Port Hardy to Winter Harbour

Note: sorry for the late posting. Cellar coverage is nonexistent on Northwest Vancouver Island and we are posting from our pre-start position on day 9.

We said farewell to Bob this morning and added 3 new crew for the next leg, Gleb, Murray and Onie.

We were off the dock early to scope out the start line and the breeze began to build. Once out of the bay, it was a straight shot to the Nahwitti bar. This area is notorious for big swells and strong currents. Fortunately we had sunny skies and smooth water most of the way there. The new crew had a chance to gel with the base crew and learn the ropes, literally.

At the bar we encounter a strong current against us which, since we had previous experience, we knew to stick to the shore. But this time was different. Instead of having 100 foot cliffs like our previous encounters, there were submerged rocks. We chose to head out into the current and take our lumps. The fleet of boats had all came together then, as each passed through the strongest current, we spread out again.

Our next tactically decision, since we were in about 10th place, was to proceed off shore. This was great for us for a couple of reasons: one, the swell wasn’t quite so bad and two, the wind was solid. 3 hours later we round Cape Scott at the north end of Vancouver Island and began our southward journey.

As the sun set, we set the spinnaker in decreasing winds and Andrew, Bryan and John went down for a nap. The wind decreased to around 10 knots as we proceed south into darkened. At this point we thought we might make the finish line around 1 or 2 am but as we’ve seen before, the winds continued to decrease.

The midnight shift did have a visitor for about 25 minutes early in the morning. A whale could be heard every few minutes, surfacing about 100-150 feet behind the boat. With the phosphorescence, we were able to see where it had come up. Very cool but a little bit unsettling too.

At 0230, Greg, Murray, Onie and Gleb came on duty only 6 miles from the finish. The wind officially died soon thereafter and the swells carried us towards the finish line.

At 0630 we finally crossed the finish line and motored to port at Winter Harbour. Our road crew, Cindy, met us there with fresh coffee but most of us headed straight to bed, exhausted.