2026 Annual Wrap Up

With regards to the “numbers”, our 2026 cruise was pretty typical. It did seem as though we cruised a bit slower. I probably subconsciously dropped our cruising RPM from the 1500’s to the 1400’s to save some of the very expensive diesel fuel in our tanks. Also, the percentage of days at dock was higher than in most years (41% versus an average of 34%), We had two separate periods of nine consecutive days at a dock (both for different unplanned reasons) which really bumped our total number of nights on the dock up.

We continue to try to visit (or at least anchor) in different spots.  We used 11 new sites that we hadn’t visited before. Some were locations well documented in guide books, others were in spots that I had previously seen boats (often via AIS) anchoring in. Our list of destinations now stands at 396.

Below is the summary of our sixteen seasonal cruises in Alpenglow.

	Year	# of Days	At Anchor	At a Dock	On a Buoy	Distance Traveled	Engine Hours	Gen. Hours	Time Idling
	2010	129	57	66	5	3,221	517.1	40.4
	2011	115	81	33		3,465	577.4	31.3
	2013	151	99	50	1	3,667	630.0	53.3
	2014	141	86	48	6	4,052	720.8	34.8	48.5
	2015	104	67	31	5	3,580	629.2	28.7	42.4
	2016	141	99	39	2	3,979	700.0	51.9	68.6
	2017	140	91	46	2	3,817	656.5	62.2	51.1
	2018	112	71	40		3,170	528.6	33.9	38.2
	2019	118	82	35		3,816	649.5	16.3	56.6
	2020	63	42	12	6	2,527	399.7	32.8	11.5
	2021	110	81	26	2	3,317	554.0	66.0	27.5
	2022	139	88	47	3	3,584	613.6	19.5	42.9
	2023	139	84	54		3,024	510.4	36.0	33.7
	2024	122	73	48		3,091	529.8	24.8	26.9
	2025	122	78	43		3,099	520.2	33.3	29.3
	2026	134	76	55	2	3,332	563.1	28.8	19.1
		1,980	1,255	673	34	54,741	9299.9	594.0	496.3

As a footnote to the table above, if you add up the nightly stops (at anchor, at a dock or on a buoy), the total, 1,962, is 18 short of the total number of days, 1980. The difference is the 16 days at the end of the trip when I don’t count the night we return to our homeport and two days in 2020 during Covid when we did overnight passages and did not stop.

The “Time Idling” is the total of the estimated hours during a day spent trolling for salmon, servicing prawn pots, or sightseeing (e.g., whale activity or glacier viewing).  I make these estimates to give me a better idea of my true cruising speed.

Below is a map of our stops and tracks in the 2026 cruising season. Clicking on one of the “dropped pins” will pull up some information about the stop. The tracks change in color as a aid to see each day’s route and the color doesn’t signify anything in particular. As these tracks are our actual route and not our intended route, you may notice deviations from a straight path to accommodate other vessel traffic, sea conditions, temporary stops in order time a narrows, or fishing. At the top right of the map is an icon which will open a separate window that may be easier to navigate.

The map below shows all of the places we have stopped overnight during all our cruises through 2026. It is similar in style to our yearly cruise map except that when the marker for a particular spot is selected, the data for the spot is the total number of times we’ve stayed and in which years. 

As a word of caution, the location of the mark shown on the map is an “average” of ALL the stops and may not actually represent the location of ANY one stop. For destinations that are popular, we may have dropped the anchor at many different places and the average spot isn’t the best or even a safe spot to anchor.

Ketchikan to Bainbridge Island – August 6 to September 9

The final leg of our cruise started August 6 when we headed south from Ketchikan and took on 600 gallons of diesel on the way. The first night we made an intermediate anchorage just north of the border which allowed a noon time arrival at Prince Rupert the next day. We had sufficient time that afternoon to enjoy lunch at the Wheelhouse Brewing Company in the old Canadian National Railway Station before provisioning with “freshies” at Safeway for our trip south through British Columbia.

From Prince Rupert we repeated the same long day’s journey as last year through Grenville Channel and anchoring in Hawk Bay on Fin Island near Hartley Bay. The next day, we went fishing in Otter Channel and Marcia caught a silver salmon.

We continued south the next day and fished a late morning bite at Ulric Point at the NE corner of Aristazabal Island but came up empty-handed. After fishing we continued south through Laredo Channel, transited Meyers Narrow finally ending the day at Mary Cove on west shore of Roderick Island.

With benign sea conditions forecast, we exited Findlayson Channel, transited Milbanke Sound into Seaforth Channel. A fishing session at Idol Point yielded nothing so we continued, finally anchoring in Gosse Bay along Gunboat Passage for the night.

