decided to take the sail down and just motor along.

Then the bear "hunt" was on...

"Vigilance and dexterity are the hallmark of every good bear-spotter"

It was pretty easy to get distracted by the scenery, but we held firm in our mission.  Eventually, our persistence paid off when Nick spotted a young bear on the starboard shore, about 3/4 mile away.

 Awesome.

After the 1st sighting, we were all almost relieved that our Khutz trip could now no longer be a failure.  We continued motoring up the inlet, enjoying the mountains.

At the head of the inlet, there's a floating rangers station with some info about the Sanctuary, grizzlies and First Nations tribes in the area.  We decided to make a quick stop to check it out.

After the rangers station, we continued to the very head of the inlet.  At this point, the actual bear sanctuary starts, and it's illegal to go any further unless you're with a licenced guide service.  So we spun a few circles, looked around, and started back out of the inlet.  A few minutes later I spotted our second bear of the afternoon.  This time, we got quite a bit closer and got to watch it for a bit.  Very cool.

Well hello there.

On the way back out of the inlet, we saw what appeared to be a "high speed" chase between a listing fishing boat and a police cruiser.  Didn't seem like running up a dead-end inlet was the best escape plan...  Very odd.

We ended up anchoring in a small bay called Kumeon Bay at the mouth of the Khutz inlet.  When we arrived, the bay was pretty choppy from the swell rolling up Steamer Passage, but before long it flattened out nicely.

Salmon for dinner, then bed.

Day 3

Day 3, we started the day off with a little dinghy ride to Crow Lagoon, just NE of Kumeon Bay.  The lagoon is a volcanic crater with a very shallow entrance.  The guidebook said that it was actually possible to take larger vessels through the entrance during high tides, but I certainly wouldn't want to try it.

Depth sounder Alan at the bow

Inside we found steep banks with a few large spire-like rock formations.  Very cool little place.

And then we found this place:

Now I'm sure you're wondering, "Gee Garrett, why did you bother to take a picture of this semi-neat-looking-but-not-that-special rock?  It looks pretty uninteresting to me."

Well, I'll show you.

See those red marks?  Those are the 9+ seals that were hangin' out on that *deep breath* semi-neat-looking-but-not-that-special rock just seconds before I took that picture.  They're now giving us the stare down.  A few minutes later, they had taken up "strategic" positions surrounding our dinghy, staring us down.

We shut off the engine and sat quietly watching them watch us.  Every once and awhile one would flop over in the water or call out in some fairly hilarious sounding way.  We figured they were trying to lure us away from that rock, where we noticed a number of wee little seals swimming around.  We took the hint and paddled away.  Never thought seals would be so amusing.

Can you spot the seals?  Ha.

After a wet 'n wild ride through choppy water back to boat, we pulled up the anchor and made our way out of Steamer Passage.  Once we arrived back in open water, we decided to enjoy the sunshine with some sailing.  There was a pretty consistent 15+ knot wind from the SE, so conditions were prime.

Credit to Nick for these next few shots. 

How awesome is this shot?  And Alan's sunglasses?  Oh man.

During our sail, we came as close to Alaska as we're likely to be on this trip: a mere 3.5 miles from US water.

I could almost see Sarah Palin's gun collection from the boat.

After putzing around for a bit, we turned back towards Work Channel, hoping to see some more whales.  No sale.  So instead we continued motoring up Work Channel to an anchorage called Trail Bay about 7 miles in.

Smooth as glass in from inside Trail Bay.

Dropped the anchor a good distance away from a fishing boat and went to bed.

Day 4

Day 4 started off a bit closer to that fishing boat I mentioned than we had been the night before due to some anchor skippage overnight.  Nothing to be concerned about though.  We decided to get underway fairly early in order to catch the tide running out of Work Channel.  Proved to be the right move as we were making almost 7-8 knots down the inlet.  

When we got back into open water, we were greeted by 15-20 knot southerly winds and some pretty choppy seas.  Nothing we weren't expecting from the forecast however, so we started our way south back to Rupert.

"Sploosh"

Trouble with motoring into wind/swell like that is that you don't move along too quickly.  So to get out of the chop for a bit, we ducked back into Cunningham Passage to make up some lost time.  However, after the passage it was back out into the crap.

