Here we are, safe and sound in a slip at Bar Harbor, northwest end of Ketchikan, Alaska N55º21.11' W131º41.43' after a 10-day run (with one day off for good behavior) from Seattle - something just under 800 n.miles. We were met on the dock yesterday by Kurt & Marcia (MV Alpenglow), who we plan to buddy-boat with this summer. Here's a log of the trip up:

5 July: after two weeks of humping to get DE ready to go we're finally underway. Last night (4 July) was Independence Day fireworks on Lake Union - very impressive. Dorothy and I left Brother John's family in Mac's care on the boat, and went back to the condo to pull together last minute items to take with us - given the last minute nature of the packing I ended up with duplicates of what I already had on the boat, and without stuff I really wanted to take... of course. Little sleep; thought we'd be back on the boat by 0700, instead it's 1000; 2 dock cart loads of stuff to get stashed on the boat. Finally away from the dock, while Dot and (John's wife) Birdy hustle back to the condo for a final go-over (before our friends come in from Asia on the 8th).

Down the lake, 2 bridges later we're at the fuel docks to take on 400 gallons of No.2 (we've still got a couple hundred gallons left from our last fueling at Dutch Harbor, and we'll no doubt need more before we're back from AK, but with the last couple weeks of boat-work frenzy expenses, food supplies for the run up to AK, it's the best we can do at the moment, and more than adequate. Surprise, the price is 20 cents per gallon less than the quote I got a couple of days ago! Dorothy and Birdy catch up with us at the fuel docks.

Now the locks and one last bridge and we're out and headed north.

Aboard with Dorothy, Rusty and me are Mac (our trusty Australian side-kick), Brother John, Birdy, Molly and Kelly. Although 10 years younger than me, John and I have been close since he was in high school and shared many adventures together. It's great to have the whole family aboard; one of the things we intended when we decided to go whole-hog and build DE.

We run north up Puget Sound into the night - big moon, little traffic, calm water... I can hear Willie singing "on the road again..". Crossing into Canadian waters in the morning we pick up wind on the beam of increasing velocity. I'd planned to go up to Campbell River to clear Canadian Customs, but I don't think making everyone uncomfortable on the boat in the first 24 hours is the best plan for a successful voyage, so 6 July 1030hrs we pull into Nanaimo N49º10.20' W123º55.95'. Canadian Customs officers were professional and thorough; Nanaimo Marina was full, but put us onto a float which appears to be used as a tour boat gangway - a bit of an adventure getting off the Customs dock into the wind with traffic trying to come into the fuel dock (same place); some boat operators get what's happening around them and are helpful, others don't have a clue and are "proximate causes" of near-mishaps.

$70 for the moorage (yikes!) and then the wind came down and we were out of there by 2200 that evening, running all night, to make a slack-water through Seymour Narrows N50º07.18' W125º19.50 the following day 7 July. We arrived 4 hours before the scheduled slack-water and stood by at Vigilant Islets inside Gowlland Harbour N50º05.10' W125º14.86', just south of the entrance to the Narrows. A brilliant post-card of a day and setting! We anchored near a working log boom - watched a small tug sorting log sets, a log boom "dancer" running across the floating logs with his peavey (like a heavy boat hook) connecting / disconnecting tow chains and directing the tug. John and family off for a kayak in the bay while Dorothy and I continued to get the boat organized for being underway again.

First issue sprung up - freshwater leak in the engine room. A little investigation identified the source as the over-pressure relief valve on the water heater going off as a result of the pressure adjustment on the freshwater supply pump getting out of whack. This has happened before, actually developed enough pressure last time to break the seal on the accumulator tank. There's an adjustment screw on the bottom of the pump, but no way I can see to lock it in place once the adjustment is made. I'm thinking that I should install an in-line pressure gage into the line to monitor what's happening and catch it before it goes off the next time. This, by the way, is why we shut off the power to the freshwater pump before leaving the boat.

Recovered the kayaks, up anchor and through Seymour Narrows without drama, overnighted at Kanish Bay > Granite Bay N50º15.58' W125º22.19'.

8 July 0430 underway to meet the slack at Race Passage N50º22.28' W125º46.59', then into Alert Bay N50º35.39' W126º55.98' where we lucked into a space at the end of the float just inside the entrance to the marina. While enroute that day, Dorothy and I ran various cleaning solutions through the R/O watermaker and succeeded in getting it producing freshwater again - hurrah! Very necessary with 7 people aboard, not all used to freshwater issues aboard a small boat. The previous day, while at anchor below Seymour Narrows, Mac and I took a stab at getting the deck wash pump / wm prime pump issue solved, but only got partway there. Mac sacrificed himself crawing into a small space to change the wm filters, while I tried to work out the plumbing. Not complete success, and I decided to keep on with using the deck wash pump to prime the wm, for now, as water in the tanks is more immediately important than water on the decks. We arrived early enough for John & company to head off to the museum -- tallest totem pole - Dorothy to shop, and Mac and I to sample the "local" (saloon). And Rusty made his mark as well.

