When the weather is good . . .

The answer to the question is " . . . keep moving." And so we have.

We arrived at the Discovery Harbour Marina in Campbell River the late morning on Tuesday, April 29. We’ve been targeting that day because the slack current before the ebb flow at Seymour Narrows (8 miles north of Campbell River) was 6:22 AM right after sunrise. The ebb current from Campbell River north to the end of Vancouver Island flows north. When you are travelling in a slow boat like Alpenglow, you pay attention to the current because it makes a huge difference in your speed.

The weather on April 30 set up well and we took off at 5 AM in the early twilight. We hit the narrows about five minutes late, going through with several other boats (including the Alaska high speed ferry MV Fairweather). The moderate winds were on our tail and blowing in the same direction as the current making the ride easy. We motored along between 8 and 10 knots boosted by the current.

While the current wasn't always in our favor, by the end of the 13 hour day, we reached Cullen Harbour, 89 miles from Campbell River. While at anchor that evening, the sun warmed the surrounding air to the low 70's, pretty good for the last day of April.

May 1 dawned equally as nice and another early start found us in Queen Charlotte Strait headed north around Cape Caution. While we dropped our stabilizer poles in case we needed to deploy the stabilizing fish, the very low swell and modest chopped made them unnecessary.

We were surprised how light the vessel traffic was having seen only one other north bound pleasure craft and only a few other commercial craft going in either direction. We ended our day, 84 miles further along, in Kwakume Inlet on the mainland side of Fitz Hugh Sound. While the evening wasn't quite as warm, we did enjoy upper 60's from the flybridge seats after dinner.

The plan is to continue moving so long as the weather permits safe & comfortable travel.