7/12, done

Well, 'sold', but not to complete til today.

But not quickly. My buyer moves slow. He got lost twice on the way to the boat ramp. My directions were to "Turn at the street to the BellWeather Hotel, there's a big sign, but then immediately turn right into the parking lot full of boat trailers. DO NOT continue to the HOTEL." Predictably, the next call from him was: "ok, we're at the Hotel..."

But finally it's done, i actually made a profit on the boat! Back to Trinity next week.

So much thanks to all my good many friends who assisted, supported, advised, and even read this blog. Especially Cathy, who watched over me daily, remotely, the whole long way.

7/6 sold

John came by today, we spent all day inspecting, boating, checking the trailer, talking, i bought him lunch, he's a good man, who gave me a deposit on sale to be finalized friday, for more than i paid for it. I'll split the profits to Bill, who sold it to me for, as it turned out, less than it's worth.

Assuming it goes thru: this enterprise, wildly successful.

7/4

Cleaned the oily bilge today, ICK!

7/3

When i posted on Craigslist in Vancouver i got a bunch of immediate replies. But then i decided to wait, sell in Washington, so posted on Bellingham Craigslist. Only 2 responses so far, but both seem nice & sincerely interested. Will meet 1 on saturday. Meanwhile: i have my truck back, moving my stuff off boat to truck, CLEANING.

Back in the US

Back in the US, need to check in with Customs, so i check the website, and there's nothing for Bellingham WA. So i call a couple #s, turns out Bellingham is not a place i can clear customs. I can either go SOMEPLACE ELSE, or download an app. I asked the nice man on the phone: what happens if i don't do either? Well, then you'd be in violation of the law. "No offense to you, sir, that's the option i choose. Bye."

Well, they called back.

7/1

Happy Canada Day!

So much thanks to Mitch&Anita, Vancouver, it was an essential transition from "out there".

Beautiful perfect sun day. Initially flat of course, it got bigger, 1' 2' 3' but didnt matter, i can do this now. Arrived Bellingham WA.

So now all's left is sell. Hope that will elim my severe psychosomatic right knee ache/weakness.

'Boating South' map...

6/26

We went for a boat ride up the fjord east of Vancouver. Actually the waves were pretty nasty initially, but Mitch & Anita drove so i had it easy.

6/25

Tried to get hold o my friends in Lund, but failed. O too bad. Off to Vancouver. It was a perfect sunny day. Wind waves initially increasing to ~1', not bad, then rounded a point & the sea went flat all the way to Vancouver.

Ha i wasnt docked for 5minutes when confronted by the police about my immigration status.

6/27

Today I wander Vancouver.

The 1st is of a construction site, about 2 stories below ground level along the downtown sidewalk. The last 1 is work on a new installation at the Vancouver Art Gallery. I found the colors of the tools, and the people working, visually interesting. The security lady stopped me after 1 shot: not permitted, the exhibit isnt open yet.

For Sale

on Craigslist...

6/24

Campbell River is organized, the marina surrounded by a tall rock wall against the ridiculous tide, like 20'? little floating sheds for whale watch, wildlife tours, "so much commerce here!" i xclaim to the gal with the clipboard, waiting to sign up tourists for the tours, good on ya.

It's a beautiful blue sky sun day. Why ever leave the north of Strait of Georgia?

Piled on the dock, folks preparing to leave, chainsaws, hardhats, logging gear. "What are you fishin' for?" Soon they head out, their stern's a little out there, they'll crash the dock, but they have more than 1 guy aboard, 1 of em just sticks his leg out, kicks off the impending pier, it's nothing. Me, alone, i cud'v never done that very simple act.

i blog at starbux, doesnt everyone? then groceries, automatic transmission fluid for the trim-tabs, which i think leak; a scrub brush to clean the floor, shamefully fouled by shell debris when i hurried hauled up the anchor to miraculously avoid a rocky collision; alcohol fuel for the stove. At the Marine store, they sell Pollen sweaters. I buy a Desolation Sound cruising guide, to replace the one loaned me by Evelyn, then wetted by the maga-cruise-ship-wake that rendered me briefly a submarine, and relate the story to Vicky, the manager. She tells me say hi to Ev. I feel like a local.

