Airship Goes to Alaska 2016
We got up fairly early this morning at Echo Bay, chatted with Pierre a bit more while he showed us some of the work he'd done recently on the rental cabins. We pulled away around 7:30am, saying goodbye until September, when we stop on the way south again. Calm water, gray sky, and a pretty chill cruise over to Port McNeill. I didn't take any photos, but we did see one humpback tail as it dove…so that's two humpbacks now with no proof. 🙂
We're staying at the North Island Marina, where we stayed on the way up last May. (Hey look at that! On Day 8 last year we were in the same spot!) We walked up to the IGA and re-uppped on some groceries, and then up to the private liquor store (the BC liquor stores aren't open on Sundays) to get a couple more bottles of wine.
Our plan is to cross Cape Caution in the morning. The weather is looking good…but we'll keep watching the forecasts tonight and then make the call in the morning after the 4am update.
This is what the 24 hour surface observation forecast looks like (pretty sweet, is what that looks like…that high pressure system hanging out there with the far apart isobars means mild conditions):
And here are the conditions at the West Sea Otter buoy for the past 24 hours (posting just before 4pm PST).
Today's route from Echo Bay (on the right) to Port McNeill (on the left) — (26.4 miles, 3 hours 47 minutes). I'm trying a new map capture from Navionics…it's super annoying you can't change the track color from yellow to something else that doesn't totally blend into the map data though:
Looking at your pictures from last year and see the Pacific Ambition was docked in Ocean Falls at the same time you were there. They are from Powell River and our kids go to school together. Doug, the captain, is a great guy! Tell him Allison says HI!