The plan today (Wednesday, September 7) was to sail from Port Hardy to Blunden Harbour and spend a couple of days exploring the Ba’as First Nation’s site. However, as we motored the 14 nm across Queen Charlotte Strait, the wind went from next to nothing to 16-18 kts blowing down the strait (that’s NW winds). We pulled into Blunden Harbour, and the wind was even higher inside the harbor than out in the strait. That, combined with a bit of a rocky bottom and the reality that First Nations people are (appropriately) reclaiming their heritage sites meant that the foreshore was posted with signs requesting that you not go ashore unless you are accompanied by a watchman, encouraged us to do a lovely two-hour sail down the Strait to Carriden Bay, off Wells Passage on the west end of the Broughton Islands. The wind dropped to 4kts as we anchored (it’s back up to 10-12 now) and we are hanging tight for a bit of an overnight blow.
If the wind lets up a bit, we’ll be headed up Drury Inlet, which we visited on our first trip to the Broughtons in 2017. I’m hoping to head through Actress Rapids up towards the end of Actaeon Sound tomorrow. We’ll have to time the tides fairly carefully as there are a number of challenging and turbulent spots (and Braesail is not set up for running white water rapids!). With a bit of luck, we will be back in “civilization” at the float-house village of Sullivan Bay so that we can join our friends for Compline on Sunday evening.
Braesail - A grand yacht in the Salish Sea 