Walking the dock back to the boat, a whale-watch boat races into its slip, reverses at the last split-second, parks perfectly. An old hobbled no-doubt-fisher-man walking by shouts to the pilot: "you can drive, girl!" And truly she could.

It's 1 incredibly beautiful warm sunny dramatic day.

Despite "ree-laxed" i'm nervous as heck, makes no sense. Finally ~noon i'll be on my way, i'll feel so much better, moving. But the wind is blowing, when i release the bow line, it wants to blow into the adjacent boat surely before i can get inside and exercise some ~control. I enlist a passing gentleman to assist. He tells me he can handle it, he's a boat handling instructor and former boat-police-guy. Perfect. And indeed he is. Fuel, and i'm off.

Just outside the piled-rock breakwater, i stop to pull in the fenders/etc, and now back to the helm, look up, the wind's blown me within 2 boat lengths of the massive steel piles of the BC ferry terminal. And this boat length is not very long, eh? So close to the finish: i can still fail.

The sky stays sun, sea is perfect, snow-cap mountains, i'm to Lund in no time. My gosh if every day was like this: one would never recognize Grace. Could Grace be the perfect weather, not saved from a boat-(&life)-threatening following sea?

Nearing the End, i don't feel triumphant, or that i'v accomplished anything. I feel purely lucky, Graced, to have survived, and it wasnt me, there was something that let me do it, preserved me, and even that is philosophicly problematic, because then 1 explanation is it saved me because i'm special. And i'm not.

~success, but ~destroyed. it's what i'm wrestling with.

6/23, now with fotos

Thank good all was well this last nite. The anchor lines are wrapped 3x around eachother as the boat spun in the random-gentle-wind nite, minor detail. I didnt drag off into oyster rack or sheer rock-face land.

Plan the day. There are ~4 different possible routes to Lund. 1 i took north-bound, no reason to do that again. The other 3 (and indeed even the 1 i did before) are quite problematic: all include ~rapids, ~narrows, potentially dangerous passages, due to tidal currents, the hazard mitigated by transiting only at slack water. A description of some... and a very impressive youtube video...

- - - The tides go in, then they go out. Tides in this region are like 15-20+ feet, o my. Where the passages are narrow, or contorted, the tides can race thru at like ~12+knots. If it was just a speed thing, *i* would be ok. Cuz i'm fast. But more complicated than that. There's turbulence, rip currents, upwellings, standing waves, WHIRLPOOLS, OMG. Scary as heck.

It's like whitewater rafting, unless you do it at slack.

On way north i actually went thru ~5 of these passes, they really werent any problem, but i'm wondering: did i just happen to hit them at the right time?

- - -

On my east-US-coast sail, there was 1 place, in South Carolina on the intra-coastal waterway, where i encountered a true whitewater tidal channel. I wallowed into it under 10-HP outboard, til i could go no further: my max ~7mph speed was equal to the current opposing; i was going nowhere whatsoever. So what now? I eased off on the throttle just a little, and let the current carry me backwards to an eddy, where i sat it out til the tidal flow dissipated.

But that was nothing compared to the magnitude of the tidal channels here.

- - -

Canada publishes tables of the slack times & max currents for their various rapids; i'd downloaded them all before i left on the trip. I referred to them now along with 3 different reference books, none of which had a single simple map of them, so i had to page thru various chapters & maps; it was very complicated. (Oddest of all is that the Canada gov has no map for the tables, nor is a Lat/Lon given; the tables are named with the name of the rapid, and each rapid seems to have , in the guidebooks, multiple names.) It appeared that for 2 of the routes, with multiple rapids, the times, you might say, "set west", that is, the slack times for the western-more rapids were after those of the eastern-more, hence i'd have to run them east to west, which of course was impossible. And i feared that as i sat planning, i'd become too late to get to some 1st rapid before its slack time. I finally settled on the route with 1 single rapid, just cuz it was so much simpler. Finally, impatient, on my way.

