Leaving Sitka, we headed down the west coast of Baranoff Island in the open Pacific waters. With the weather deteriorating we took shelter in Jamboree Cove for a couple of days. Seeing an opening we sprinted the rest of the way down the coast of Baranoff and cut over into Prince of Wales island with a stop at Craig…a run of 160 miles that day. The cruise down El Capitan Pass was beautiful.
The next day we were scheduled to move down to the south end of Prince of Wales and then tackle Dixon Entrance the following day. When we got the Entrance, it was dead calm with a moderate 4-6 swell on our stern, we decided to go for it with another long day. 153 miles to Prince Rupert. It was very tempting to head for Masset instead of going back to the mainland; however, there is huge shallow on the east side of Graham Island on the east side that forces one almost to the mainland before crossing back to Charlotte.
Marcia was crying as we left Alaska for the last time on this adventure. We cleared customs in Prince Rupert, fueled up and provisioned for the couple of weeks we would be away from civilization. Once again we had to wait for a weather window to cross over the Queen Charlotte Islands as they were formally known. After a rough start, we had a smooth crossing of 80 nautical miles to Sandpit.
Our friend Keith Bengtsson was to meet us on arrival and sure enough he flew in that morning and was befriending the local coast guard crew.
Click on the photo to see the album of this trip