We are back in Canada today. Our plan had been to slowly make our way from Craig down to the bottom of Prince of Wales Island where we would wait for a good day to cross the Dixon Entrance. We left Craig at 7:30 in the rain and fog. As we approached the Tlevak Narrows, we ran across a few whales. One of them was doing some serious tail-slapping. The sound of the tail hitting the water made my chest vibrate!
After leaving the whale behind, we had a fun time going through the Tlevak Narrows, which we hit at peak current. Slow-boating is great, but sometimes it’s nice to pick up a little speed, which we did here with a 7 mph push from the current.
As we boated south and left behind the excitement of whale and narrows, we were feeling kind of depressed by the third day of heavy fog and rain, and we could see no respite in the forecast. According to locals, fog is typical for August on the Pacific coast here. A scenic view (as opposed to solid fog) from the boat looked like this:
As we approached our planned anchorage for tonight, we could see the waters of the Dixon Entrance, and they didn’t look that bad. We checked the forecast and realized that weather would keep us from crossing the Dixon Entrance for the next four days, if we didn’t go immediately. So, we jumped into fast-boat mode and got planing. We quickly went around Cape Chacon, verified sea conditions were favorable, and bid Alaska a fond farewell.
It was not as smooth a crossing as our northward journey, but it wasn’t so rough we couldn’t plane. While motoring along, I did a giant vegetable stir-fry to use up all our fresh produce before crossing the Canadian border.
It was a long day, and after 10 hours of boating, we were fading fast. By the time we got over to the Canadian side of the Dixon Entrance, we couldn’t keep up the concentration required to avoid obstacles (logs, whales, etc) at planing speeds, and we were running out of daylight hours to get to Prince Rupert at slow-boat speed, so we got permission from the Canadian Border Service Agency to anchor in Brundige Inlet at Dundas Island tonight. Tomorrow morning we’ll check in with CBSA in Prince Rupert, top up the fuel, replace our stock of fresh produce, and get ready to continue our adventure southward.
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