The next dilemma was time conversion. The tables gave slack times in Standard Time. Is British Columbia on Daylite Saving Time? Best i could tell, yes. OK so how to convert Daylite Saving to Standard? If in the spring you spring ahead 1hr, then to convert DST to standard, you must subtract, right? But 1 guidebook said add an hour! I struggled with this as i drove the boat thru worsening wind & waves, even in the narrow channels, how could i be wrong with such a simple problem? Or was the book wrong? Some rapids have only a very brief slack time, i mustnt be 1 or 2 hrs off. Finally (i'm such an idiot) i realized it's a matter simply of which direction you're converting. I was thinking going from the time on my phone to standard time, subtract 1. But what i needed to do was convert the standard time table time to daylite, add 1. Whew. Then Cathy came up with a graph she found online where the guy had already done the time conversion, confirming the add 1. OK now i know the time of slack for Seymour Narrows on Discovery Channel (no no no, not TV, this is real): 1614 hrs this afternoon. I have plenty of time to get there.

Cathy, meanwhile, has done her research and decided i surely will die, and further she worried from something she'd read that i was going the wrong direction for the tides, that it was actually dangerous, that i therefore must stop at a marina and ask someone knowledgeable. The channel i was traveling was rather extremely choppy, and i had to wait for 1610 somewhere, so i was only too happy to accommodate her, stopping in at conveniently situated Brown Bay immediately north of Seymour.

Meanwhile, a slew of various boats, like 24 of 'em, all at once, come northbound, clearly having come thru the Narrows at the last slack.

Arrived Brown Bay Marina, just a small place with a floating cafe, minimart, and fuel dock. As with every marina: ok, where do i park? I was happy to see a readable sign at the end of 1 dock: "Transient Mooring". Space on one side looked very narrow; a big sailboat was parked at the end on the other side, but there was space behind it, so i went for that.

But when i got around the yacht, here i find a sign saying that space is reserved for so-&-so. Damn. Well, i gotta go somewhere, i'll do that, then ask someone if it's ok.

Now imagine the layout here. The docks are laid out in the shape of a "U". I've entered of course on the open end of the U. I want to park along 1 side of the U. But there's a strong wind blowing me in. I decide to get sideways, let it blow me onto the base of the U (which also is placarded with Reserved signs), then i'll get out and drag the boat into place. So this ~worked, tho given that i was only being blown sideways, i did hit rather hard but there was nothing i could do about it. So i get out, prepare to drag the boat into place, and already there's someone yelling at me, 2 guys in a small fish boat, "you're in our space!" Sorry sorry, i move, they park, they're happy now.

So we talk. They assure me there's no problem with my Seymour plan, long as i wait for slack. They ask where i'm coming from. Skagway. They look confused. Alaska. Holy shit, in that? 1 guy pointed to a big sailboat, he did some traveling too, down to Cabo (Baja), then rather than sail it back north (the wind blows from the north, whereas the trip south is easy downwind, the trip back's nitemare, slow splashy tacking back and forth against big waves), they shipped it back on a freighter. Good idea. Now they'v lived here on the boat a couple years, fishing. What a life.

I go for lunch at the nice little cafe, nothing to do for a few hours. Parked next to my boat is one of those big ~zodiac inflatables, all decked out, "POLICE" on the side. The 2 officers are likewise lunching in the cafe, dressed all in black, armor vests, web gear, combat boots, and those skinny little PFDs all the cool boat people wear now that auto-inflate when you hit the water, gosh they look tough. RCMP. As they were going out, they engaged in conversation with another couple, 1 looked at his phone, and pronounced that slack had been ~30minutes ago.

Huh?

