I’ll combine a couple of day’s blogs, since not a lot happened yesterday. Yesterday started at Port McNeill just taking care of boat business - filling some tanks, emptying others - and we finally got away around 10 AM. The weather was good, overcast but no rain. We were heading down Johnstone Strait, which has a really bad reputation when the wind and tidal currents are against each other. Luckily, we had a favorable current and little wind most of the day. A pleasant ride, with just a little chop now and then, but, for the most part, smooth.
Our destination was Port Harvey, where we have stayed before at the marina. The marina is being rebuilt, and doesn’t have a lot in the way of amenities, so we just anchored out in the bay this time. I put out some crab pots, since this was where we got the first crab of the trip, but no luck this time. We did have a bunch of crabmeat in the freezer, however, and Elaine made Crab Pasta Pizzicato. This was a dish we both had in Prince Rupert, so she just had to try it. Her explanation: “It’s crab and pasta with an Alfredo sauce, but instead of milk products you use lemon juice and vermouth then add capers.” Somehow I think that ends up being a lot different than an Alfredo sauce, but it was incredibly good, anyway.
This morning we headed further southeast on Johnstone Strait in a steady rain. The tidal currents were both for and against us during the day, but the fastest currents, through Race Passage, were strongly in our favor at about 4-5 knots. That passage was also the area of least visibility, with fog dropping visibility down to less than a quarter mile at times. Definitely radar time. It felt kind of like flying an airplane on instruments only, looking at the GPS to determine location, checking the speed and depth every minute or so and always keeping an eye on the radar to make sure you weren’t headed toward anything (or anything was headed toward you), going 11 or 12 knots. Current that fast causes a lot of swirls, whirlpools and overfalls, all of which affect the handling of the boat, so no autopilot, since you had to react quickly to all of the movement of the water. A nice feature of our instruments is that they can overlay the radar image on top of the electronic chart image, making it easier to identify “targets” that are not land masses.
We got into Blind Channel Resort by early afternoon. We had hoped to stop by here on our way north, but it just didn’t work out. Even though it was pouring down rain, we took advantage of some trails nearby to hike to a 900-year-old cedar tree out in the rain forest. The sign at the beginning of the trail warned of bear, cougar and wolves, but Elaine had her trusty “bear bell” (better known in the Grizzly clans as a “dinner bell”) tied to her shoelace, so we were safe - wet, but safe!
Back at the boat we cleaned up (the trail was kinda muddy) and will be going to dinner at the resort’s restaurant…
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