Our last stop south of Cape Caution.
There are few places that serve as gates on this trip. Some are actual gates, such as Seymour Narrows, where we have to be there at a particular time if we want to pass through. Others are more of a psychological gate, a dividing line between two segments. Cape Caution is one of the latter.
Looked at objectively, Cape Caution isn’t anything, really. It’s a knob of land that pokes its nose into Queen Charlotte Strait/Queen Charlotte Sound, forming a sort of corner between the two.
The waters aren’t particularly exposed, especially when you consider some of my other trips. Yet, somehow, this rounding looms larghe in my head. It’s as if we are crossing a dividing line from waters that seem like home into foreign waters – aqua incognito, though of course, many people have made this trip prior to me. It suddenly feels far away. We change from our emergency port being somewhere on Vancouver Island, which is a familiar-feeling place to me, to it being Shearwater or Prince Rupert, places I’ve never been and which feel more like Alaska than BC. We are 4 days from Shearwater and then 10 days from Prince Rupert. Bascially, we start looking north for supplies and safety.
Breakfast was an amazing one of eggs, potato, bacon, and tomato on fresh made corn tortillas, made and eaten while under way. I basically skipped lunch, though had a good snack after we arrived.
The weather had turned dreary early today, so by the time we arrived at Allison, we all wanted something hot and so it was one of our packaged soups (Wild Rice and Mushroom), with additions from a most excellent boat chef, Sam. Dessert was a square of Anne’s Mom’s “Wacky Cake”, delectably prepared by Kay, who also had baked the muffins, one of which formed 1/2 my afternoon snack.
While we were in Queen Charlotte Strait, we got intermittent cell phone coverage, enough to download some of my messages on my phone, We might get some coverage again tomorrow, but that’s probably it until we get to Shearwater. I already have feelers out for an Iridium Go, as the radio weather reports are often unreliable reception, and the InReach Go reports are lacking usefulness (though they will do in an emergency if nothing else is available).
Tomorrow is 07:30 departure. I still have stuff to do, so it’s off to work for me and then sleep.
Oh! Before I do! Today was supposed to be Murray’s Labyrinth, but due to length of my keel (yes, size DOES matter), Rod and I agreed that might not have been a good idea, so we changed to a nearby cove.