This post has been waiting for an opportunity to be sent for a few days. I will write a current update tonight �- we are actually all the way to Nanaimo.

Our first attempt at crossing Queen Charlotte Sound ended after about four hours of wicked pounding. Two hours out the seas built to about ten feet, so the decision was made to head back to Fury Cove. That was ok, because we got back in plenty of time to grab some sleep and then have the entire afternoon to enjoy the beauty of the cove. I paddled all around the islands in the little archipelago, so lovely. We made our fire that evening, and drank wine with some local folks, and enjoyed fresh sockeye sashimi.

The next morning we fared better on our crossing �- only about six foot rollers, and we made our way to Sointula. It was a long, long day but well worth it. Sointula is a delightful little Finnish fishing village found by a group of miners from Nanaimo who wanted to build a socialist-utopian community. I borrowed a bike from the harbormaster and pedaled to the co-op and grabbed some veggies, and now we are off again. The weather looks to be getting a little windy, but we have the current and the winds pushing us, which works with our plan, so we are timed correctly for our entry into Seymour Narrows.

Our only repair work so far has been to the oven door, which became �"sprung.�" I store pots and pans inside of the oven and apparently a handle got caught out of the oven as the door was shutting. Oops. But handy dandy Rob was able to pull the oven out and fix it with a minimum of potty words �- however when he was just about done, I gently pointed out that there was a rather large part leftover he might want to consider. Like the entire oven door liner. All�'s well, we have the oven back in place. It�'s not as if I do any baking.

We are anchored in one of the most idyllic coves I think I have ever have seen. There are beautiful white sand beaches and a protective barrier isthmus providing us a panoramic view of the open waters of Queen Charlotte Sound, which we plan to transit very early tomorrow. Apparently a few other boats have the same plan, as there already five other boats on the hook and it is only a little past one o�'clock in the afternoon.

After the amazing healing waters of the Hot Springs we made our way to Bella Bella. Along the way we ran into a very large pod of killer whales, feeding and playing off a small islet that was home to a Navigation light. The whales were very clever and beautifully choreographed as they leapt out of the water in unison, like some �"SeaWorld Orca Show.�" We spent the night again at Shearwater, watering up, fueling up, and grabbing a few items from the small store. There was a five man brass band playing at the local watering hole. Interestingly, we had encountered this same band four or five years ago on our way South. They have made the trek from Kelowna, where they are all members of the symphony, to Bella Bella for some fishing and horn blowing every year for five years. What are the odds?

Yesterday we made a short run (3 hours) to Namu, a favorite stop of mine. It is like a visit to the set of an old episode of the Twilight zone (dating myself with that one, eh?) In it�'s heyday, Namu was a thriving city owned by BC Packers. There was a community center with a theatre, a store, a restaurant, dormitories, and hotels. Now it is rapidly falling into the water. Rene, the bawdy wharfinger (ok, the word looks and sounds like wharfinger, but I don�'t have my dictionary handy and no internets so you will just have to pretend it�'s the right word), married to Pete, the other part of their caretaker team, spent the better part of the evening sharing tales of her last nine years there. This will be their last season as they are pulling up anchors and moving their float house, docks and greenhouses down the coast a bit. We heard tales of roving wolf packs that ate their dogs, and huge gales that ripped their docks to shreds �- with boats on them.

We just made our first skiff trip to the beach and now, our bellies full of hotdogs, Rob and Milo have settled in for their naps. The thermometer says it is 63 in the shade. The sky is blue and the wind is light. I might just have to join them in La-La land for a short power nap myself.

Tomorrow promises to a long hard day, so tonight I will pre-make our breakfasts and lunches. It can get pretty snotty in Queen Charlotte Sound, it�'s a very large body of open waters, but with a very early start and some good luck we think we will have a fairly smooth crossing. I�'ll let you know.

PS: I think I see a beach fire in our future tonight. It pays to pack a few presto logs!

