Always Onward Adventures

We have been skiing every weekend since the begining of the year, but unseasonable warm spell this last week make the prospect of skiing more like ice skating. Instead, we picked a new campground that we had been meaning to go to and headed out for a weekend of hiking and camping. Sara, who constantly talks about camping when it’s been more than a month since we have gone, was thrilled.

Sara and I go on our first camping trip since returning from our boat trip to Alaska. We go on several hikes - one of them over 6 miles - and find a new way into the Olympic National Park. 10/13/2023 Sara has been very excited to go van camping again - we haven’t been in over a year with the prep for and then going on our boat trip. This weekend was our weekend - Sara was off on Friday so decided to leave on Friday morning and come back Saturday evening. Our location of choice was Dosewallips State park and the Dosewallips river valley near Brinnon, Wa.

Earlier this year, we undertook a challenge - take our 34 foot Catalina sailboat “Onward” up the inside passage from Seattle to Glacier Bay and back with our 6 y/o daughter and our 9 y/o golden retriever - over the course of 4 months. We were also not able to leave until late June, which is significantly later than folks generally leave for a trip of that magnitude - especially when their boat has a cruising speed of just 5.5 knts. Both my wife and I had about 10 years of sailing experience each - but this was the first boat we had owned (we purchased Onward about 8 months before the trip) and the first time we had taken a trip of this magnitude - prior to this our longest trip had been just over a week. All that to say, this was a big trip for us and we had lots of stories to tell!

We make our way through the San Juans, pass through Deception Pass into the Puget Sound, and then home! 9/18/2023 We had only a short move today - 11 nm from Henry island to Friday Harbor. We ended up getting in pretty early and found the place much less crowded than last time - only 3 boats vs 12 boats when we were heading north. Friday Harbor Amazingly, one of the first people we ran into was at Friday Harbor when we came through on the way North - a boat called Nisku. Apparently there was quite the stir when we mentioned our plans here 4 months ago and Nisku had been following this blog ever sense - with a particular interest in all of our mechanical challenges (and successes!). I had always assumed that the only people reading this blog were my family and maybe a few close friends - I’m going to have to watch what I write now… :)

We pick our way through the Gulf Islands and back down into the USA! 9/14/2023 We departed right on time at 8:20a this morning and made quick work of the 7 nm trip to Dodds Narrows - faster than expected with a 2 knt current - and we ended up having to wait for about 20 min before we felt comfortable running through the narrows with the current (~30 min before slack). As we were waiting, we saw some sea lions playing in the middle of the rapids. Seeing sea lions right on either side of the rapids has become a common occurance for us, they must be using the current to catch fish. It was only a few more hours from there to Ovens island and we had a bright beautiful day to do it in - and for a short while some wind to sail!

We complete the last major crossing of the trip - rounding Cape Caution - and then we travel back through the Broughtons to Shoal Bay - our last stop before the rapids and fully tuck in behind Vancouver island. 9/3/2023 Early start from Pruth Bay to avoid afternoon weather. It was sad to be leaving, but good to be getting on our way. We got great wind the moment we made it out of the Kwakshua channel - 15 knts of wind at a broad reach. We were going 7 knts as we approached Fury Cove, so we decided to keep going and make it to Millbrook Cove in Smith Sound - about 10 nm further. This will take some distance off of crossing tomorrow and make it possible (but unlikely) that we can make it all the way to Port Hardy in one day. It ended up getting a bit choppy for the last hour or so, but we continued to have the wind so we got out of it quickly.

We complete our north BC section of the trip, heading through Klemtu, Bella Bella, and then on to Pruth Bay. 8/31/2023 We aimed to get going at 6a again, but the last couple of days built up and it wasn’t until 7:15a when we got underway. Our goals for today were Klemtu (11 nm away) to refuel and then on to Bella Bella (an additional 36 nm) for the night. We thought this was a fairly realistic goal given how well we have done over the last 3 days. On the way north, it look us 8 days to complete what we just finished in 3 days - some of that was due to the rest days/detours we took on the way north, but much more of it is due to estimating currents when their is no prediction, favorable winds, and optimizing our comfort underway - so we can spend more hours of the day going. Something about going home just feels different as well - like some other unknown force is also pushing in our favor.

Leaving Prince Rupert, we push through Grenville & Princess Royal Channels. Some long days, but we made some tremendous progress towards our Pruth Bay on Calvert Island- our last anchorage in north BC and a location that we both very much enjoyed. 8/28/2023 We had a lot of provisioning/refit to do this morning - but we couldn’t very well visit Prince Rupert without the obligatory Cowpaccinos breakfast and back in the afternoon for ice cream. We departed the dock around 2p, and after a very frustrating 45 min wait for the fuel dock to open up, we were off just before 3p. We were hoping to make it to Gunboat Harbor (the anchorage just north of the Grenville Channel), but a nasty headwind was building and it wasn’t looking likely that we would make it to Gunboat before dark. We ended up pulling off about 10 nm short of Gunboat with a 15 knt headwind - still 20 nm day leaving at 3p isn’t bad.