So i caught 'em before they were gone and we discussed it. I told em my official gov table said 1610. They looked confused, checked their phones, no, they said, it says ~1440 (or whatever). I ran got my computer and showed 'em, hoping theyd tell me what i was doing wrong, then realized they were looking at TIDE tables, i was looking at CURRENT tables, you'd expect theyd show the same slack times, but clearly they did not. Weird. Tide tables of course of water level; apparently even after reaching a certain max or minimum level, the water keeps running.

I told i used to be a Boat Patrol guy for the Park Service and Sheriff, it was the world's greatest job.

Still waiting, nervous, Cathy & i in a txting discussion of the math of tide graphs. Out in the channel the line of whitewater has dissipated.

At ~1530 the local fish guy comes by, says a sailboat just went thru Seymour under sail, it must be ok. It would be impolite to not agree. I get prepped, warm up the engine. He holds the bowline for me as i back out, the wind now blowing the opposite direction and wanting to blow me into the sailboat. Just outside the marina i pull in the fenders, done the offshore PFD, activate the various navigation devices. Relieved, finally deal with this.

And, as it's spozed to be if you wait for slack, there really was no problem. Yes, it was weird, the water roiling around like a pot boiling without the bubbles. But no real problem. Indeed the wind-waves this morn were far more difficult.

I soon arrive at the marina at Campbell River, i phone in, they give me a berth. Everything, the entrance, docks, spaces, are clearly signed up high in big letters. I compliment the harbor master when i sign in, it's the best marked marina i've been to. Then i ask her where i can find a pub. As i'm saying it, i look out the window and there, immediately on the land, is a big neon sign "Riptide Pub". Ha even the pubs are well-marked.

Tho there may be waves tomoro crossing the north end of the Georgia Strait, and then going south from Lund to Vancouver, i think i'm finally done with all the scary parts. Like the boat's old name, finally, i can Reelax.

6/22, now with fotos

I've written of The Fear.

Will the engine start, in this wilderness? I've gotten over that one. Lately, it always does, who knows why, is it new gas? I boat out into the dismal grey, calm in the anchorage but immediately wavey outside. OK i can handle this, so far. But it's raining, and very soon, i can't see anything. Continuing, an island looms, and i know which one it is because that's the direction i was in, and i've pre-designated a cove on this island as 1 i can bail to if there's trouble. So i follow the coast close along, and there's the cove and thank goodness it isnt wavey, it's 'protected'. I anchor temp and wait for the fog to lift.

And in a short time it ~does, all is still grey/ominous/depressing, but i can see the mainland. Off i go. The sea is big but within reason. After awhile you're used to it ands what was frightening now is just dread. What will happen next? Dad advised: just stay close to land. But the text i read while i sailed Baja, 'Heavy Weather Sailing', advised, "The greatest risk to a ship at sea is not the Sea, it is The Land."

- - -

It was something i remembered there, Baja, when, sailing along ~far offshore, i looked back to see what clearly was a fog bank approaching. The guidebook had advised~ dont worry about fog in The Gulf of California, it doesnt happen. And here it was coming. I headed immediately top-speed toward shore, and i almost made it, except all that was there were numerous random rocks, and a sea ~boiling like i'd never seen, what was going on? So remembering what i'd read, i turned and headed away from the land. I reefed the sails because i didnt know what was coming, and... opened, consumed, a can of beans. It seemed, and was, a good idea.

Then the storm, it hit, but oddly it wasnt really a big deal. I wasnt trying to go anywhere, i was just holding my place, the boat angled into the waves, the reefed sails just kinda edging me along, no hurry. Then it was dark, and then the wind died, and i thot, well, i'm out here, lets make some progress toward the northerly goal, follow the compass and the stars, nothing else to do, but with little wind now, it was frustrating, so finally i just went to bed and the boat laid, as they want to do, sideways to the residual sea waves, rocking. When i awoke AM, all was fog. Gradually, distant peaks appeared, i triangulated a position, laid a course.

- - -

So often to avoid charted rocks, some sometimes invisible below surface, i must head straight out to sea, toward Japan or someplace, it seems the most unnatural thing. The Guidebook says: the Sea "heaps up", stay at least a mile offshore rounding Cape Caution. I imagine swimming it.

