Sincerely, Denise

 Saturday, July 19, 2025

Up at 5AM checking the weather websites and indeed it appears we are a GO for the crossing. The offshore buoy was reporting 0.8m seas (a little over 2’) and 16 second spacing which is nearly perfect. The sun was coming up and the low clouds around us were a beautiful shade of pink as we motored out of our little bay around 5:45AM. We were a little surprised to find ourselves in some swells much larger than reported but the calm was soon to come as eventually it flattened out into a very smooth ride. As John said “no spray on the windows is a good crossing.” It seems a lot of people thought it was a good day to cross as there was quite the armada making the run south! Enroute our house was humming. John fired up the watermaker and I was able to run the dishwasher and do 7 loads of laundry! We have an apartment sized stacked W/D so 3 towels make a full load, takes a while but I was so happy to get it all done – we were swimming in laundry! We both took long showers and felt like we were making progress putting our “house” and ourselves back in order.  Pulled into Port McNeill around noon, got settled, and headed up for lunch at Gus’s Pub, probably the best food in town except for the Devil’s Bath Brewing Company which is where we will go for dinner. I have been cooking 2-3 meals a day for 18 days and it’s time for a break! We plan to eat dinner out every night while we are in town, at least that’s my plan and I know my captain will agree! Feels great to get in a walk, peruse some stores, and get on land! Port McNeill, established in 1936, was originally a base camp for loggers, but now tourism helps to support the economy. Even though it boasts an IGA Grocery, Liquor Store, and various businesses, it is still a pretty small town.  Pleasure boaters and fishing boats traveling the Inside Passage flock here in the summer as it is a great pit stop and they depend on our travel dollars. We just loaded 2100 liters of diesel onboard, which is not insignificant. The marina here is always packed and many large boats are here, so we are just one of many. Tomorrow is boat chore day and Monday we will do some sightseeing. Will leave here Tuesday for the next leg of our adventure!

Clouds were such a pretty shade of pink at 5:53AM

Looking back at River's Inlet at Sunrise

Each one of the green triangles is a vessel with AIS, there were probably more boats out there than shown but this is what we could see on our screen

View of Port McNeill on arrival

Our route today, 70 nautical miles. Captain spooled up the engines for the first 4 hours so we were doing 13-15 knots, then backed it down to 10 knots for the last couple hours. We did the trip in 5 hours.

Goodbye River's Inlet!

One last thing, and I know I get on my soapbox about Debbie's Green Bags, but this head of romaine was purchased in Gorge Harbour 13 days ago and kept in an air tight green bag wrapped in a paper towel. It was as fresh as could be!!