MAY 4, 2022 - CAMPBELL RIVER (on the dock)

Good morning! Well, the forecast for today is for ¼” of rain and it’s not raining yet, but it’s windy and chilly. I am restless because I need to get my provisioning trip out of the way so I’m not slogging bags down the dock in torrential downpour. By 8AM (after rousting Shannon) we headed up the dock beating a path for the Canadian Super Store with my “waterproof shopping bags” in tow – for those of you that followed our last trip to Alaska (which is in this same blog before Africa), you know the story around these bags. The Canadian Super Store is a giant Walmart mostly with food, but home goods and clothing as well, and the only store close to the docks. I’ve been in there in the past when a major yacht or commercial boat chef has come in and cleaned out entire sections of the produce department, so you never know what will be available. Thankfully being early in the season I was able to find all the fresh items I needed and now the boat is fully stocked for the next 10 days in the wilderness (Prince Rupert our next provisioning stop in 10 days). Unbelievably, it still wasn’t raining, so John and I decided to embark on a long walk around town and go out for lunch the Beach Fire Brewing Company, our new favorite place in Campbell River now that Koto is permanently closed (they had such good sushi).  The town is a bit worse for wear surely due to the pandemic, and many store fronts are empty and boarded up. It does appear that it’s coming back to life however, so that’s good. Not really anything interesting to report for today as it’s a down day at the dock. I think Lucky Dog got its generator issue resolved, and our diesel heater is also working again (mission critical since it’s dipping into the high 30s at night). John and David worked on tightening David’s shaft seal as well, as it had a slight leak, so that’s now good to go. We have a leak in our pilot house door which is traveling down below to our main head. Another item for John’s to-do list, we have to keep him busy.  So now we are all ready to take on tomorrow’s trek up the Johnstone Straits to Port McNeill. The weather forecast keeps changing on us but at this point it looks like Friday or Saturday are decent days to cross Cape Caution, a very long crossing of open water exposure. We have faith our fleet blessing will carry us safely. Interesting side note, tonight at dinner we struck up a conversation with a local guy sitting next to us who had just moved back here from Calgery, after being gone for 20 years. He said he sold his (average) house in the early 2000s for $250k and today it is worth over $1mm. So even here in downtrodden Campbell River, the housing market is out of control. 

May 1, 2022: Time Lapse Video of Cruise from MBYC to Sidney