Time to get a move-on

It’s been three weeks, and we’ve only made it 30 miles (that’s 45 km in grown up units, or 27nm in sailor-talk) from downtown Vancouver. Our excuse is that paying attention to the weather tells us that it’s still early March!

Spending the last few days out of communication reminds me that an important part of safety on a trip like this is, just like it is on an airplane, that we should file a flight plan (except it’s called a sail plan) so you can come find us if you need to. This isn’t a contract, just a plan, and weather, interesting (or boring) things to see, or other issues can change it. So here goes:

Storm Bay to Lund

• Thursday, April 28: Storm Bay to Ballet Bay (with an info seminar on Haida Gwaii)
• Friday, April 29: Ballet Bay to Sturt Bay
• Saturday, April 30: Sturt Bay to Powell River/Westview (and a stop for fuel, water, and provisions)
• Monday, May 2: Powell River to Lund (Nancy’s Bakery, actually, just a stop, not an overnight)

Lund to Dent Rapids

• Monday, May 2: Eat goodies from Nancy’s Bakery on the way to Teakerne Arm
• Tuesday, May 3: Teakerne Arm, through the Dent Rapids complex to Shoal Bay

Dent Rapids to Port Neville

• Wednesday, May 4: Through the Whirlpool Rapids to Port Neville

Port Neville, through the Broughtons, to Port McNeill

• Thursday, May 5: Probably to Lagoon Cove on East Carcroft Island
• Friday, May 6: Visiting Village Island and ‘Mimkwa̱mlis
• Saturday, May 7: Echo Bay and celebrate Pierre’s being Ḵ̓wax̱wa̱lawadi!
• Sunday, May 8: Alert Bay and the Potlatch Museum
• Monday, May 9: Alert Bay
• Tuesday, May 10: Sointula and Port McNeill
• Wednesday, May 11: Port McNeill and provisioning
• Thursday, May 12: Back in the Broughtons and heading to the Great Bear Rainforest

Like I said, it’s a plan, not a promise. There’s an old sailor’s saying “The most dangerous thing to have on a sailboat is a schedule,” and we aren’t about to violate that. That being said, I’m thinking that we will shoot for sailing across Queen Charlotte Sound from McInnes Island to Rose Harbour some where close to May 21, assuming that we get an appropriate weather window.