Vigilance

To my excitement, I didn't notice even a twinge of sea-sickness all day.  Ha-zaaaaa indeed.

After a bit we decided to alter course slightly in order to allow us to put up a bit of sail and help our forward progress.  With about 1/2 the genoa out, we were ripping along at around 5.5 knots, a major improvement over the 3.0 we were doing before.  However, the winds continued to build to around 25+ knots, so we decided to pull in the sail and seek shelter in Duncan Harbor.

Pretty gross outside

On the way to Duncan Harbor, we were passed by at least 20 sport fishing boats making a bee-line for Venn Passage, a narrow shortcut back to Rupert.  It was like someone pulled the fire alarm and everyone was streaming for the exit.  We hadn't initially planned on taking the passage as it's quite shallow in places (no problem for sport boats with 1-2 foot drafts; bit different for us with 8-9 foot).  So we hung out in Duncan, waiting for an updated weather report.  After listening to it, we decided it would take too long to beat into the wind/swell to go around the long way, and that the best option was to make our way through the passage.

We took our time and carefully spotted each of the marker buoys guiding us through.  No problem at all.  

 "Shooting the gap" as we jokingly called it.

By 8:00 pm, we were back on the dock in Rupert.  

By 8:30 pm, we were in Breakers Pub having a pint to celebrate our successful trip.

By 10:30 pm, we were all passed out in our bunks.

By two days later, I've managed to get this rather-long post onto the blog.  

Refitting today (Monday) and heading back out for a 6 day trip around Porcher Island tomorrow.  

Tough life we're living...

Bit more of Rupert, visit to Terrace

Nick and I continued to entertain ourselves in Rupert, waiting for Alan to show up on the 27th.  I decided to tackle the task of patching a few chips in the concrete hull.

Precision work from a dinghy that is rocking up and down proved to be somewhat difficult.  Pretty fun project though.

Photo by Nick

On Sunday, we tagged along with the Donohoe family on a trip to Terrace, BC to visit some of their friends.  I was particularly excited about the trip as I'll be moving to Terrace for an internship, starting in August.  Having never been there before, I kind of wanted to see what I was getting myself in to.

The drive from Rupert to Terrace is pretty amazing.  The highway follows the Skeena River through a very scenic river valley.  Lots of large mountains, waterfalls, etc.  Awesome stuff, but sadly the tinted windows of the Eurovan we were in didn't cater too well for photographs.  You'll just have to go check it out yourself.

After a brief driving tour of Terrace, we headed out to a cottage in Rosswood on Kitsumkalum Lake, just north of Terrace.  Alan's parents (and little Alan himself) lived in the cottage a bunch of years back and have remained friend with the current owners.  Beautiful property located right on the lake.

They were having a birthday party, so lots of "Terraceites" were in attendance.  I met a bunch of very friendly people, which helped to ease my nerves about moving a bit.  Hopefully everything goes well.

Kitsumkalem Lake

No idea why climbing on driftwood is so fun...

Lastly, I've got a few pictures of some awesome boats I've seen coming/going in the harbor.  Yes, this post is another one of those jumbled, random ones.  I promise it's the last one for a bit.

I have a bit of an obsession with 2-masted sailboats...

Follow up from Calvert Island

Kelsey, one of the U. Vic students on Calvert Island, was nice enough to email me some pictures she took from our weekend there.

1st picture is of our teams’ perfect execution of “The Sprinkler.”  Quite the crowd pleaser.

2nd shot is our 3rd place victory ceremony.  Sick.

The others she sent sent are too embarrassing for public eyes...

She also sent along an awesome picture of a wolf they got with an infrared camera.  I’ll be pretty jealous is anyone sees one in real life.

Thanks again Kelsey!

At dock in Prince Rupert

Prince Rupert.  Where to start.

For those that don't know much about PR (what all the locals call it...or possibly just Nick and I), it's located HERE:

 

View Larger Map

Some fun facts about PR:

Yay!

So it rains a lot in Rupert.  We were made very aware of this fact within about 12.5 minutes of tying up at the dock.  The weekend were arrived was weekend of the 16th annual Seafest celebration.  Coincidentally, this Seafest was actually celebrating the 100th birthday of PR itself.  So ya.  Happy birthday.

