Downeast in Southeast Alaska

Leave Growler Cove 10:45a
Arrive Port McNeill 1:50p

We hung out this morning, waiting for the fog to lift since it's a short run today anyway. We decided to take the opportunity to pump out the excess fuel in the heater's pot and clean out the smoke stack. The last time we ran it, we believed we had shut it down for the night using the secondary valve. However, the primary valve was open, having got bumped by rooting around in the starboard locker. The steady stream of fuel in the pot choked the flame back to a slow burn, resulting in mass quantities of soot. Anyway, we fixed the problem and got everything cleaned up. We're good to go again should we need to dry things out inside a bit.

We're beginning to see some spruce in with the cedar stands, less salal, more ferns (also dying from the drought), more moss (ditto). We're also seeing more marine life. A large pod of Pacific White porpoises came and paced the boat for a while and surfed the wake, before they got bored and checked out another boat.

The engine seems to be behaving better. We hardly burned any oil when we were running at lower RPM in the strong currents. A little more yesterday, with less current. No more smoke belches, though.