Alaska Trip Day 15

5/30/11

Douglas Bay, Forward Harbour, Mainland B.C.

Miles Motored:  35?

Miles Sailed:  0

We’re very sad on Yare today.  We got word that Jess’ Grandma Helen is very sick.  Please send her a wish or two for comfort if you are able to.

After a relaxed morning in Handfield bay, we left for Blind Channel around 9:00 and arrived at 12:15.  The plan was to fuel up and stay tied up to the dock waiting for the right time to transit Greene Point rapids which is just around the corner.  We were able to use their wifi and that’s when we got the news about Helen.  Even though it felt like we were going the wrong direction, when our time came to leave the dock for slack water at Greene Point, we did.  In memory of our years of Soup Night with Helen in attendance I put on a pot of chili.  Helen always brought amazing desserts and there was no way I could come up with something worthy of her.

We challenged Greene Point about 45 minutes early so we could get to Whirlpool Rapids within 1.5 hours of slack, which according to the guidebook is okay to do.  Greene Point was a piece of cake.  It turned out that we did not have the favorable current we were expecting to push us to Whirlpool rapids so we got there about an hour and 45 minutes after slack and I was pretty worried about it…until I came up in the cockpit.  No big deal.  Seriously…hardly a ripple.

We easily made it through Whirlpool rapids and headed in to anchor in Douglas Bay on Forward Harbour.  The boys loved the chili, baked sweet potato and avocado we gave them for dinner.  Before putting the boys to bed we decided to re-anchor because we didn’t like how much water was under our keel given that we are supposed to have a negative tide at 5:00 am.  Fortunately it wasn’t anything like the mess at Lasqueti Island and we got the boys to bed quietly and quickly.

Forward Harbour is an amazing place.  You anchor at the base of an 1100 meter mountain that is trees from the top to the bottom.  I tried to get pictures the last time we were there, but there is no way you can capture it.  Tonight I was feeling too sad to try again.

We are going to try something new tomorrow.  The boys usually get up to nurse around 5am and then we all go back to bed until about 7am.  Tomorrow when they wake up, I will nurse them and Tor will get us going.  We are thinking that they will be able to go back to sleep with the engine on, since they are used to napping with it, and that way we will be able to get some miles in before the favorable ebb tide changes to flood in the late morning.  The winds are forecast to be high in Johnstone Strait tomorrow, so we want to get as far as we can before they build.  Because of the high wind forecast and the unfavorable flood tide most of the day it looks like we will duck out of Johnstone Strait early and work our way up through the Broughton Islands.