We slept in a bit, until 6:45 since we did not have to leave until later. It still gets light pretty early. It was raining and the sound was delightful on the roof. It reminded us of our days in the Marshall Islands, in the Peace Corps.

I fixed oatmeal and took a shower in the forward shower while the oatmeal cooked. That felt good! We had some exceptional, locally grown, organic blueberries from Port McNeil with the oatmeal. They were wonderful! Then I went down and did engine room checks. All was well. We are using very little oil and everything looked tight and clean.

We discussed departure strategy since we were in tight between two boats and the current runs here making maneuvering a bit challenging. We set up a plan and then waited a bit since it made no sense to have the current push us to the pass and get their early. This is the pass with the notorious Devil's Hole, a giant whirlpool known to sink boats. The rule is only pass Devil's Hole between one hour before slack and one hour after slack. After that, the whirlpool gets rolling and it is not safe to pass. Slack water was at 12:50 today and I had planned a course to get us to Gillard Pass at 12:15 when the current would be with us at 2 knots. With our power, that would be safe and we would pass Devil's Hole about 50 minutes before slack. We wanted to go through as early as possible to find an anchor location in Desolation Sound, a popular area in the summer.

Just before departure, Sanctuary, the large Alaskan Grand Banks, departed, giving us lots of room off our stern and making our technical departure unnecessary. We simply released lines in the reverse order of how tight they were (how much they served to hold our boat at the dock), releasing the forward spring line last. Debbie had figured all of this out and put everything into play for an easy departure. All I had to do was start the engines and pull away in reverse with the starboard engine. That took us away from the dock.

We headed down Cordero Channel. Sanctuary was about a mile ahead of us on AIS. In the fog, it was hard to see. As we traveled toward Devil's Hole and Gillard Pass, boats started to line up behind us. Sanctuary pulled into Dent Island Lodge Marina so we headed up the line. We passed Devil's hole at Dent Rapids without a worry. There was just a small whirlpool running, hardly anything to worry about. Deb took a photo. We gave our Securite´ call, "Securite´, Securite´, Securite´. This is the 42 foot motor vessel Change of Latitude entering Gillard Pass, Eastbound. All concerned traffic please come back on channels 16 or 9." This lets others know of our intentions and is required in tight passes or in fog. (We have two radios and typically monitor 16, the coast guard channel, and 9, the channel for ship to ship traffic.)

As we entered the pass, several boats must not have been monitoring Channel 16. They were coming right at us and a fishing boat was trolling and going to cross us from our right. It was Times Square in water that was very narrow. And the current was running behind us, to boot, making our maneuvering difficult. I blew our horn once to get everyone's attention and to remind them, if they did not know, that I had right of way. A trawler, overloaded with "toys" on deck (a bike, kayaks, and a ton of other stuff) kept coming right at us. I blew our horn twice to let him know I was serious. He finally moved over and we scooted through. The fishing boat had stopped, too. Whew!

We turned the corner and headed south in the fog, watching our radar and AIS and charts like two hawks. Deb kept a sharp eye out for logs, too, and spotted several in the tide rips.

We decided to head to Von Donop Inlet and Ha-thayim, a marine park in Desolation Sound. We had not been there before and it had a tricky entrance that we wanted to try out. It is a long narrow inlet on Cortez Island. We entered easily and went 2/3 of the way to the head and then anchored. We settled in and had dinner of chowder and home made bread from Sointula. It was raining much of the day and it still is now. We are reading and listening to classical music. I am having a scotch and toasting my relative and good friend, Urs Leu, who is a scotch scholar. Here's to you, Urs! Prost!

A note to our friends who read this blog. I apologize for not posting for such a long time. Most of the time, I was without wifi. When I had wifi, I needed to work furiously on our research grant proposal. Now that is done but we have been without wifi for several days. Tomorrow, we hope to find wifi in Secret Cove. I will post all past entries from there.