Thru roadless northern British Columbia, across Dixon Entrance into Alaska

May 18^th – Bright clear day, dead calm.  The low decided to head down the coast offshore so a high is building and Queen Charlotte Sound is low swells and barely rippled today.  Oh well, we’re across.  Wound thru Klaquaek Channel, a truly lovely spot with eagles on the trees of many small islets (Jan wanted to know were our kayaks were) -- worth a return visit.  Then up Fitz Hugh Sound under sunny cold skies to spend a couple nights in Codville Lagoon, a lovely spot we shared tonight with just one other boat you hardly knew was there.  Passed by one BC ferry and a handful each of pleasure, tug and fishing boats.  Otherwise not much traffic out here yet.

May 19^th – Another lovely day (kn-kn) at Codville: spent all morning and half the afternoon sleeping in, rowing the dog ashore, eating a first-class breakfast (fresh baked muffins and green eggs with ham), doing some trip planning, and catching up on these notes.  Delightful, lazy day. Cleaned fishy-smelling gunk out of raw water filters in hopes this cures warm port engine.  Anchor dragged a little after swinging all the way around so reset it. 

Walked the trail to Sagar Lake, not difficult but definitely a Alaskan-tennis-shoe hike in spite of trail improvements, rewarded by a lovely mountain lake at the other end.  Light rain by evening.

May 20^th – Calm overcast and occasional light rain for trip to Work Bay.  Port still running steadily warm, high 80c at 1700 rpm like yesterday, so dirty filter wasn’t it.  Full cooling fluid tank too.  Now what?  Since it is very steady, keep a close eye on it until Ketchikan maybe?  Stopped at Shearwater for re-supply.  Friendly little store, with some great produce and decent prices.  Posted labor rates for boat work less than WA too.  A school benefit plant sale for Victoria Day -- pretty geraniums and other potted plants -- drew lots of families in their runabout boats. 

Bypassed planned Klemtu stop since it is already a long day, anchored in Work Bay.  Quiet, pretty spot but tight as the Hale’s said.  Anchored in 50’ with anchor alarms on.  Checked all night (nervous Nellie) but she stayed put fine.  Going ashore with Popcorn in the morning it was not quite as tight as it looks from aboard but still not much room to swing/drag.

May 21^st – Another grey misty day with low scud – payoff is calm seas and waterfalls all along the way to Lowe Inlet.  Must be early season, today saw just 1 inflatable buoy work boat, 1 BC Ferry, 2 float planes overhead, 1 commercial fish boat, 2 small sports fish boats and 1 tug with huge log tow (complete with two “orange giraffe” cranes aboard) in over 7 hours of running, including the busy Grenville Channel. 

Ran straight through; finding that with a salon to move around in, easy to make tea, snack or lunch, 7-8 hour runs are fine for us (dog gets to looking a little pained sometimes).  Got into Lowe Inlet first so took a spot in front of the falls, dropped the anchor in about 30’, backed off 150’ of chain so Bedoeling was over 80’ of water in ½ knot of river current.  Set alarms but didn’t move a jot all night.  Rowed ashore ok, though grabbing the boat on return is a little tricky.  Talked about possible bears later while sitting forward listening to “our falls”, then looked over to the south shoreline to see a black bear foraging, right on cue!

May 22^nd – sit today to enjoy our almost-private inlet (one sailboat ¼ mile away), read, relax, sleep late under more grey misty skies.  (Jan notes “sleeping late” means 7-8 am due to Popcorn’s shore duty).  The 7 o’clock bear dutifully appeared but did not stay long lacking much of an audience.

May 23^rd – Heading north again, still very few boats in Grenville.  Destination was Pearl Harbor BC but as we got closer it looked like the weather across Dixon might be unusually good – as in flat calm, no swells – so called US Customs for permission to stop at Foggy Bay overnight and kept right on moving.  Love them cell phones (sometimes).  Dixon was indeed a millpond, autopilot did the hard work so even though the engines ran 11:40 hours today it was not tiring like Queen Charlotte was.  Popcorn did appreciate shore duty a lot tonight.  Porpoises, gulls and a flock of eagles were fishing together in Dixon with lots of splashing. 

Not much wildlife in Foggy Bay back where we anchored but the short black spruce do look like Alaska and we had lovely jellyfish floating by us.  Had one of those chartplotter reference glitches in ranging down into the paper chart inset – instantly we were ashore – but looking out the window at water was reassuring.  Swapped in the AK chip the next day and all was fine.  I was concerned today watching that port engine temp needle which now only stays in bounds at 1600 rpm.

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