JULY 2, 2022 – KETCHIKAN TO PRINCE RUPERT (CROSSING DIXON ENTRANCE)

Up at 5:00AM for our big crossing day. We’d been studying the weather and wind apps and listening to the official marine weather on the VHF for the past few days and determined that today was our best bet for crossing Dixon Entrance. Forecast was for 10-20 knot winds from the north, which meant following seas for most of the journey, and 4’ seas, which wasn’t the greatest report but we had to go for it and the coming days were predicted to be worse. To our tremendous surprise and luck, the seas were absolutely flat calm, glassy, not even a ripple. Not sure how the experts can be so far off on weather predictions but we were quite pleased! It was probably the smoothest crossing we have ever had. As we approached Prince Rupert, about an hour or so out, we were met with a thick fog bank so on went the radar for the rest of the journey. Interestingly enough, as we came into the channel that leads to Prince Rupert and the shoreline was clear of fog so we emerged back into the sunshine – hurray! As usual it was windy in Prince Rupert, and the tide was working against us, but my able skipper expertly backed Esperança right into its spot. We cleared customs fairly quickly and soon thereafter went up to OPA for dinner, our favorite sushi house here in PR. Early to bed for us since it was an early morning.