24 May 23

The alarm jerked us out of a sound slumber at 06:45. Our friends on the trawler from last night were already gone. The anchor was aweigh at 07:30 and, after clearing about half a dozen small shrimp from the speedometer impeller, we departed lovely Eucott Bay and motored down Dean Channel against a 10 knot head-wind, but with the ebb tide behind us. After about half an hour, I thought I would give Prince Rupert Coast Guard Radio a call to see if they could hear us, but they did not reply. Just after that, however, we were hailed by “Karen Muir”, who had heard our call to the Coast Guard. They were just coming out of Elcho Harbour, on their way to Eucott, and wanted to say hello. We swapped email addresses and they pointed out the Sir Alexander Mackenzie cairn and memorial plaque, commemorating his first-ever crossing of the upper North American continent by a European, 12 years before Lewis and Clark did it for the US. After that, we carried on down the Dean Channel and crossed Fisher Channel into Gunboat Passage, finally tying up at Shearwater Marina at 13:30, having stopped on the way in to top up the fuel and potable water tanks. After we were tied up, we checked out the local grocery store and picked up a few items. I also bought a second diesel gerry can to give us a bit more cushion for some of our up-coming long stretches between fuel stops (e.g., nobody seems to know if Klemtu has fuel and its a long way from here to Prince Rupert, especially if we take in as many of the sites (off-line) as we would like to; perhaps we will just save some of them for the return trip). Then, we took the 15:30 SeaBus (water taxi) over to Bella Bella for a big shop at the Waglisla band grocery store. We were back on “c’est le bon” at 17:00. Just after we got back, a local fishing boat docked right beside us and were looking to offload a bunch of halibut; we bought 3 lb worth of nice fillets for CAN$35. After a quick Captain’s hour, and a long chat with Ashley (girl-talk), we went up to Fisherman’s Grill for dinner. When we got back, we had a quick chat with Jake to discuss options for his upcoming visit. We are thinking now that we will collect him in Petersburg, as planned, and drop him off in Sitka. Then, we will await Ashley’s arrival at Sitka, or perhaps make a quick run up to Anchorage to see John and Jessica.

52-08.847’N, 128-05.304’W; Log = 34.8, Sum (2023) = 430.9; Eng. hrs = 5.7, Sum = 3177.0