And then finally i'm around in the grey dismal haze, it seems to be working.

Now into the Queen Charlotte Channel (wow everything in Canada seems named after English monarchy, ick, do they mind?) it changes, the sea that smooth surreal pulsating slick oily look, grey but glowing yellow, the oddest thing, low long-period waves following, they're barely apparent, but as i climb the ascending face the speed reduces to 12, then tho i dont even see them, slowly it speeds to 21, OMG, as i surf down the inapparent reverse slope, i lose my nerve, reduce the throttle, but it's insensitive, i cant make it gradual, so due to engine torque or who-knows i lurch sideways, inducing exactly the ~broach i was intending to avoid. And it happens over&over. Nothing~serious, i am so lucky, relatively benign but nerve-wracking, always on the edge of... ~something.

Finally thru a narrow passage, the sea waves are gone. Perfect. Speed on.

I txt Cathy i'll head to Echo Bay, a resort, their website boisterous, i imagine party, food, beer, &, o, essential gas. She replies: are they even open? But there's no other choice now, i'm already past the turn off to the inlet to the alt.

Echo Bay: thank good they do have fuel. But nothing else, til 6/29 when their season starts. I'm clearly not attuned to 'the Season' in this region, but that's a good thing: no crowds.

Off thru a fjord passage, narrow, serene, no one there.

Now out to cross Knight Inlet, it's insane, big waves, each splays a splash from the bow which the wind blows back across the windshield. OK, i only have to cross it, not far, i can handle this, but i see a big trawler followed by little ones, like a mother hen and chicks, o my the chicks, probably C-Dory 22s, a popular mini-trawler, are smaller even than i! Poor bastards, in this! For the very first time, i feel, comftably, Big.

The group takes a side-channel, i continue on, check an anchorage but contrary to the Guidebook it's now occupied by some commercial fishing/whatever warehouse/repair-shed + dock/etc. Try another: same. Somehow this seems wrong, but, what, should the coves be reserved for itinerant cruisers? No.

Finally i try another long inlet, again all industrialized, fishing, logging, multi-story float-housing. I could park next to 1 big cruiser there in the Guidebook-designated anchorage space. But what if i dragged (yes, as usual)? It would be embarrassing. So i find an undesignated corner, next to an added rusty oyster rack, i think. Stern anchors, 2, poor rock bottom i think, judging by shoreline, yet it holds for, after an eve of ~severe wind, a quiet nite.

6/21 - now with fotos

On the road by 6:15. Mostly sunny. Today's the big day, will round Cape Caution.

But The Sea has other ideas. The ocean waves are BIG, indeed higher than my roof, and irregular. This is just scary, so i make a new plan, head up Smith Sound, and manage to navigate to a tranquil cove, the navigation, amidst the waves and sky that have turned grey, also hard, because all the numerous islands look alike, but luckily this cove does have a buoy outside it, so i know i'm at the right place.

Updated map: Boating South

6/20, now with photos

I've been waiting for better weather, anxious to get moving again. Today, partly blue sky, i motor back to Shearwater, have breakfast, check the weather forecasts. Looks like tomoro will be a good weather day, so today i'll head south, intending to anchor north of Cape Caution, then make the dash around it tomoro morn.

The sizes of the boats at Shearwater is ridiculous.

Initially the water is perfect. In the distance there's a whale, then tail. Many cruising boats, mostly going north of course.

Along the way there's an opening in the barrier islands and get rollers thru from the ocean, nothing serious but portent. I buzz along on a following wind, but at some point now it's stern-quarter, plus there's some combo of angle/speed/wave-height that gives a horrible vibration as certain waves pass. Tho i think all is mechanicly OK, the sensation is that my drive-train is about to fall off.

The Cape of course is open ocean, so at 1 point i lose my barrier island protection. It's afternoon now too, so the wind waves are bigger. So i'm getting wind waves from the stern, ocean rollers from the beam. It's a confused sea. Which is what i expected, so i have a place picked out right there to duck into. The indispensable Cruising Guide describes the place as 1 of their faves.

