Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Day 5-Dickson Island to Port Hardy


I woke up at 5:00 AM, hoping to take advantage of calm winds in the early morning.  Unfortunately it was quite blustery in the anchorage and listening to the weather on the radio confirmed that the winds were pretty strong in Queen Charlotte Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound.  The forecast was calling for weakening winds in the afternoon, though, so we went back to sleep and figured we’d reevaluate conditions later.

Around 9:30 we pulled the anchor and headed out Wells Passage.  Conditions were choppy but calmer than yesterday and we headed up Queen Charlotte Strait into moderately spaced 2-3 foot chop.  There are lots of bailout points along the way, so we figured we could run for cover if conditions got too bad.

Listening to the 10:30 weather forecast ended our hopes of making it around Cape Caution today.  What had been predictions for 15 knots of northwesterly wind backing to 15 knots of southerly wind became predictions for 15-25 knots of southerly, increasing to 30 tonight.

Ordinarily I would have continued up Queen Charlotte Strait and explored some of the cruising areas on the mainland side while waiting for good weather.  But I had begun developing a sore throat yesterday and was worried that the strep I had before leaving had returned.  The doctor at home hadn’t given me any extra antibiotics, confident that I wouldn’t have a problem, so I wanted to get to a place with a pharmacy quickly.

That made the decision to go to Port Hardy easy.  The doctor here confirmed that the strep has returned and gave me a couple of antibiotics in case the first doesn’t take care of it.

Now we’re just waiting for a weather window to head around Cape Caution.  It looks like Friday morning may be the time to go, but we’ll see how the forecast changes in the next few days.

26.2 nm today and 311.6 total

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