Hey there, we are back in our cruising mode after three nights at Bar Harbor in Ketchikan. First we stopped at Knutson Cove �- just north of Ketchikan-- to say hello to our Girdwood friends, Jared, Betsy and Jody at Southeast Exposure, a kayak touring and zip line attraction Betsy and her son Jared operate in the summer season. Jody works there as well keeping the operation running smoothly. Rob was offered the opportunity to tryout their newest zip line enhancement, it now runs over the water. He claims he�'s to heavy, �"oh my no, we have men much, much larger than you�". No deal, he wouldn�'t go. They didn�'t even ask me �- my fear of heights is apparently fairly obvious.

On to Ketchikan, where we planned to get our mail and meet up with our friends from Freeland, Gwen and Richard Soto. They are on their first cruise north on their 40 foot Willard, North Star. Their granddaughter will be flying into KTN to join them for two weeks of cruising all the way to Juneau.

Our days in port seemed to race by, laundry, shopping, walking, we were super busy right up to the moment we cast off. One highlight occurred when we went to fuel up. Roll back a bit to Meyers Chuck where I purchased a local cookbook titled Salmon, Desserts, and Friends written by a local fisherwoman, Ladonna Gunderson. So we pull up to fuel dock (early of course) and who should pull up to the same dock but the Ladonna Rose. I hopped off the Lady Anne pen and cookbook in hand and got my own personal inscription and we had a nice chat while we waited for the fuel operation to open. It�'s a great cookbook for salmon, something I can always use.

Somewhere along the way in KTN, I managed to tweak my back pretty good. I think it was the combined activities of carrying groceries and a laptop in my backpack for miles and the repetitive stairs required to stow all those provisions. So as we were crossing Dixon Entrance, I was lying flat on my back trying to relieve some of the discomfort I was feeling when BLAM!

Now, noises and other sensory stimuli on a boat are especially important. Really important when you are in the middle of a crossing of open waters of the North Pacific Ocean. No land in sight. Every perceived change in engine vibration or waft of a different smell, perhaps from the exhaust, creates a bit of anxiety until the source of the subtle difference is identified and determined to be benign. This noise was definitely not subtle. It was loud, seriously loud. I jumped off the couch (agonizing!) and see a log approximately four hundred and ninety seven feet long break free from the paravane where it had been snagged by the �'fish�". �"Jeeze Rob, did you not see that giant redwood?�" He had been looking at the chart just long enough to miss the floating Giant Sequoia, camouflaged by a very rough and choppy sea. OK, no harm done. Once again, this boat is built like a brick you-know-what. The rigging held, the fish stayed on and I washed my ibuprofen down with a shot.

We cleared Canadian Customs in Prince Rupert. This time was a breeze. The hardest part was finding the dock, then a quick phone call since it is unmanned on the weekend and we were through. Last night we spent in Lowe Inlet, sharing the spectacular waterfall view with another La Conner boat; Galatea a 40�' Pacific Trawler. Theirs is an amazing story: every year for 25 years Chuck and Marge have driven from their home in Kansas to La Conner where they keep their boat on the hard. They then cruise north, sometimes to Alaska, sometimes Canada. They spend up to four months every summer doing this. What makes their story truly moving is that since 1997, Marge has been a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down after a horrific automobile accident. Each season they recruit what they call their �"morning girls,�" college students from the nearby campus, and these �"morning girls�" as they call them serve as personal attendants and caregivers for Marge as well as first mate for Chuck. Wow! There is a lovely article about them in this month�'s edition of 48 North, The Sailing Magazine. And we had the good fortune to make their acquaintance. If we manage to meet up with all the friends we have made from La Conner when we return, we won�'t have any time for our Shelter Bay buddies.

Tonight we will be back at Bishop Hot Springs. Rob thought a nice therapeutic soak might help my aching back. But first we had to detour to Deer Bay after a Coast Guard relay about a vessel with engine problems. It took us three hours after the call, but as we approached the captain popped out the engine room and reported that he had gotten his engines started with the aid of another vessel that gave him a jump. So Rob will be checking our batteries tonight, something he has had on his list for a couple of days!

Oh yeah, crab to clean tonight! Crab Risotto, yum!