Happy Birthday Queen E ... from Cortes

 We pulled out of Vancouver's beautiful harbor on April 19th and said "bye for now" to our iconic Lions Gate Bridge and the familiar sulfur piles of the north shore .....

An overnite at our outstation in Pender Harbor, we enjoyed a fun dinner with Barb and Doug Vincent (residents of Pender & KNOT HOME) and Peter and Laurie Hayden (who were on their beautiful new N68, TANGLEWOOD) ... great to see them all and catch up !!

then off to ( a very quiet) Cortes  (another club outstation)  ....

While tied to the dock, Cam rediscovers a drip which he decided to trace back to its source .... by dismantling our entire stateroom and head !  😒

Ahhh boating ....

 Its a process, so stay tuned!! 

Shortly, we will be off Octopus Island (in this on again off again rain !!) ..... on Queen Elizbeth's 96th birthday !!!   We hope to catch up with Claudia Lake (long time friends of the Kemps) and her partner Cameron, on nearby Maurelle Island

Prince William Sound 2022

So for those of you who don't know where Prince William Sound (PWS) is (because I didn't when the whole idea of going there came up) here's a map from Vancouver up to PWS.

My first comment was "well, that's a hell of a long way to go to get there!".... and it is. 

I think our round trip distance will be between 3000-3500 nautical miles.

"So why go all that distance?"

"What's up there to see?" I said

Well, I was told, there's;

• spectacular mountain ranges that rise 12,000 feet out of the water
• beautiful inlets and bays in a protected sound all of which are close to each other
• stunning aurora borealis displays 
• more whales (of all kinds) than you can count
• enormous glaciers that calve in to the water in front of you and icebergs that you can chip off 10,000 year old ice for your drinks 
• grizzlies and black bears on the beaches everywhere
• 21 hours of daylight in June
• salmon fishing, crabbing and prawning like no where else in the world

"Is that all?" I said

"That's a long way to go for just that".

In the end I was convinced to withhold judgement until I've seen it so......we're off to see it!

We're actually pretty stoked about heading up the BC Coast to Southeast Alaska and across the Gulf of Alaska in to Prince William Sound. For those of you old enough to remember Prince William Sound is where the Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989 and created a huge pollution event. From what we've been told there is no remaining evidence of that spill, thankfully.

Much like our expedition to the Sea of Cortez it's a place that you can really only experience on a boat as there is simply no other way to get there.

With an average run speed of 7 1/2 kn it's also going to be a long trip timewise from approximately mid-April to late August.

We'll be travelling with two other boats, Daybreak (Jerome and Karen Fisher) and Piredmus (Tim and Michelle Talbott) who have similar boats so there will be safety in numbers.

If you'd like to follow along click the link to this website every few days to see if we've posted new pictures and provided an update as to where we are and what we've been up to.
Cheers,
Captain Cam and First and Only Mate Kim