August 7 - Sullivan Bay

Here is a picture of our morning glee club serenading us this morning in Sullivan Bay

The day dawned with thick fog again in Shearwater but hopefully it will burn off again in the morning as it did yesterday. We had a really enjoyable evening last night with Dave and Betsy despite a "keystone cops" beginning where we were sitting on our boat wondering when they were going to give us the high sign that they were ready for us to arrive and they were sitting on their boat wondering "are they never going to get here"? Oh well, all worked out and Nance and I had a great time. I think somehow Nance enjoyed the opportunity to talk to someone other than me, go figure!
For those who have already read our original posting for this date you may recall seeing Fury Cove on Penrose Island as our proposed destination for the night. Well, we had great water conditions all down Fitz Hugh Sound to Penrose Island and since it was only 2:00 in the afternoon, we decided to run for it and cross Queen Charlotte Sound, an open ocean crossing. We enjoyed calm seas and pretty good visibility until we reached Cape Caution and started down Queen Charlotte Strait. At that exact point, we started to question the wisdom of our decision to cross today.
We encountered pea soup fog as it turned out from Cape Caution all the way down the Strait to Wells Passage where we finally broke out into clear skies. Additionally, our basically calm seas turned into fairly steep six footers to compound our navigation without visual reference issues. We ran for over two hours completely blind relying on our radar and our GPS units exclusively. Thankfully, both worked flawlessly. For example I now know what a BC Ferry looks like as a radar blip in front of our boat. Not a lot of fun but good experience along the lines of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger".
At any rate all ended well with our arrival at Sullivan Bay after 8 hours on the water to find that they had a good spot on the dock for us and that dinner in the restaurant was excellent. Nance and I crashed right after dinner secure in the knowledge that all four of our open ocean crossings were now complete. We were extremely fortunate overall with these crossings as three out of four were great and the fourth was good for half, bad for half which I guess translates to average. We now look forward to spending some leisurely time moving through the Broughtons and Desolation Sound before we put a final period to this trip. I can't believe that we have only a week to go.