Ketchikan to Port Townsend

Like so many boaters we followed the monthly announcements out of Ottawa as to whether the Canadians would reopen their borders to foreign visitors entering for non-essential reasons. or at least those who are fully vaccinated. The July 19 announcement, while allowing fully vaccinated US citizens with a current negative COVID test to enter for any reason, was a bit of a disappointment because it didn’t go into effect until August 9, the scheduled date for our haul out in Port Townsend.  Sadly it would be another quick transit through British Columbia.

After 3-nights in Ketchikan (we now regularly spend an extra day in port so that Drake can get “just one more shore experience” before being stuck on the boat) we departed on July 27.  So that we clear into Canada at Prince Rupert as early in the day as possible, we anchored one more night in Alaska just north of the border. 

The next morning started our transit through Canada in earnest and we arrived at the Customs Dock at Cow Bay Marina at 1028 PDT (losing an hour from AKDT).  The transit clearing process went smoothly and we departed the dock at 1118. The table below shows the transit travel days with anchorages between our last anchorage in Alaska and our first anchorage is Washington.

Date	Anchorage	NM Traveled	Engine Hours
July 29	Lowe Inlet, Grenville Channel	93.7	14.4
July 30	Bottleneck Inlet, Roderick Island	74.6	11.5
July 31	Fury Cove, Penrose Island	91.9	14.0
August 1	Mist Islet, Port Harvey, Cracroft Island	95.7	14.1
August 2	Tribune Bay, Hornby Island	103.0	14.3
August 3	Lyall Harbor, Saturna Island	76.0	11.1
August 4	Prevost Harbor, Stuart Island	11.4	2.4

On our last night, rather than arriving in the late evening at a crowded San Juan Island anchorage, we chose to stop a little early at a quiet and uncrowded anchorage in BC.  The next morning we started leisurely, traveled a short distance, cleared back into the US along the way, and arrived at Prevost Harbor after many of the previous night’s boaters had left left .

The total distance travelled during the transit (last US anchorage to first US anchorage) was 546.3 nautical miles in 81.8 engine hours (that includes the time to drop and retrieve the anchor).  The clock time from our departure from the Alaska anchorage to our arrival at the Washington anchorage was 149.1 hours.

We relaxed a couple of nights in Prevost Harbor before positioning ourselves on the southeast corner of Lopez Island. On the morning of Saturday, August 7 we crossed the Strait of Juan de Fuca and moored in Boat Haven at Port Townsend.  Arriving early gave us time to prepare the boat for the yard work that begins Monday, August 9.