Sun Seeking
The winter of 2016-17 was one of the coldest on record in southern British Columbia. In June 2016 we had sailed across from Hawaii to Sitka in southeast Alaska aboard Distant Drummer, our Liberty 458. After enjoying a summer of leisurely cruising through the Inside Passage in Alaska and British Columbia, we reached Canoe Cove on Vancouver Island where we had decided to haul out for the winter.
We lived aboard all through that winter, and as we shovelled snow off the decks and slithered across the ice to the washrooms, it was dreams of hot sunny California days that kept us going. We were waiting for a big fat high to settle in the northeast Pacific to give us a steady northerly wind for the passage south. Our plan was to spend the summer following the sun southwards down the California coast.
FOG, FOG AND… FOG
Fog is a summertime hazard in the Pacific Northwest. We encountered it in Alaska and British Columbia, and it would continue to plague us all the way down through northern California.
After spending a glorious spring cruising in the Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia, we re-entered the United States at Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula. It was a crisp, bright morning when we left Canoe Cove in British Columbia, but we arrived at Port Angeles in fog so thick we could not see the lighthouse at the end of
