...sometimes you're the Bug. Today was our day to be the bug. We left here about 1045, cruised through Greene Point Rapids at slack water and headed up to Beaver Inlet.

When we were there in '03, it was kind of misty and cool, the water flat calm. Not today! As we rounded William Point at the entrance to the inlet, we knew we were in deep doo-doo. The 40-knot westerly in Johnstone Strait was coming over the low hills at the west end of the inlet and roaring right down the inlet, turning the water's surface into a frothing mass of whitecaps. We punched our way up to the very head of the inlet, where we'd anchored before. There we found smooth enough water, but the gusting wind would have made it a most unpleasant spot. And this wind hasn't been dying down at night, which would have meant a possibly sleepless night of watching the anchor.

So now we had a problem. There really was no place else to go up in that area. We could have punched our way on down Sunderland Channel to Whirlpool Rapids, where the tide would have been with us, and holed up in Forward Harbour. Trouble with that plan, other than the "punching our way" part, is that a LOT of boats have been heading down that way and we suspect that most of them are stuck in Forward Harbour or, more accurately, in a tiny bight within the harbour called Douglas Bay. It's not a spot that can handle a crowd. If we'd gotten there and found it filled to overflowing, we'd have been REALLY screwed.

So we took the other option, which was to return to Blind Channel. That option involved running back through Greene Point Rapids AGANST the current and right about maxium ebb. It was entertaining, to say the least. Dreamtime had enough power to fight through the current, but Night Music would have a tough go of it. So Deamtime took the point, as it were, firewalled the throttles and looked for where the current was the least. Fortunately, we are right at the end of the neap tides, so the current was not as strong as it might have been. It took us an hour, but both boats made it through, arriving back here at Blind Channel about 1500.

And here we'll sit for a couple of days. The long-range forecast is for the winds to calm down a bit on Friday morning. Of course, the times of slack water and the direction of the currents are totally wrong by then, but we'll figure something out. Until then, this is not a bad place to be "stuck."