Day 11 ~ Kumealon Inlet, B.C to Prince Rupert, B.C.

When we woke up our inlet looked like a giant bubble bath, with bubbles everywhere caused by the rapids between the inlet and the lagoon. It was so peaceful that we hated to leave, but it was time to move on. Dad headed down to take a shower before we left to get his body moving. Every day, we spend hours running up and down the stairs and every night we went to bed stiff and sore. Surely at some point one would think that we would have acclimated to the whole thing.

We departed under overcast skies in anticipation of a sunny afternoon. The trip to Prince Rupert was nice and short and we were riding the flood. We didn’t really need to stop in Kumealon but it was fun because we got to go exploring. We had to remind ourselves that ‘getting there is half the fun’. While watching for logs, Dad and I strategized about our water leak and well you could say we ‘hatched’ a plan for fixing it. It seemed that we needed a more effective method of diverting it and catching what was coming in. We believed that our plan would eliminate the buckets and bowls that had become fixtures in the salon. Dad also added changing the fuel filters to the chore list.

While fueling the boat, I shared with Dad that I was beginning to feel like a well trained puppet when it came to the whole docking activity. His solution was to breakout the headsets, which would allow me to talk to him while I was docking. I could tell him what I was planning on doing next and then he could either confirm or correct, whichever was appropriate. Dad liked running around putting the fenders down and telling folks that the person docking the boat was his daughter. The headsets made me feel more confident.

Once secured, we walked into town to get the few supplies that Dad didn’t already have in on board. The town folks in Cow Bay have taken a very light approach to their name and have painted all of their fire hydrants and trash receptacles like Holstein cows. After shopping, we had a few beers and a great meal at the Breaker Pub on the pier. After we got our tummies full we walked back to the boat and did our chores. Dad changed the filters and I put operation ‘Control the Rain Drops’ into action, which consisted of me running a flexible hose across the board where the water was dripping under the hatch and then directing the hose into a container that was out of the way. The second phase required us to affix a flexible flange to the bottom of the hatch glass that would direct the water over the leaking track instead of into it.

After chores, we spent the rest of the evening on our float plan for crossing Dixon Entrance and heading back into the USA. We devised a primary and an alternate plan should the seas be more of a challenge than desired. As we organized the needed charts we determined that we were missing a required chart, so we printed it off the backup system that we had. The next day would be the last of the big water crossings.  We set the alarms and planned to depart from the dock at 8:00 a.m. It would give us enough water to pass through Venn Passage so the current would help push us up Chatham Sound and across Dixon Entrance. If all went as planned, the winds and the current would be working together and the crossing would be as calm as all of the other big water crossings we had experienced.