Trouble is: i cant find the entrance. I have a GPS map display, but this being Canada (copyrighted) the display is extremely crude. I have a great Canadian chart. But i have only a rough idea of where i am. And the shorelines all look alike: trees, rocks, islands big & small, all over. The Guide tells me to look for the white-painted rock, which tells you something: the entrance is so hard to spot, someone painted a rock, very unusual. Meanwhile i'm being tossed around in the chaotic sea, the drivetrain sounding like shaking itself to death.

I'm coming to the island's end, no white rock. There's only 1 thing to do: keep going, on to the next Guidebook anchorage, across a channel that's open to the ocean.

It was pretty crazy, but the worst part was, once again, where the heck is the entrance? The coastline ahead all looked alike. I could see 2 offshore islands, which might be the 2 islands on the chart (can't ever be absolutely sure, it's not like they have little floating labels over them). Assuming they were the islands i thot they were, i saw that as i approached the coast, at 1 point the islands would line up on the left and point right into my target cove on the right. And as it turned out, that worked, and i was successfully off the sea.

(Just outside, but still amidst the carnage, were 4 little sport fishing boats, anchored, fishing? Those guys are crazy.)

This is a cool little spot, sun, steep forested granite all around, and (so far) all mine. Only problem is there is minor waves coming in thru the entrance, so i'm getting rocked around as i sit here, but minor detail. Off the sea.

- - Dang, isnt that islet getting closer? Wow like really closer? I start the engine, pull up the anchor (which is weighted solid with green & brown weed, broken shells, and 1 live crab) fast, and miraculously avoid crashing the hull on rock. The wind is blowing right up the channel. So i relocate to the next cove over. The guide book says this is a resort here, but all i see left is a 1/3-sunk boat and a rusty water-or-gas tank. I anchor again, and first thing i know off we go again. So i try 1 more time, we'll hope for the best. It is quieter wind-wise here, but not nearly as purty.

6/19, now with photos

"Then, we were looking for adventures. Later, when we found out what adventures were like, we tried to avoid them, but they came anyway." - The Curve of Time by M Wylie Blanchet, a truly wonderful book. Evelyn loaned it to me for the trip and i sit here reading it in the rain in an inlet near Shearwater as it rains hard, 3 other cruiser boats likewise, no doubt they also waiting for better weather, otherwise we all would be out there moving. [rain video]

Mitch phoned, it's so amazing i can be parked amidst the maritime wilderness of Canada and carry on a normal phone conversation. I'll meet him and Anita in Vancouver, well, soon, it's only ~4 travel days away, but i wait on weather.

i rafted ashore this morn. Remember i complained bitterly about it in an earlier post, but this time i knelt in it instead of butt-sat and, inexplicably, there was no problem rowing at all. On the other hand, i noticed many days ago that after only 2 brief uses, the rest of its life tied to the roof, a major seam had split in its ~skin, exposing the inner air bladder. The thing worse than junk is expensive junk.

Ashore, the low tide had exposed red squishy critters that looked like upside down sea urchins. There unfortunately are not tide pools, since the steep land plunges immediately to depths. I checked where i'd seen some people go ashore yesterday, fantasizing maybe the trail to a lake? But no, it was a guy building a house in the thick wood just back from the shore. Surprised, "Good morning," i said. He just turned around and went back to work. So much for the shore excursion.

There is internet here, but i have 2 problems in that regard, verizon's 1/2 GB daily international limit, which was exhausted by a mere 10minutes of foolish Facebooking (something's terribly wrong), and my device's power supply. I have 2 big marine batteries, which i reserve for the exclusive use of starting the engine, plus a little lawn mower batt i bot for devices (computer,phone,gadget3) recharge. The small batt charges when i motor thru the day, as do the devices, then when they go low in the eve i hook 'em into the small 12v batt. Turns out that system works pretty well, but of course if i'm not moving, like today and most of yesterday, there's no recharge, and everything ends up dead (except the marine batts for the engine, which i'm not touching). Of course i could run the engine, but that seems so wasteful, especially given that >5$US gas.

