Friday, July 26, 2013

#2013-47 Underway to Pond Bay, across Dixon Entrance, then Prince Rupert

On Thursday the girls arrived from SLO Town at noon.  Pat, Marianne Fonte, and Carolyn French, joined by Chuck arrived at noon.  The three couples (Fonte's, French's and Benson's) will be together to Shearwater-Bella Bella in British Columbia.

The weather is good for crossing the Dixon Entrance tomorrow morning.  We need to get closer to it so we decide to cruise to Foggy Bay tonight, leaving Ketchikan in a few hours.  Most of the crew heads to Safeway as we need groceries for a few days, with as little fruit and vegetables as possible as Canadian Border Services won't let most of those cross the border.  We expect to do heavy provisioning in Prince Rupert.

Alex met up with the owners of Selene 40 "Ginny" Dave and Ginny Morthland, who were moored nearby.  Dave has been following the Blog as this is his first cruise to the Alaska area in several years. They are arriving into Southeast as we're leaving.  Alex gives the Ginny crew the latest on cruising clockwise around Prince of Wales Island and into Craig.  Crab, salmon and pawn fishing locations are highlighted on his chart.  Later Dave calls in his thanks as loads of large prawns filled hid prawn traps.

By 4 PM we're on our way towards Dixon Entrance, dodging the cruise ships which left just behind us.  Foggy Bay is small.  It is the desired anchorage being close to the Entrance, but as we approach it we notice there are a couple boats already at anchor showing on AIS.  Upon looking for options we find Pond Bay on the north side of Duke Island, just across from Foggy Bay. This is a large bay and we arrive just before 10 PM to enjoy a spectacular sunset in a quiet anchorage all by ourselves.

Pond Bay is just across from Foggy Bay

Early Friday morning we fire up the engine for our 6 AM departure.  The plan for crossing Dixon Entrance is always the same:  time your arrival in the middle of the Entrance at slack current.  We were just 8 minutes early for the 9:01 AM zero current today and our ride was super smooth.  We made good progree entering Venn Passage at 1PM and making the Prince Rupert Rowing and Yacht Club before 2.  We docked and called Canadian Customs and they immediately cleared us once again without boarding.

New bulk loading terminal for booming Prince Rupert
The crew of Y M Virtue gather at the bow ready to set the anchor if needed.
Bulk carrier is on the way to get loaded.

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