Prince Rupert BC

Tuesday May 6, 2008

Day 23, 623 miles to date
Location: Prince Rupert, British Columbia
Lat/Lon: 54°19.233'N, 130°19.190'W
Weather: Hi 55° F Low 44° F, Overcast and rain

We're in Prince Rupert, less than 30 miles from Alaska. We've had a good passage through BC, mostly fair weather with low clouds and rain most of the time but lite winds and seas. We had a good crossing of Cape Caution in 2m swells but we had the paravanes down and the fish in the water so we, and the kids, were comfortable. Our anchor winch motor died while anchoring in Pruth Bay but the caretaker at the lodge was nice enough to let us tie up at the dock while we replaced the motor with the spare we carried. We stopped in the small outpost of Shearwater for a night and had a nice meal in the restaurant with Art & Diane. We were the only two pleasure boats in the marina. We spent a night at the old cannery Butedale. The moorage consists of tieing up to large logs held together with rope with boards nailed on the top to simulate a dock but the stop is worthwhile just to talk with the caretaker Lou who has lived here year around for the last 6 years. He is a wealth of local knowledge and loves to talk. He receives no salary for being the caretaker other than the moorage he collects and the proceeds from the sale of the art work he makes over the winter.

Prince Ruppert is a town of around 15K people whose existence is built around fishing and being the terminus of the only highway and railroad line to NW Canada. They have a huge bulk grain and coal loading terminal. We're waiting here for a weather window to cross Dickson Entrance, the large body of water that separates Canada and Alaska. Dickson can be a mess at times when storms pass over but like the other crossings we've made, we'll take our time and pick the right day to cross so we'll have fair seas.

Our HF SSB radio is working well and we're able to get emails almost daily via our SailMail account so if you have that email address please send emails letting us know how you're doing.

We'll post more when we get to Ketchikan, hopefully within 4 days.