We had a beautiful cruise on water like glass. 5 1/2 hours. We are the only boat in Baker Inlet – amazing! We put out crab traps and enjoyed the scenery.
Leaving Prince Rupert
To get into Baker Inlet we needed to pass through a very narrow entryway.
In the morning we had 3 crabs. Delish! We hauled anchor and decided to do a short cruise to a dock (no services) so we could watch the soccer game at noon. Best laid plans – that did not happen! Never willingly cruise into broiling water! Leaving that tight, narrow and curving passage was BAD. I saw it through the binoculars before we entered and mentioned it – but it had been so easy the day before! We almost crashed and smashed the boat. It could have been so bad. The energy of the water was just swirling us around all over. And the rocks! We were both shook up for the rest of the day. I double checked the cruising guides – neither said anything about the currents. Later, I found the current chart and realized there was probably a 5 – 6 knot current in there. We had just happened to hit it the day before at slack. We both learned a lot and luckily, we live to boat another day.
When we got to the dock it didn’t look like anything we wanted to tie up to and the water was amazingly calm and beautiful. I hated to stop. Norm started trying to get the soccer game, wondering if we could stream it (Star Link) while cruising. What he found out is that we could not get it at all due to being in Canada and our streaming services being U.S. He was not happy. He did some cleaning and organizing instead. Oh well.
We went to a very small marina, Hartley Bay. Population 140. Cute area all on boardwalks. People use gold carts to get around. We did not stay. The docks were in extremely rough shape and they wanted us to raft – tie sideways along another boat. 3 more boats came in while we were there – looked to me like if they had more space it would be full. Mooring ball field?
We found a lovely anchorage in Coughlin. As soon as we left in the morning we started seeing whale blows. At least 12! These are humpback whales and they’re very hard to get good pictures of; we did see many tails flipping. We continued to see humpback whales all day. Nice!
We are continuing making our way south, trying to stop in spots new to us. After months of grey, cold and rain the weather seems to have turned to summer. It may sound cold at 64, but it feels wonderful. Blue sky! We made it to Windy Bay on the edge of Fiordland. Put out crab traps and pulled up 2 more – just enough for dinner tonight. It’s Wednesday, July 15. We left at 9:15 so we could time the 1st of 2 narrows today. Mathison Narrows (easy) and Perceval Narrows. It’s amazing that after cruising 6 hours we hit Perceval Narrows at exactly slack. And just like that we’re back in Shearwater. Since we were here on the way up a new restaurant opened and we’re going to try it out.
Looking forward to 2 new villages and then staging to cross Cape Caution again.