Port McNeill to Bainbridge Island – The End

Several times during our cruise this season we encountered groups of jet skis. While in Port McNeill, we saw this group come in to refuel.  The similarity between these jet ski groups cruising the Inside Passage to motorcycle groups cruising the highways is striking.

From Port McNeill we headed into the Broughton Archipelago for a few days. We visited Turnbull Cove where we took the dinghy to the outlet of Roaringhole Rapid, a reversing rapids connecting to Nepah Lagoon.  We then anchored in Greenway Sound and did the hike to Broughton Lake.

Our last night in the Broughtons was at the Lagoon Cove Marina where we again met up with Billie & Mike Henry on Peachy Keen.  Billie is a great Seahawks fan and they invited us to watch the last preseason game of the year with them (they hooked up their dish antenna and got it synced with a satellite).

The transiting of Johnstone Straits was the usual improvisation of piecing together channels to time rapids and avoid the strong afternoon winds that were blowing in Johnstone.  This year we ran Whirlpool Rapids a couple of hours before slack against the ebb current (it was a Neap tide and not too bad) in order to hit Greene Point Rapids at the slack before the flood. We spent the night at Cameleon Harbour then the next day transited the Upper Rapids in Okisollo Channel on the morning slack, lunched in the Octopus Islands and transited Beazley Pass on the afternoon slack.  The night was spent at Rebecca Spit in Drew Harbour.

We had generally excellent conditions in the Strait of Georgia when we ran from Rebecca Spit all the way to Nanoose Harbour.  The southeast winds were picking up as entered Nanoose Harbour and we tucked behind the spit at Fleet Point for some protection against the chop.  Of course the wind clocked 180 degrees and soon we had 15 knot northwest winds sending chop the length of the harbor.

The next day, Labor Day, the northwest winds were still blowing as we left Nanoose Harbour, worked our way through Nanaimo Harbour and hit Dodd Narrows at the slack before the ebb.  We spent a quiet night with several dozen other boats in Montague Harbour.

The next morning we made an early crossing of Boundary Pass, cleared US Customs by phone (thanks to our Nexus cards), anchored in Prevost Harbor on Stuart Island and hiked out to Turn Point.

After our night in Prevost Harbor, we headed to Deer Harbor where our yacht club has an outstation at the marina.  We were able to get a space at the dock and spent 4 nights.  We took advantage of the fast Internet to research and order materials to be delivered to our Bainbridge Island mail box for the list of projects we’ve identified to accomplished in the Fall. 

As we departed Deer Harbor on Sunday, 9/9, the weather was clearly changing and we had heavy rain showers while at anchor in Parks Bay on Shaw Island.  We spent the following night in Echo Bay on Sucia where I walked the trails for a couple of hours. 

On Tuesday we headed to Anacortes where we spent a couple of nights.  While there we added fuel, had our furnace serviced and met our friends, Natala and Don Goodman, for dinner.

An early start on Thursday, 9/13, allowed us to get back to our yacht club’s outstation in Eagle Harbor in the late afternoon, completing our summer 2018 cruise.

Miles traveled this leg – 428.2; engine hours – 69.6
Total miles traveled – 3169.5; engine hours – 528.6