An early start had us at Rattenbury Point along Dean Channel for the early morning bite and Marcia landed a coho. We then headed south and fished a mid-day bite at Uganda Point, south of Namu in Fitz Hugh Sound but struck out. With the salmon hardly biting, we bet on a sure thing (at least for fun), and headed to Pruth Bay, and the beautiful beaches accessible from there.

We spent two nights in Pruth Bay, with walks to the beaches in the morning and afternoon. The Hakai Institute research station is kind enough to allow transient boaters dingy access to their sturdy docks. They even have a hose with fresh water at the dock that can be used to wash the sand and salt water from any canine companion that happens to have played in the surf.

On our morning walk to the North Beach, we found a set of paw prints from two wolves that had traveled along it shortly before our arrival. Calvert Island is sufficiently large to support a healthy population of wolves. Tracks, sightings and even encounters of wolf pack members occur regularly, so we kept Drake close by at all-times.

When we left Pruth Bay, we headed across Fitz Hugh Channel to Fish Egg Inlet. We first dropped prawn pots before fishing along the shores of Addenbroke Island, north of the lighthouse. Once again, the salmon were scarce, at least for us. We anchored the night in cove a short distance from where we dropped our prawn pots.

Since fishing had been so poor, we decided the next day to retrieve our prawn pots and head south around Cape Caution. The harvest from the prawn pots did nothing to dissuade us from that decision. Of the three pots we had used, one was not bad, one was poor and the other had a big octopus that had eaten the few prawns that had entered before the octopus joined them (it could have been worse since last year, we had two of the three pots set pull up octopi). The conditions around Cape Caution were pretty good and we didn’t need to put our stabilizing fish in the water. After crossing, we anchored in Port Alexander on Nigel Island about 11 NM northwest of Port Hardy. This was the same anchorage we had used before crossing Cape Caution on the northbound portion of the cruise.

The cruise into Port McNeill the next day was uneventful, and we arrived late morning. We decided to spend three nights in Port McNeill so that we didn’t feel rushed and Drake had ample time for ball play and walks.

For slow boats, such as ours, the section between Port McNeill and Campbell River is often a problem because the currents can be large and their timing unhelpful. Throw in winds, which can increase sharply during the day with a direction that is almost always on your bow or on your stern and picking when to leave and where to stop is difficult. Last year, the stars, or rather the sun and moon/, lined us perfectly and we were able to go from Port McNeill to Gowlland Harbor (directly across the channel from Campbell River) in one day. This year we weren’t so lucky and needed an intermediate stop. We chose as our anchorage, Blenkinsop Bay. The strong westerly winds in Johnstone Strait made the anchorage windy with some chop, but it wasn’t terrible. By using it and starting early the next day, we were able get a current boost through Discovery Passage beyond Campbell River into the Strait of Georgia. That night we anchored in Tribune Bay on Hornby Island. From there, we continued down the Strait of Georgia to Nanaimo where we transited Dodd Narrows to gain the more protected waters of the Gulf Islands (the British Columbia islands across from the Washington San Juan Islands) anchoring that night in Montague Harbor on Galiano Island.

Once in the Gulf Islands, our long days of travel are generally behind us because the area is compact. We stayed two nights in Montague Harbor before heading to the Port Browning Marina on North Pender Island for two nights. We then crossed the border back into the USA, spending our two nights in Garrison Bay on San Juan Island, one night in Blind Bay on Shaw Island and a night in Griffin Bay on San Juan Island. During that time, we went to shore often to do walks and play ball with Drake. The weather was pleasant.

From Griffin Bay we crossed the Strait of Juan de Fuca and docked in Port Townsend, on Saturday, August 29. We had an appointment for Monday to install a new AIS-VHF antenna and pull a new cable from it, down our mast and into the locker beneath our lower helm where the new AIS (Automatic Identification System) black box installed during our Spring 2026 haul out was located.

From Port Townsend we headed up to Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes for two days to sit out a short spell of windy weather. After that we spent four nights at the Deer Harbor Marina where our yacht club leases dock space as an “out station” for its members. We’ve come to enjoy this leisurely travel schedule towards the end of our cruising season..

We finished our summer cruise with a night at anchor in Prevost Harbor on Stuart Island (and requisite walk out to the Turn Point Lighthouse) and a night anchored in Griffin Bay (with a walk to the Cattle Point Light House). One final, long day across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and down Puget Sound to Bainbridge Island returned us to where we started nearly 4-1/2 months earlier.

Leg 5 – 23 Travel Days, 907.3 NM, 157.8 Engine Hours