Day 5: Alert Bay to Safety Cove, Calvert Island
April 9, 2009
We continued through Queen Charlotte Strait in decent weather and even took advantage of the open-water winds to sail during the night. Steve, Dave, and Taylor took turns “riding the bow” (stand in front as the boat heaved up and down while crashing through the waves). We finally anchored at 3 in the morning at Safety Cove, well protected from the ocean. Everyone is starting to find their own little world crammed within the borders of Resolute.

Day 6: Safety Cove to Jane Cove, Hunter Island
April 10, 2009
We slept in and had breakfast at noon before moving on at 1pm. We had mechanical problems with the anchor windlass. Dave and Steve performed impromptu surgery and coaxed the thing back to service with “light” taps of a hammer. Dave saw something in the water a couple of hundred feet away…then it turned its head, looked at him and vanished into the water. The Fitz Hugh Sound is known for sightings of deer or bears swimming from island to island. The weather has finally deteriorated into cloudiness and raindrops. We spent the afternoon playing cards because we’ve already done Scrabble twice. By 8:40 pm, we called it a day and anchored in Jane Cove, a quiet and protected area surrounded by tall pine trees.

Day 7: Jane Cove to Khutze Inlet
April 11, 2009
Tauru woke everyone up with, “Holy shit, check out what we caught in the crab pot.” Only Taylor managed to pull himself out of bed to see the huge starfish (see photo). Overcast sky and sporadic rain kept us inside reading and waiting for dinner where we were going to feast on four large crabs Taylor caught the night before. It has been a week since we left Bellingham and two days away from Prince Rupert. The water has taken on the same color as the sky — grey.

We pulled into Khutze Inlet around midnight and had some close calls finding the narrow shelf to drop the anchor on. With Taylor as Chief Bow-watch Guy (CBG), Dave as Chief Navigational Dude (CND), and Steve as the confident, noble, and handsome (“single”) Captain, we managed to anchor Resolute securely for the night. As for Tauru, the Five-Star Chef (at least on this boat), he stood by thinking about the next meal. That night, Captain Stave had fitfull dreams of anchors and rocks.

Day 8: Khutse Inlet to Kumealon Inlet (~30 miles south of Prince Rupert)
April 12, 2009
We continued from morning late into the night through the long quarter-mile wide Grenville Channel. Surrounding mountains rose abruptly into the sky with snow-line reaching the water. Taylor’s eyes lit up with high hopes of skiing back to the boat sooner than expected. Aside from a fishing boat and a tug boat pulling a large barge in the opposite direction, we didn’t see anyone else. During the morning, we got the best sailing thus far reaching above 7 knots under full sail with patches of blue sky above and snow-capped mountains all around us. We are anxious to reach Prince Rupert the following day to finally get a shower …and perhaps a change of clothes.

Day 9: Kumealon Inlet to Prince Rupert
April 13, 2009
Made excellent speed sailing with the wind and current behind us and arrived in Prince Rupert at 1pm. The gang is anxious for a long and thorough shower in additions to doing some laundry behind hittin’ the town. We’ll head to Ketchikan tomorrow and be back on American turf. All’s good so far — no mutiny!