Fluenta in Prince Rupert - Back in Canada !

Eventually the weather looked good enough and we departed Ketchikan for Prince Rupert. Especially this late in the season, there is not enough daylight to do the trip in one day so we stopped at Port Tongass for the night.  Port Tongass ironically is not a port and not really even a good anchorage outside of settled weather but it was a place to stop for the night.  We zoomed across Chatham Sounds soon enough where we tied up at the Prince Rupert Rowing and Yacht Club (PRRYC) and were efficiently cleared through Canadian Customs.  It was a bit surreal that we were back in Canada.
 
The Manager of the  PRRYC, Kevin, has to win the prize for the most helpful Yacht Club manager ever.  He was great help as we made some repairs and planned our trip to Haida Gwaii.  Top of the repair list was to replace the leaking exhaust elbow and some of the exhaust hose as well as getting the heater going again now that we had the required parts.  I also managed to renew my well expired BC drivers license before the cut-off for renewals or I would have had to redo the driving tests. 

We always advise people heading out cruising that one of the costs of cruising is the requirement to be constantly vigilant.  Being tied up to a marina we had relaxed a bit but were then surprised to see that storm force winds were forecast for our area.  Our position on the dock was not ideal so we moved the boat as the winds were building into the 20 kt range.  The barometer dropped about 14mb in 13 hours before it shot up in even less time.  At one point the barometric pressure was rising at 5mb/hr. The pilot boat reported gusts into the 70 kt range.  We were pretty exposed and were taking significant waves on the beam that were trying hard to put Fluenta onto the dock. It was fun night - yes these things always happen at night - trying to keep the fenders in position.  Our crazy Argentinian neighbour was even more exposed and I spent some time trying to help him but after a few hours we realised it was rather futile to keep fenders between his hull and the dock.  Thankfully his aluminum boat managed without our help (as a side note the Argentinian, Pablo, lost his previous boat in the North West Passage the year before - http://arcticnorthwestpassage.blogspot.com/2018/10/sv-crystal-recalls-loss-of-sv-anahita.html).

A fishing boat disappears behind the swells as we approach Chatham Sound.

Oh, it is going to get windy.

First it dropped 13 mb in 12 hours - which in itself would lead to a lot of wind - but then it came back up twice as fast.  At one point it was rising 5mb/hr.  0130 in the morning ... of course ...

Hosting Pablo onboard Fluenta.  He was successful on his second attempt at crossing the North West Passage after having his boat crushed by the ice is his first attempt the year before.  More on that here: http://arcticnorthwestpassage.blogspot.com/2018/08/canadian-coast-guard-takes-11-hours-to.html and http://arcticnorthwestpassage.blogspot.com/2018/10/sv-crystal-recalls-loss-of-sv-anahita.html

Oh.  The exhaust elbow is well past needing replacement.  I did have a temporary repair on it that is not shown in this photo.

Last Stop in Alaska - Ketchikan

This was the view for most of the trip to Ketchikan.  Motoring straight into wind and sea ...  Grey and wet.

After our delightful visit with Denali Rose we were back in delivery mode to keep pushing south.  By this time it is late October and a few miles to go until Victoria.

We stopped in Ketchikan for a few days to catch up on maintenance and logistics, to celebrate a birthday, and to wait for less worse weather to push on to Canada.

Cruising is easier now that we have capable teenagers.

And a birthday for our capable teenager Johnathan.

Up the mast to install our new wind sensor (damn eagles).

Helping a new cruiser do some planning.

Last chance to top on cheaper American diesel.  A pod of whales swam by as we were fueling.  Rather distracting.

Meeting up with more friendly Alaskans - SV Denali Rose

Donna and Benjamin comparing notes on their devices.

When we started planning our return to Canada via Alaska we realised that much our time would be in "delivery mode" rather than dawdling enjoying ourselves in one place.  Out of all the amazing places we could stop we decided that we would budget some time to spend several weeks exploring Prince Williams Sound (PWS).  All our research kept pointing to resources that were no longer in print.  Bill on SV Denali Rose helps many folks on-line with a wide variety of boating topics and has extensive experience operating in PWS so I reached out to him while we were still in the Marshall Islands.  Bill had lots of good advice for us and even loaned us a bunch of "rare as rocking horse excrement" resource material.

We could of course mailed the loaned material back to him but it would be a lot more fun to return it in person.  As we were making our way through SE Alaska Bill and Donna suggested that they leave their Wrangall base in their lovely SV Denali Rose to intercept our southerly track.  They picked Red Bay as a place to meet and, conveniently, wait for some unpleasant weather to pass by.  To help us get there he also sent us a GPX track to help us get through the narrow (and aptly named) Rocky Pass.  The US Coastal Pilot describes it as "a narrow, intricate passage about 18 nm long ...  parts are very foul ..."  Other blogs describe it as "Rocky Pass is a narrow, shallow and rock infested passage way" but with Bill's guidance and a bit of planning it was fine.

We made it safety through Rocky Pass and spent an enjoyable two days with Bill and Donna and even remembered to return the books.  I also took the time to overhaul our uncooperative Espar diesel heater under Bill's tutelage in a hope it would work again (the heater not Bill).

Lots of kelp heading through Rocky Pass

Drinks on Denali Rose ...

Followed by the next night by drinks on Fluenta.  Note it is 6C outside.  Getting colder but not bad for mid October.

SV Denali Rose in the distance.  It was forecast to be a gale so we have 10:1 scope in mud with our big Rocna anchor.  Pretty confident we were not going to drag.

Trying to fix the heater.  No luck as I needed parts which I had shipped to Prince Rupert.

Overview chart from Warm Springs Bay to Red Bay.  Point 1 is Devil's Elbow and Point 2 is Red Bay

Larger scale view of Devil's Elbow in Rocky Pass.