By 6:00PM we are really getting beat-up due to the continually rising westerly. As we motor into it, I think we are going up and down more than we are going forward. We plunge the bow under the green water a number of times. The boat literally comes to a grinding halt for about a minute when this happens. I have to go below and tighten the portholes up a bit as we are getting a few drips of water through them. The tide is starting to change and I am afraid we are going start making zero forward progress. I had been hoping to get near

We wake up at 5:00AM the next morning and are the first boat out of Blunden Harbor (last boat in, first boat out). We have the anchor up and are underway by 5:45AM. We are dead-set on getting around Cape Caution today. Due to our abbreviated visit, we didn’t really get to see much of Blunden Harbor, so I don’t have much to report. The harbor offers a good and secure anchorage, and there is not much in the way of civilization. For some reason, the harbor reminds me a little bit of Prideaux Haven in Desolation Sound, but it is kind of hard to tell given the weather conditions and our lack interest in exploring.

We get back into Queen Charlotte Strait and head north up along the coastline. It is very foggy out. Visibility is between ½ and ¼ mile. It is flat calm and there is no wind. We are totally relying on our electronics for navigation. Visual Navigation Suite and the radar are working very nicely together. Once again, Amy is navigating and I am on deck piloting.
In her spare time, Amy makes some coffee. She presents me with my cup of coffee, calling it a “cream bomb”. On the Patience we are really into our coffee and creamer (emphasis on creamer intentional). Our cups of coffee are commonly referred to as “cream bombs” or “liquid creamsicles”. Sadly enough, we are packing about 10 pints of our favorite non-dairy creamer—Carnation Hazelnut Non-Fat Liquid Cream. You would think that 10 pints would represent a lifetime supply, but at the rate we go through it, it doesn’t last very long. At any rate, we dread the day when we finally run out of creamer and have to go to the powdered stuff, or even worse, non-fat milk. I am sure you can’t buy Carnation Hazelnut on the north coast of British Columbia.

At 7:24AM, Amy and I break out the Baileys and start celebrating. We have just crossed the infamous WNTL (The Whelan Northmost Travel Line). This is the farthest north latitude anyone in my known family has navigated a yacht - 55.3° North. When we sailed around

We spend the rest of the day “festering” in Treadwell Bay. The weather is miserable with lots of heavy fog and mist. We can’t see much and everything in the boat is getting damp. Very damp. Amy and I are depressed – we really wanted to get around Cape Caution today and this seems like a real letdown. To cheer ourselves up, we watch Scream and Sleepless in Seattle on the video recorder.
While we are watching movies, one of the crew from the hovercraft rows over, knocks on the hull, and introduces himself. There are three guys onboard and they have developed an experimental hovercraft. They are bringing it up to somewhere in Alaska to demo it to a potential customer. The hovercraft is officially called the Hovercraft Explorer. These guys are business people and believe there is a market for hovercrafts up in Southeast Alaska and north British Columbia. Their vessel can skim over reefs, do 35 mph over flat water and only burn 2 gallons (8 liters) an hour! I wonder to myself what happens when it gets rough. Anyway, they believe they are the first commercial hovercraft to navigate the Inside Passage. I later give them a few gallons of gasoline that we have on board for our Susuki outboard. They are almost out of gasoline because of their repeated unsuccessful attempts to get around Cape Caution. Later, I check out their vessel at closer range. While it is very cool, I think to myself it looks a little lightweight for this part of the coast. Also, given current weather conditions, their accommodations make our accommodations aboard the Patience look like the Queen Mary. They have about four large coolers stocked with food and are cooking on the dock on a portable propane camping stove. Their “bunks” consist of sleeping bags in the cockpit of the hovercraft. Overall, they are a pretty nice group of guys. Amy however thinks they are a little “dead-calmish” (as it relates to the similarly named movie), but I disagree.
We also see a dive boat go by, headed to the lodge. Per the crew from the Hovercraft Explorer, the lodge is actually a dive lodge. This area apparently has some amazing undersea life that attracts scuba divers from all around the world. I wonder to myself if this has something to do with all the fresh water from the run-off up in

I get up at 5:00AM the following morning and try to listen to the weather forecast on the VHF. We are having a hard time picking up weather 4 (Comox). Radio reception comes and goes as the boat swings – very irritating. I begin to develop a hypothesis that there is something wrong with our VHF’s reception capability. This hypothesis is strengthened as the trip continues. It seems very odd that the hovercraft next door is able to get weather reception with their 7 foot (2.1M) whip antennae, but we are unable to get quality reception with our antennae over 50 feet (15.2M) in the air. As I said, very irritating.
Nakwakto is currently ebbing at over 6 knots. I am planning on leaving Treadwell Bay around 6:15 – 6:30AM when the ebb has died to about 4 – 5 knots. I calculate that will give us approximately 3 knots of westbound current in Slingsby Channel. I want to be “sling-shotted” out of Slingsby Channel, but not too hard. We have 5.3 miles to go west in Slingsby. I figure by the time we get to the

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Adventures in the Charlottes was written by Tim Whelan.
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