Khutze Inlet to Shearwater

Our plan this day was to travel another 115 miles to Fury Cove where we could be prepared to cross Queen Charlotte Sound when the weather was right. We left Khutze Inlet about 8 a.m. and took advantage of the current on our way. The water was very nice and we made good time until we reached Seaforth Channel where we were exposed to the open water of Milbank Sound. The wind had picked up to more than 20 knots and we had an ebb tide and strong southerly winds causing the waves to stack up on us. It was very bumpy and wet for several miles until we got to Bella Bella. Then the water calmed down but the wind was still blowing. We needed to fuel and then we decided that if we left and went into Fitz Hugh Sound we would have the same bumpy conditions, so we tied up to the dock at Shearwater for the night.

We were disappointed that we had only made it 78 miles and had only traveled for 5 hours but we wanted to stop and plan the next leg of our journey. We were both having some difficulty sleeping because we knew it was getting close for us to cross Queen Charlotte Sound. We had been talking to people about how to cross we had also done more research and we clearly knew what mistakes we made on the trip north. Unfortunately, you can research all you want but you are still at the mercy of the weather and, as we have learned on this trip, what the weather reports say and what it is really doing are often two different things. That said, we had a deadline to make getting back to Bellingham and the weather reports were indicating the weather was going to deteriorate over the weekend so we didn’t want to wait.