Back to Canada

We left Ketchikan again on Wednesday July 18th when there was a brief weather window between gales . It was either that or possibly have to wait another 4 or 5 days.

This guy didn't make it

It is 85 miles from Ketchikan to Prince Rupert  but the open ocean portion across Dixon Entrance is only about 30 miles which we can cover in 3 hours at our regular cruising speed or less if we decide to burn more diesel and hustle. The forecast, confirmed by weather buoy reports, was for reduced wind and sea during daytime Wednesday and it turned out OK although there was still a swell of about 3 to 4 feet which had us rolling around for a while.

Whilst in  Alaska we really noticed the absence of floating debris, logs and trees, compared to British Columbia waters .You see the occasional tree but mostly just patches of seaweed and kelp.

Anyway, no sooner had we  crossed the border, about a mile into Canadian waters, Vivian was in the galley and I guess I lost my concentration for a brief moment when there was a tremendous crash. The boat was shuddering and the propellors started to vibrate, I shut the engines down and ran aft in time to see this huge log pop up from under the boat. It was at least 12 feet long and over 2 feet  in diameter.
My first thought was that we would have a hole in the boat and I ran downstairs to check the engine room and the bilges, there was a little water as usual but nothing serious. My next thought was for the propellors so I carefully put one engine at a time in gear and slowly increased the RPM, wondering what were the chances of getting any  repairs done up here.
Thankfully all appears to be working as it should and no serious damage done. You can bet I paid more attention to my surroundings after that though.

It will be interesting to examine the bottom and running gear when we take the boat out of the water this fall.

Arrived at Prince Rupert at 4:30 with no further excitement and cleared customs in five minutes on the phone. We plan on staying here 2 nights to do some grocery shopping since we couldn't bring fresh fruit and vegetables across the border. After that we will take up to 2 weeks sightseeing our way back to Vancouver Island. If it rains too much we will get there sooner.