Photo: Sunset over the Pacific Ocean from the beach at Hakai Recreational Area

Only a bit more wind was needed to make this day perfect. We woke to fog but by the time we had eaten breakfast at the restaurant at Shearwater it had turned to low clouds. At 10:30 we got underway, motoring around Denny Island south through Hunter Channel and Sans Peur Passage (love that name, ‘no fear’ passage), carried along by an ebb current. Once in Queens Sound we raised sail and sailed/drifted to Hakai Passage and then into Pruth Bay where we anchored off the Hakai Research Institute.

After dinner we walked across the isthmus to the ocean. When this property was owned by a fishing lodge, the path was muddy and the people unfriendly. Now the path is boardwalk and the whole place has a feeling of peace to it with signs welcoming us and pointing to the trail. A group of Parks volunteers were sitting on logs around a campfire and we joined them to watch the sky turn peak over the ocean. When we got back to the anchorage, the wind had died to nothing and there was just the faint glimmer of light in the sky but we could clearly see the boats in the anchorage with their anchor lights reflected in the water below.

It was so peaceful, I longed to stay for another day and walk on the beach, but it was not to be. The weather forecast warned of a deepening low off the coast and subsequent strong southerly winds. If we stayed at Pruth Bay, we could be trapped north of Cape Caution waiting for a change in the weather. Normally we would take two days from Pruth to get around Cape Caution, one day to Millbrook Cove in Rivers Inlet and a second day to round the Cape and get to Skull Cove. But with the bad weather coming, not only could we not stay at Pruth an extra day, we were going to have a long day all the way to Skull Cove.