We arrived in Prince Rupert last evening after a seventeen and a half day passage from Honolulu. We had both expected this to be the toughest passage of the season, but it turned out to be the easiest. We had lots of light wind, a bit too much motoring, no gales, and, in the last week, some fabulous downwind sailing. We made landfall on the north end of the Queen Charlotte Islands after a night where the glow from the setting sun hadn't faded completely before the first blush of dawn colored the horizon. These large islands lie sixty miles offshore from mainland British Columbia and are separated from the Alaskan border by the thirty mile wide Dixon Entrance. It took us the rest of the day to reach the islands and channels that lead to Prince Rupert.

And what a day it was! We had twenty knots over the stern and were sailing along at 8 and 9 knots through the water with the main and poled out jib. The air was soft and summer-like, with the temperature in the low seventies. To the north, the soft, gray outlines of the mountains of southern Alaska were etched against the blue sky. To the east, the rounded blue-gray hills near the shore rose to higher, snow-speckled peaks further inland. Over the course of the day, we passed trawlers, cruise ships, ferries, freighters, barges and tugs and started to get a feel for this busy waterway. We also dodged several logs, one of the navigational hazards in this region where logging makes up a significant portion of the local economy. We dropped the anchor in Casey Cove at 55�N, across the channel from Prince Rupert at 8:00 in the evening, under bright sunshine and blue skies after an 8,300 mile run across the Pacific Ocean that started three months ago at 47�S.

Prince Rupert is a combination of commercial port, working fishing community, and tourist trap located on an island tucked into a notch in the mainland. It's a small town with a population of 18,000 the heart of which consists of three streets running parallel to the waterfront for a dozen blocks. Despite its beautiful setting, the town is not particularly aesthetic. The architecture tends toward 50s institutional, with the most prominent building being a ten-story high concrete Howard Johnsons that would fit well into any communist-era Soviet city. This is the termination of the trans-Canadian railway, where freighters call to take on logs and grain. Cruise ships dock here a couple of times a week, discharging thousands of passengers to visit the mall and the tourist shops along the waterfront. Fishing boats come and go, bringing in large catches from the surrounding waters. Despite the industrial feel, the town has a frontier charm, and the locals are easy going and very friendly.

We plan to be here in Prince Rupert for a few days, and then spend the next six weeks or so working our way south to Vancouver Island. This will give us a taste of cruising this area and help us to decide what we want to do next season. Since leaving the Chesapeake in 1999, we have now sailed 50,000 nautical miles on HAWK. While we will eventually make our way back to the east coast to complete this circumnavigation, our current plan is to cruise this area for another season first. We will both be spending some time with our families this winter, taking advantage of being based in North America again for the first time in six years.

We hope this note finds you happy and healthy and enjoying life. We're looking forward to exploring another new area, and to spending some time with friends and family over the coming months.

Fair winds,
Beth and Evans
s/v HAWK