So i must eschew internet & Rimworld, and instead read and look out thru foggy windows at the rain.

6/18

The nite was still. Sea reflects as mirror. Up and out by 0545.

Close along the shore in the narrow channels, i admired the bands of rock & tidal life. There were 3 bald eagles on a branch, a seal, a dolphin. The sky was dramatic, grey, but with openings in the gloom to white cumulus above, and godlight. A perfect day for the return to Reid Passage.

The place had scared me before. The narrow passage comes out onto a brief border to real ocean, then wiggles thru confused array of wave-breaking rocks before ducking back inland. Tho it had been a sunny day, the wind was blowing, big ocean rollers (well...) rolled in, waves were broke on rocks and otherwise, and i had no certain idea of where the heck to go, no aids to navigation, chart in one hand, glasses down on nose to discern fine print, back up to view the scary world.

Today was much better, there was no wind, but still there were those 4' rollers, me traversing laterally, yes the good boat handled it all fine, better than me i guess. Here the opposite direction comes a 40' sailboat, bouncing in the waves, each of us i think making things easier for the other, as we could see where the other came from, hence the general direction to go.

[Clarification: a 4' wave is not big. It just feels that way.]

Wiggled thru the rocks and i was back in-land. Relief.

Here comes a rowboat. Poor bastards, how will they manage what i'd just been thru?

How to navigate facing backwards? But i'll bet they're fine. Some people, amazing.

Unlike the trip north, there were cruiser boats everywhere, N/B. Arrived Shearwater, for gas, beer, etc. Clumsily hit the dock a little hard. "Sorry," i said to the attendant. "No problem," he answered, "that's what the tires are for."

Filled (only 1/2 tank but 342$C, 1.85$C/liter, lets see that's OMG 5.25$US/gallon. (Check my math.) Luckily, for purposes of this long adventure, i'd pre-chosen to ignore all costs.

I complimented that the resort looked really nice. "It's a bit pricey," he replied.

And the place was nice. I had a fancy breakfast in the almost empty restaurant (by this time, 10am, everyone else no doubt out fishing or on eco-tours). The unique server (bright fake-red hair, bright red makeup, both purposely overdone) was comicly dramatic, called everyone "my darling" like she meant it, she redirected me to a table where i could plug in my laptop and invited me to stay til 11 (pm that is). She brought the plate of food. "I'll just have to eat this," i said (because i'm kinda character too), her comeback: "If you did anything else with it i'd be worried"

Checking the weather for Cape Caution, it looked bad thru ~friday, 4 days away. What to do til then? There seemed furious positive activity everywhere, especially construction. Walking back to the boat, i encountered 3 guys together who from earlier contacts i already knew were associated with the resort, likely in ~management positions, and ~volunteered for work. They politely declined. O too bad, that would've been kinda cool.

...unless they'd put me to cleaning barbecues, which is what i then encountered further out on the dock. Next to a nice Coast Guard ship (Coast Guard, US and Canadian, have the coolest!), a young man scrubbed a grill. [Surely it had come from the Coast Guard vessel. Another young civilian man was ~cleaning on the CG boat. Apparently Canada Coast Guardsmen dont clean? seems odd, but whatever.] I complimented his hard (ugly) work. Referring to my also-adjacent Washington-registered boat, he asked if i'd come all the way from Washington?

Yes, but i'd gone to Skagway, now i was headed back.

"Where's Skagway?"

Alaska.

"Good on ya," he said.

He had a small boat too and he'd been all around here, but thot of heading farther out, had i seen others my size?

Just the day-fishermen, not cruisers.

Did it handle the seas?

Yes. But sometimes it was scary.

Beyond years wise, he said "To the sea, the biggest ship is small."

As i un-docked, pulled away, i saw he watched me go. And not even cuz i was doing anything stupid.