28 May 23

I had a rough night because the bloody wind came up to 16 kn at 11:30 and woke me out of a sound sleep with the waves slapping on the bow and the wind moaning through the rigging, because we are anchored so close to the shoal. I got up and turned on the instruments and checked our position - all good, but I could not go back to sleep until the wind finally died down to below 8 kn about 01:30. After that, I slept straight through to 8:30. It was a lovely calm morning, with a bit of intermittent overcast, so, after breakfast, I flew my drone around the anchorage for 20 minutes or so. We agreed that although it was very pretty up here, we did not want to risk another night getting waked up by the wind in the middle of the night. We decided to get going then and I parked the drone off to the side to record the anchor retrieval operation and our departure from the anchorage. We were headed down the inlet by 10:15. As soon as we were around the first corner, I saw the AIS symbols for “Baraka Bashad” and “Kristan Celeste” headed north up ahead in Mathieson Channel. They headed through Mathieson Narrows and we were about 40 minutes behind them. Just as we got to the narrows, a pod of Orcas surfaced right in front of us, also moving north. The other two boats went all the way to the head of Mussel Inlet to check out the head of inlet and Poison Cove. We just went up to Oatswish Bay to check out the very lovely Lizette Waterfall, where we drifted during our lunch break enjoying the views. A quick radio chat with the other two boats confirmed that we were all headed to Windy Bay for the night. We anchored in the bay at 14:55 in 21 m of water. After we were hooked, I emptied both gerry cans of diesel into the main tank, since we have run about 14.3 hours of engine time since we filled up in Shearwater. According to my calculations, we have 32 hours and 7 minutes of running time between here and Prince Rupert; we should have ~45.7 (i.e., 50 + 2*5 -14.3) hours of fuel in the tank now - so, plenty of margin. We do not need to go 26 miles out of the way to refuel at Klemtu. After we got anchored, “Baraka Bashad” and “Kristan Celeste” came into the bay and anchored nearby. Vaughn, from “Baraka Bashad” invited us over for drinks after dinner. We joined them and met Bill and ??? from “Kristan Celeste” and had a grand time swapping sailor stories and sharing info on going up the coast. They are all going to Glacier Bay as well, but have entry permits on 28 and 30 June, respectively. We will undoubtedly bump into them again between here and Prince Rupert and may see them between Sitka and Glacier Bay.

52-46.829’N, 128-12.519’W; Log = 28.4, Sum (2023) = 582.6 N-m; Eng. hrs. = 4.9, Sum = 3202.3