The weather simply refuses to settle down. We had fair weather yesterday after the fog burned off. Another sailboat seemed to follow us from Port McNeill to Port Hardy through the fog, but there aren't that many alternate routes from one to the other. Once past Port Hardy, the traffic disappeared except for go-fast fishing boats and one motor yacht that passed us just before Bull Harbour. We anchored right in front of it. The anchorage was pretty full and a couple more boats came in after us. The sailing vessel Epiphany was tied up at the dock when we came in, but they left before us this morning. I heard them hailed a few times, so we may see them somewhere on this side of the island.

We never did get the forecast northwesterly winds today. It would have been nice if we had. We saw our first Canadian sea otter in the wild just past Hope Island. And I saw a humpback. I'm always watching for whales. Nahwitti Bar was a non-event. That means that we hit it at slack as planned. Cape Scott, on the other hand, was rough, but I'm sure it could have been worse.

The entrance to Sea Otter Cove is formidable, as advertised. You have to pass fairly close to waves breaking on rocks, and the entrance is narrow and shallow. Add to that, the swells give it a roller-coaster flavor. All four mooring buoys were taken when we came in, so we anchored a little farther in than the buoys. After I got out my computer with the water levels for the area, we decided to move. It looked like we'd be sitting on the bottom at low-low tide. Now we're in front of (toward the ocean) the mooring buoys in 22 feet of water. Plenty to float our boat. Another benefit of our new position is that we can see out the entrance to the cove.

It was awesome to see the ocean again yesterday. It's been awhile. Being out on the swells today took some getting used to. The swell wasn't large, but it was pretty close together, so it seemed rougher than the wave height would warrant.