Captain’s Report – Day 3 – South End Haida Gwaii

Had a pleasant, fast sail across Queen Charlotte Sound entrance to Haida Gwaii. We focused on birds, with sightings of brown albatross, petrels, something like sheerwaters, and puffins. Lots of puffins. Sunset was beautiful at 10:01PM with skies still pink at 11.

The night was cool, but not raining. Full moon occasionally visible. Motored past Anthony Island, location of Sgang Gwaay, one of the more memorable stops on our last visit. No stopping this time as the Haida Heritage Site is not accepting visitors. 

This morning the sun was up by the time we were back on watch at 5AM and we were greeted by whales, humpbacks again, and lots of them. Savai lost interest in counting them and is now curled up, face down on the cockpit bench. Eli made me coffee so that’s fine with me.

From the west, Moresby Island is rugged, deeply fjorded and without any sign of habitation so far. It begs to be explored.  Some of the peaks look like they’d be interesting to climb. Chutes and rock slides provide vertical stripes to steep forests. And the bay we are off of, Wells Cove looks like it belongs on the west coast of Kauai. It is bigger than any indentation on Bainbridge Island, you might be able to fit a good chunk of Bainbridge in it, actually. It is completely uncharted. 

Lots of birds and bait again here on the water. In more normal times, we’d be fishing right now. But things are far from normal at home. I think we are all glad to have this chance to escape.

Haida Gwaii is a huge chain of islands, and we still have Dixon entrance to deal with, but we should be in Alaskan waters by tomorrow morning. Onward ho!

Janna’s note: I’ve been texting with Graeme via the sat phone. I asked about the crew. Here’s what he said, “Sol and Savai are doing well, lots of games in the cockpit, movies in the V-berth. Everyone has their sea legs and seems to be enjoying the passage.”