That said, it absolutely poured down rain for most of the weekend; as in Indian monsoon style.  We went and checked out the Seafest parade, which went off without a hitch, just possibly with a few more rain jackets than originally planned.  Gotta give the participants credit though.  They were troopers.  I'd have pictures, but my camera isn't waterproof.  So ya.

Saturday night was the Seafest Beer Garden, which was held in a hockey arena.  Alan's parents hooked us up with some local "Rupe Dogs" (again, I think only Nick and I use that term...).  Fun times.  Met a bunch of people from PR, Kitimat, Terrace and Smithers.  Twas a good night. 

On Sunday, Nick and I went and checked out the "Race for Survival."  It basically entailed putting on a survival suit, then swimming out to a life raft anchored just out from a dock.  

It was a race against time, plus you got bonus points for "stylish entries" into the water.  Nick and I came up with a guaranteed winner, which we will unveil next year to much applause.  Either that, or we'll share it with Alan's younger brother.  He'll be the envy of all his friends.  It's THAT good.

The Captain departed for Vancouver on Tuesday morning.  Nick and I quickly involved ourselves in a number of little jobs around the boat.  Our primary focus was a leak in the exhaust system.  

 Frazzled exhaust hose and some cracks in the welding.  No good.

Fresh welds.  Peeertty. 

I took the better part of the week running around to all kinds of local shops, but we finally got it working smoothly.  I say "we" but it was pretty much all Nick.  I've mostly occupied myself by patching some chips in the hulls, painting, polishing, etc.  "Bright work" as we call it. 

The weather turned awesome just after Seafest had ended (ironic).  Sunshine, warm temperatures, etc.  Nick and I took advantage and decided to climb the local Mt. Hayes.  8.5k distance and 708m vertical from sea level.  Good exercise, but somewhat painful hike in skate shoes.

Found another Blair Witch style building on the way.  Apparently it was an old bunker of some sort.

Views from the summit were quite awesome.

 "I can see my hou...errr, boat from here"

I had a little "bald eagle photoshoot" up top.  Yes I know I said I was done photographing eagles, but these were just too close to pass up.  

"And the rockets red glare..."

Nick didn't appreciate my patriotic singing...

National Geographic, here I come.

Some hilarity to be had with this last little feathery guy.  We watched him try to land on a round radio transmitter of some sorts, only to skid awkwardly across the top, sailing right off the other side.  He immediately flew off, acting like nothing had happened.  Same idea as watching a cat fall off a television or something, but even more "regal."  But we saw it all. 

Click for full panorama goodness.

On the way down we found...a bathtub?

Most epic tub I've ever sat in, that's for sure.

One night last week, I decided to stay up late enough to take some sunset pictures.  This is more of feat than it originally sounds, as the sun NEVER FREAKIN' SETS.  Well ok, it does eventually...for about 20 minutes.  No no, I'm exaggerating. 

But seriously, it's light here for way too long.   My internal clock = screwed.

All of those shots were taken handheld, without a tripod.  I'm officially a fan of Nikkor's "Vibration Reducing" lenses.  Awesome.

Other randomness from this week included "Cruise Ship Day."  

Rupert is a stopping point for a lot of the cruise ships traveling between Washington and Alaska.  Apparently they get one to two ships per week during the summer.  This basically provides an influx of around 2000 tourists, once a week, for about 6 hrs.  There's a mad flush of touristy stuff all happening within 20 minutes of it docking; sea kayaking, sight-seeing floatplane rides, whale watching tours, etc.  All the bars/restaurants are instantly packed with somewhat overweight folks.  Then they all get back on the boat and peace out.  Rather odd to watch.

In other situations, this sight would be most concerning...

These pictures don't really do justice to how big this ship was.  Once it was docked, it was literally the tallest building in the entire city, even though it was at sea level and the other buildings were on hills.  Massive.  Watching it dock itself was pretty impressive as well.  

Well, if you're still reading, I'm amazed because this post is not the most organized thing ever.  So just finish off this seemingly random assortment of letters/pictures/numbers, here's a shot of a windshield that Nick and I ingeniously created to keep the bbq from blowing out in 20 knot winds. 

Worked like a charm.

Alan arrives on Sunday.  Exciting!  

Oh and it's raining (surprise!).