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.