July 3, 2008 Eucott Hot Springs to Ocean Falls

Colleen looked too peaceful to wake this morning.  I couldn’t find the clock anyways, but it was hard to guess because it’s basically always light outside.  By the time we got up, it was eleven o’clock!!  We both needed a rest and awoke refreshed.  It goes without saying that we began the day with another soak in the hot pool.  We sailed from the anchorage and into the Dean Channel.  Winds were the same as yesterday, coming at us on the nose.  So in a continuation from yesterday we tacked down the channel.  We got a bit over-powered and we ducked into an inlet while I put a reef in the mainsail.  On the way back out into the channel we sailed by the rock where Alexander Mackenzie, the first white guy to cross the continent by foot and reach the pacific, had written his name.  He got there thirteen years before Lewis and Clark, which Canadians go out of their way to point out.   I thought it was also very Canadian that he chose a non-descript rock in the middle of the channel, just 20 miles from the open ocean, to  terminate his trip.  They’re just so much more modest than us Americans.  At any rate, it was impressive to see his name carved into the rock with the date “1793.”  We continued tacking all the way to Ocean Falls, where we shook out the reefs and had dinner on the water as we approached the town.  I am very pleased with our tacking progress, which only adds several hours to each day’s run.  Infinity miles to the gallon makes me smile too.  Sweeping across the channel in long tacks lets us see the mountains from all different angles, teaches patience, and is downright satisfying.  Another great sailing day.

Leave a Reply


Warning: Undefined variable $user_ID in /home/nwexpeditions/www/www/wp-content/themes/default/comments.php on line 77