Sincerely, Denise

BOTTLENECK INLET TO GOOSE BAY (RIVER’S INLET)

Tuesday, July 21^st

We have an ambitious running day today, attempting to get all the way to River’s Inlet which is about 110 miles, which meant daybreak departure. Daybreak is now closer to 5:30AM however, so that’s when we departed. We had quite the humpback show the first few hours with grand displays of breeching, fin slapping, and lots o’tail. The water was so glassy and smooth we could easily spot them. On today’s route was the transit of our nemesis, Milbanke Sound, exposed to the outside. Milbanke Sound has been surly and nasty nearly every time we’ve been through, but today was an absolute dream. Not so much as a ripple, even though we had some lazy short swells – we’ve never seen it this calm and thanked our lucky stars. After a one hour stopover at Shearwater so UnforgetAbell could take on some fuel, and so I could run up to the store for a couple things, we were back underway on the second leg of today’s trip – the remaining 63 miles to River’s Inlet. It was beautiful water and beautiful cruise all the way down, so many humpbacks feeding in Fitz Hugh Sound! Nice water until the last 2 hours when we had the confluence of outside waters and Hakai Pass which stirred things up, then it calmed some, then it really stirred up the last 10 miles when the wind picked up and we had rollers from Queen Charlotte Straits (Outside water), and opposing tide. A bit of a “mixmaster” as I like to describe it. Just as we are pulling near the entrance to Goose Bay with UnforgetAbell right behind us, a boat hails Greg and says he’s going to overtake him on the Port side, to which Greg said “thanks for the heads up”. What we didn’t know is this guy was going 20knts into the bay, threw an enormous wake at Greg and Connie that they had to speed up and surf so things wouldn’t go flying. This boat (78’ Sonship named Mai Tai Tai) then proceeded to continue into Goose Bay now backing down to 10 knots (which still throws a wake) by Duncanby Lodge and rocked all their boats (we had all backed down to 7 knts, no wake) then rocked the boats on the other side of Goose Bay at a smaller lodge, the lodge owner getting on the radio and admonishing all of us (was NOT us) for swamping their lodge. Still this Mai Tai Tai didn’t have a clue. Once past the lodges, we look across the bay and notice that they sped up again, so John decided to pace him because CLEARLY they were being super rude about trying to beat us to the head of the bay to grab a spot first. Eventually they gave up and stopped their boat, and we continued on and anchored just fine. They then pulled in to the Duncanby Lodge mooring buoy(for small boats) which was way too close to us and tied off to that, I doubt with permission as it’s privately owned. Anyway, another shit show on the water, remember the cat hull boat that outran us going into Takatz Bay, AK to claim the best spot in that harbor? What is up with these people, and they were both folks with huge boats. Manners, people, MANNERS. It was now 7PM, and after a very long day, we quickly threw together a burger dinner and all retired to bed. Glad to be here, hoping to stay 3-4 nights before crossing Cape Caution, our next GATE.