0400 9 July departure from Alert Bay to cross the open-water of Queen
Charlotte Sound before the wind came up; on a suggestion from a cruiser met on the dock at Alert Bay, instead of heading north then crossing over, we first crossed east from Alert Bay (on Vancouver Island) towards Blunden Harbor N50º54.14' W127º16.15' (on the BC mainland), before heading north up the coast towards Cape Caution N51º09.26' W127º48.94' and beyond into protected waters. Conditions remained tolerable as we by-passed our identified bad-weather-bailouts: Blunden Harbor, Allison Harbor N51º02.15' W127º31.24' and Shelter Bay N50º58.18' W127º28.13' then crossed to the shelter of Calvert Island and finally our destination Pruth Bay N51º39.26' W128º05.87'. That's the good news; the bad news is that during a routine engine room check, taking temperatures from the intake (compressor) and exhaust (turbine) sides of the turbo, I found that rather than the big 40-50ºF delta T between the two, it was down to 20º at 1800 rpm and no difference at all at 2000 rpm! (We've kept the engine at 1800 since discovering this, and collected some additional data, and now that we're in Ketchikan will contact the folks at Hatton Marine in Seattle to get some advice on what's happening; how to further diagnose; whether something needs to be done now; and what that might be... it happens that I did purchase a spare turbo this winter...).

Saturday 10 July... what! no 0400 start?! I don't think anyone moved until 0900 or later. After a pancake breakfast we dropped the dinghy and (all but Dot) headed into the private dock at the head of Pruth Bay - an apparently well-funded (judging by the building going on, condition of the facilities and quality of the equipment there) scientific institute / conference center - Hakai Beach Institute -- (that used to be a resort). There's a trail out the back of the center which goes across an isthmus (finally got to use that word in a sentence - been waiting since 7th grade) to West Beach. Now this is a glorious beach - recommended to us by our friend and neighbor David Burch at www.Starpath.com - very fine white sand, sun-warmed shallows, driftwood, bull-kelp (OK nereocystis for you taxonomy freaks; how's that for a C--- Dr Rubin?) that we made 'viking trumpets' out of. Rusty ran and ran and ran and dug sand, and ran some more - he was one happy dog! But did I mention the price of admission... some kind of no see-um, no feel-um gnat which gave me twenty or so bites on the legs, arms and neck which festered up and itched like poison oak - even 5 days later. There's also a trail from West Beach to North Beach with a big lilly pond, and a log bridge that Rusty refused to cross, and a rigorous hike to a lookout, that turned out to be worth the climb - watch out for the bogs!

Back to the boat, and a quick turn-around to take Dorothy (and Rusty) back to the beach. While Rusty wasn't quite as full of energy as earlier, he did seem to appreciate the encore, and I was very glad that Dorothy did not miss out. While we were out, Dorothy had painted a watercolor of our anchorage in Pruth Bay. I don't think she's painted since the Philippines, and I'm so glad she is inspired to get back into it.

11 July 0730 underway to Shearwater N52º08.82' W128º05.29' (across from Bella Bella). Shearwater was full-up (by reservation) as it was last year when we came thru, but the harbormaster was very kind to let us tie up for long enough for the crew to go for laundry and showers, and dump the trash, while I filled the water tanks aboard. Mac and I anchored outside the Shearwater breakwater, then dropped the dinghy to run in to pick up the rest of the crew. Just up from Bella Bella is Bella Coola and from there the Dean Channel where Gump's family has their property. Maybe we'll get by there on the way back through the area at end of summer.

12 July underway before 0400, some weather in Milbanke Sound enroute to Lowe Inlet N53º32.48' W129º35.92'. This was a long day, over 100 n.miles. Just prior to arrival at Lowe Inlet, we came across a fish boat apparently pumping out another fish boat which was bow under along the bank of the channel; we called on Ch 16 to see if we could assist (as we have a gas-powered salvage pump aboard) but didn't get an answer. I suspect all hands were busy with the task at hand. Lowe Inlet has a small falls at the head of it, and when the fish are running, bears will fish at the edge of the falls - we saw this last year.

13 July 0600 underway into a 5+ knot current in the Grenville Channel - didn't pay proper attention to the tidal currents in this area. We did a brief foray into Klewnugget, which is a scenically interesting area, but brief only as the tide was turning and we wanted to run with it up past (on the outside) Prince Rupert and into an anchorage at Pearl Harbor N54º30.16' W130º28.30'. This is a very nice anchorage and we were soon joined by 20-30 local fishboats who apparently also thought it was a nice anchorage. John, Birdy, Molly, Kelly and Rusty rowed the dinghy to the beach and back. Dorothy and I sat on the pilothouse roof - the "lido deck" and enjoyed the ambience. Mac, I believe, stuck himself into his laptop and headphones. Before leaving Seattle, I introduced him to "The Wire", HBO's 5-season Baltimore PD epic and he's addicted. At several points underway this past week, Mac has secluded himself with computer, under his blanket while the world went by outside. Being from the small burg of Walwa, Australia, he doesn't get out much.

14 July 0645 underway - 60 miles to Ketchikan - net boats out on our route; we dodged a few sets reminiscent of cruising in the Philippine Islands. Crossing the Dixon Entrance we got a 16-18 knot wind on the beam so along with the weather p-vane fish, we unfurled the sails, pulled back the throttle and got 6.6 - 7.1 kts at half the fuel usage. Steadied up a bit as well. 1600 local time (1 hour earlier time zone than Pacific Daylight Time) we arrived Bar Harbor Marina, Ketchikan; cleared US Customs and that brings us up to date.

We'll spend a couple days cleaning and dealing with some boat issues while the crew does the sights in K - they're off to the totem heritage park and a hike to a lookout now, before taking off again, now in company with Alpenglow. More to come...