Long Cruising Days

Sunday July 7th and Monday July 8th

We just competed two 10 hour days cruising south. Last night we anchored at Coghlan Anchorage near Hartley Bay. We used this anchorage last year, and although it is not “perfect” (it is pretty exposed to wind from the SE) it is convenient, has a large anchorage area, and is easy to get in and out of. We found the perfect spot to drop our anchor but we soon realized our anchor chain had fallen over on itself in the anchor locker preventing us from deploying the chain. I had already dropped roughly 40 feet in a 35 foot spot when the anchor chain stopped. I stayed at the helm while Marlene peeled out and untangled the remaining 250+ feet of chain on our bed (we definitely now need to wash the sheets and the bed quilt). We were not completely hooked but settled enough to stay constant at 35 feet. Roughly 45 minutes later we had the chain rolled back in the locker and we were able to deploy it and safely anchor. This has only happened to us once before. My “guess” is that it is due to our deep anchorages and peeling out the anchor chain too quickly, and a “bouncy” passage of Dixon Extrance a few days before. If any of our fellow boaters have ideas we are all ears.

We left Coghlan Anchorage at 5:15 AM. We got up at 4:15 only to realize we are already quite aways south and the sunrise does not happen quite so early. No more midnight sun. We could have slept in another 45 minutes or so. As soon as we left the anchorage we immediately encountered three tugs hauling HUGE barges behind them. Oh Joy.

It took us the better part of 5 hours to pass this bad boy. The second one took another hour or so. However, as you can see it was a beautiful warm day. The European Model for Predict Wind (or the DOOMESDAY MODEL as we prefer to call it) was calling for increased wind in the afternoon with gusts up to 10 kts. Fortunately that did not happen, and we had a beautiful ride all the way down to Rescue Bay.

We are now safely tucked here in Rescue Bay, with only one other boat. The sun is shinning and it is 80 degrees. Summer has arrived. We are looking out to see a window for transiting Cape Caution but it looks like that may get delayed for a few days due to wind, waves and weather. Oh well, there are worse places in the world to hang out!

Tomorrow we are off to ShearWater for a couple of days awaiting a float plan from Chris Parker for a crossing of Cap Caution. It looks to us like this weekend will be the earliest. Time will tell.