All Nighter Nail Biter…

Or, the huge tsunami that wasn’t; at least not here…

Sunrise over Principe Channel at 0358 (3:58am) this morning.

Obviously, we made it through the tsunami or I wouldn't be writing this blog.

There are old sailors and there are bold sailors, but there are no old bold sailors…   Or so that old maxim goes.   I took the not so bold option and we forsook our lovely peaceful quiet anchorage in Monckton Inlet to spend the night drifting out in Principe Channel.   The weather was perfect, no wind, no waves, and clear skies.

Now that the spoiler is out, let's get back to how yesterday started.

In Patterson Inlet, we anchored next to Happy Talk.   John and Roberta took some picture of our boat - and here is one.   Thank you!!!

We headed out to our next stop in Monckton Inlet, about 7 miles south.

This inlet should have been named Jellyfish Inlet as they were everywhere.   In this picture the white/pink/gray blobs are all jellyfish.  They are spaced about every 8' or so.

We initially went to the south arm to anchor, but didn't like it there.   Too much wind chop and insufficient room to swing at anchor, so we then motored over to the north arm and anchored not far from Donna Gail, and interesting Canadian 80' power catamaran.

Then it was time to get Roe, our tender/dink out so we could go touring the bay.

We store Roe on the aft upper "boat deck" and use a hydraulic crane (called a davit) to pick up Roe and put her in the water and vice versa.

With our lives in the hands of Capt. Ross we drove around the bay and looked at jellyfish.

The tentacles are about 10' long gossamer threads that trail out behind these jellyfish.

Contrary to popular opinion, these don't just aimlessly drift along.   They actively swim by pulsing their canopy.   As we would come near them, some would turn and pulse away from us.

The big white one is about 18" across.   It did not swim away; it swam towards us.   I'm hearing the theme from Jaws in the background...

These look like two different species to me (white frilly ones, and the orange & yellow ones with the long tentacles), but I am an untrained observer when it comes to jellyfish.   Maybe one of you knows - please chime in!

Back to the boat.   You can see Donna Gail in the background.

Drone pilot Karen, decided to play.   She is still learning, so today she practiced take offs and landings.   Drones have a "return to home" function that works really well on land, but on a boat where "home" moves around, this function is a recipe for losing your drone overboard.   Practice, practice, practice...

It was at this time that one of my friends down in CA alerted me to the tsunami advisory for SE Alaska and the Pacific coast of B.C.   Not long thereafter, my cell phone was blowing-up with all the head's ups coming in.   Thank you all and don't hesitate to let me know.  We are pretty much out of it in most of this area as we don't have radio service, nor anything else that would have alerted us.

Trying to get marine boating relevant information was really challenging.   The best we could do is to guess as to the size and arrival times of the tsunami waves.   This was estimated to be a series of building 1'-1.5' waves arriving about 2230 (10:30pm).   So, we put to sea so we could spend the night out in deep water.   

The standard protocol in the situation for boaters is to get away from land and out into deep water (<180' deep preferred).  Principe Channel is 500'-800' deep, so we hung out there all night, just drifting with the engines on in case we needed to move.   If you were watching preparations in HI and Haida Gwaii, all fishermen jammed for the open ocean to get into deep water.   We aren't making this up.

I don't know if you can see anything in this photo of last night's sky, chock full of stars in the Milky Way.  

It was awesome, particularly when it played off the magical bioluminescence of the ocean as we drifted along.

The sea was just lit up like a million fireflies winking and glowing trails of fish and whatever else was in there.   Totally mesmerizing to me to the point where I stood out by the rail and watched for hours while freezing!

Here are some collages of pictures from last night through sunrise and this morning.

We divided the night into shifts with Ross taking the midnight-0200 shift, then I took over until 0400, when Karen spelled me.   I stayed up with her until 0530 and I had to crash (willingly or unwillingly) at that point.

When I awoke at 0830, we were right outside today's anchorage, Weinberg Inlet on Campania Island, B.C.

Total fog out.   We couldn't see anything until we were maybe 50 yards from it.

Though, in this picture the fog is lifting as I took this photo once we were well inside.   There are little rock islands all over the place in here and very narrow channels between them.   That makes navigating this a bit tricky.

But it is beautiful.

The view from our aft deck, where Karen & I enjoyed a mostly peaceful breakfast.   It would have been totally peaceful if it weren't for the pesky biting horseflies.

Good Morning; Rise and Shine!