16 Aug 23

We slept in again, but woke to an overcast morning, although it was not actually raining at the time. We finally got going just before 10:00. Almost immediately after we left, we turned the corner and ran smack into a medium-sized quarry (limestone?); so much for our wilderness experience. It started misting up again within minutes. We started into the west end of El Capitan Passage at 10:30; it is very narrow with several dredged channel sections for about 7 or 8 miles - very cool, but requires a lot of attention. The USFS float (at the entrance to El Capitan Cave; we decided we did not want to crawl around in a limestone cave, no matter how cool) was abeam to port at 11:30. Then we turned the corner and headed south until we made it to Sarheen Cove, where we anchored at 13:00 in 18 m of WD. By the time we got in, visibility was down to about 1/4 mile and it was sprinkling more or less all the time. Unfortunately, we have not seen very much of Prince of Wales Island, so far. I believe that makes 8 consecutive days of mostly rain. Maybe tomorrow will be better. El Capitan is certainly not heavily travelled; we saw exactly one other cruising boat - a 50 ft stink-potter headed north - and one 20 ft sport fisherman picking up/setting prawn traps, all day long. It stopped raining late in the afternoon and tried to clear off a bit late in the evening. At least the Astros beat the Marlins 12-5, to win that series.  

56-03.018’N, 133-15.655’W; Log = 16.1; Sum = 2128.9; Eng. hrs. = 3.3, Sum = 3452.0