Last days in Haida Gwaii, then a fast "day" sail across Hecate Strait

Kayaking in Anna Inlet (the williwaws are coming!)

After Rose Harbour, we has a sunny, calm motor up to the mooring buoy at Section Cove, where we had nice walk on the beach and a quiet night. We then headed north to the water dock at Shuttle Island/Hoya. A busy place, two boats filled up just before we arrived. Thankfully, the water was plentiful (although a little brown with tannins: we chemically treat the water, and for drinking water, we first filter it with a ceramic&charcoal filter that removes sediment, tannins, bacteria and, importantly, any parasites such as giardia and cryptospiridium).

We moved on a couple miles to Echo Harbour for a nice night. Southerly gales were forecast, so we "thought" our old favourite Anna Inlet would be a great spot. Anna Inlet IS a great spot, but this 4th visit we learned it gets big williwaws when there are southern gales outside. All was calm and quiet (and rainy), when suddenly we were hit with a 31-kn williwaw, and later a 33-kn williwaw. This continued for about 6 hours. We dragged anchor and had to letout a lot more rode. All very unpleasant.

[Turns out, the best place to avoid williwaws on Moresby's east coast is the water dock.]

Our anchor watch in Anna Inlet -- shows we moved all over the place during williwaws

 

After 3 nights in Anna, we motored south back down to Ramsay Island cove (with another stop to fill up water on the way). The plan was to leave the next morning to sail/motor across Hecate Strait, to an anchorage 72 miles away. So hopefully trip fully within daylight hours. But first, we had a visit from a charter boat skipper on the mooring buoy next to us came over to barter: if we had some extra beers, he had some prawns and ling cod. We just happened to have 4 beers we were not fond of, plus some ginger ale for their non-drinking guest. In return, we received a large piece of ling cod and perhaps a dozen prawns.  

Next morning, we were up at 430 am, and motored away in the twilight. Based on the forecast, we expected we would be motoring. As it turned out, we had a fast sail in 12-15 knot SW winds that gave us a beam reach all the way across Hecate. The last few hours the winds picked up to 19-21 knots, so it became a little rambunctious, and seas also picked up. Coming into Caamano Sound, we had to reduce sail and the seas were quite rough. Our chosen anchorage, Gillen Harbour, was supposed to be good in all weather, but its entrance fully open to the south and it looked too rough. We decided to keep sailing, all the way to Chapple Inlet, where we headed up to our earlier spot at the head of the inlet, finishing about 6:30pm. We travelled 93 nm that day, and sailed 68 nm of them (record long "day trip" stats for us), averaging 6.5 knots sailing. 

Hecate crossing in daylight: Ramsay Island to Chapple Inlet (93 nm)

Exhausted, we celebrated our crossing. But then we had southeast gales forecast starting the next night....