Friday August 11, 2017

We listened to the weather forecast and of course it changed since last night. Today is still good with light winds and good for a crossing, but it comes up Saturday morning now and then rises to a gale in the afternoon. Jesus - can't we go 5 days without a gale warning?!?!?

We're off at 6:30am. There is some fog but it's high and the visibility is good. There are about 1,000 (OK, maybe not quite that many), little fish boats sitting outside Fish Egg fishing. The place is grand central station. We head down Fitz Hugh and it eventually get's swelly. Once we get past the island, it's really swelly. We're up to around a 3.5 on the Bella meter. We have a couple of hours of this unfortunately. There wasn't any wind to speak of, somewhere between 1 and 3 kts which was nice. But apparently the swell was better at West Sea Otter Buoy as they reported better numbers than we were seeing. But anyway!

We listened to the 10:30 weather report and it had (possibly) changed and got worse for tomorrow, so we decided to go all the way into Port McNeill or Sointula. We turned down Gordon Channel expecting it to be better, and it was actually worse. But it was at least directly behind us so we were able to put the throttle down at bit and even it out. Another hour or maybe less down though, it evened out and we slowed back down to normal and had an OK ride. And it just got better, and even the sun came out!

Greg called Steve and double checked that North Island Marina was still full (it was) and then Sue called Sointula and they said the fishing fleet was in and it was unlikely there was room on the dock. We decided if need be we would anchor out. But they had room at the municipal dock and so we both went in there around 3:45pm. And who was there to take our lines but Danny from Potest Fieri. And we were moored right behind Merrion as well. So the band was all back together Merrion is having engine problems still and so was working with a mechanic to try and figure out what the problem was. We are on F dock on the outside, and again, if anyone goes by with any kind of wake, we get quite rocked. Hopefully things will calm down as it get's later.

One of the big reasons to be in Port McNeill was so that Byron and Sue could go to CIBC to deposit some money. So Byron high tailed it up right away before the bank closed for the weekend. We walked up and Greg got a hair cut, we went to the bank and got some cash, and then had a snack at Mugz. Ran into Susan and Lowla again and said Hi and got a wildly delightful greeting from Lowla as if we had been reunited after years. Not until she saw Greg and Bella though, seeing just me was not quite enough - we all needed to be together.

Byron reports that "as per policy", CIBC will put a hold on his deposit until next Thursday, but that if he comes in on Monday to talk to the manager, they might be able to "do something" sooner. Good thing we have reservations until Monday I guess. Dinner on Eagles Gig and an early evening as we are all tired.