Steady Progress Northward

Sunday May 13 - Tues May 15

Reflection at Rescue Cove

We're making steady progress northward and the weather has been warm and sunny. Unfortunately, we've had wind on the nose for the last two days; today it was up to 25 knots dead ahead.

Chart of Jackson Narrows

Sunday, we left Shearwater, headed out Seaforth Channel and then, to avoid the swells of Milbanke Sound, we slalomed between the rocks in the narrow Reid Passage behind Cecilia Island. Finally, we anchored at Rescue Cove, at the NE corner of Susan Island just before Jackson Narrows. Was sure that there had to be a dramatic tale that gave the cove its name. It turns out that a dog fell off a fishing boat and was rescued in the cove! It should have been a clue that the entrance to Jackson Passage is Spaniel Point! Jackson Narrows has a very narrow and shallow, squeeze-through passage between rocks, but the narrow part is very short. Nevertheless, we do have a good friend who ran aground here. Definitely not a pleasant experience.

Panorama of Jackson Passage

Raven Song in Jackson Passage

Monday was a long day, 45 nm (maybe 80 km). North through Tolmie Channel and Graham Reach, where we saw two orcas (probably transients) feeding. We headed into Khutze Inlet, a place where we'd wanted to anchor years ago but couldn't find space. The anchorage is a small 90-foot deep shelf in front of the mud flats of the expansive estuary; one boat was already there and two boats were arriving behind us! After a careful search, we found the shelf and put the anchor down. Urs lowered the dinghy, we put out the crab trap using the prawn heads for bait and took the dinghy up the river to look for grizzly bears. We did not see any, but observed several young seals and birds about to nest.

Khutz Inlet

What is particularly nice this year, is all the snow-capped mountains. In Khutze at our anchorage we were sitting in the bottom of a tight bowl of high mountains and along a spectacular cascading waterfall, the snow came down to the water in a ca 6-meter dump off a snow chute. We were unable to make e-mail contact that night, probably due to the steep mountain bowl we were in.

Tuesday morning, we pulled up a trap full of crabs; kept 2 huge males -- more crab for dinner! We went along Princess Royal Island, where we had seen Spirit bears in past years. Princess Royal is so steep that it hasn't been settled, so it's a good place for the bears to survive. The scenery was spectacular: sunny day and lots of snow-capped mountains. We paused a moment to remember The Queen of the North, that sank here in 2006, before anchoring just south of Hartley Bay.




It looks like the weather will be good to cross Dixon Entrance into Alaska on Saturday: light SE winds. We will be in Prince Rupert on Thursday.