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Prince Rupert put on spectacular clear blue skies for our arrival last Friday, 19 days after leaving Midway. A seal frolicked around us, bald eagles soared overhead, and layers of blue shimmered ahead of us - ocean, islands and mountains, just as seen in paintings of British Columbia.

The last leg (2,500 miles) took us from tropical to icy weather, with cabin temperatures dropping from 30 to 8 degrees Celsius. I thought it was supposed to be summer! All of us progressively added layers of blankets and clothing (I was up to 9), and Dot and I shared my only hot water bottle. Rob got inventive and piped hot water to our cockpit shower, as well as installing a cabin heater made out of a spare heat exchanger, which he hooked in to the motor.

After all my misgivings about the passage, it turned out to be quite a good one. We only sailed an extra 500 miles or so from the straight line (4,000 miles) from Majuro, and the weather was pretty reasonable most of the time. Naturally there were a few interesting moments, which we managed to survive mostly by good luck. The stitching on our roller furling headsail picked a convenient time to disintegrate, so I was able to drag the machine on deck and re-sew it as we were becalmed. Then an intermittent electrical fault, which we still have not found, knocked out our bilge alarm in the engine room. We discovered this when a high pressure hose blew off our water maker. Rob decided to look in the engine room for some reason and discovered the water level before it flooded the motor. Since the electric bilge pump is on the same circuit as the alarm it also refused to go, but we had no time to determine the problem so went for the hand pump. This is when we found out the seal on our big whale gusher had gone so it wouldn’t prime. Just when we had the bilge all cleaned out again a belt broke and spewed black stuff all around. Then a rather large diesel leak erupted to add to the concoction in the engine room. Our poor engine suffered further abuse. In Midway we had to refuel with JP5, a type of jet fuel they sell instead of diesel. Then half way to Canada we needed to top up the oil but discovered we had none so used gearbox oil instead. Another day we ran over some floating line which got around the prop, so Rob had an unplanned mid ocean swim to cut it off. And then there was the day we sailed over a seamount, charted at a depth of 74 meters, but our depth sounder recorded only 16.

We saw quite a few ships on this passage, and lots of floating junk. One afternoon we picked up two big glass fishing floats. I missed a great photo opportunity though, the light was at such an angle that Blue Moon, in full sail, was reflected in the ball as we came along side. Besides the usual birds, dolphins, whales and fish, there was also lots of marine life in the calm center of the high. Small colorful crabs, gooseneck barnacles, things that look like stars or flowers and whole schools of baby fish were living around the flotsam. For days we were enchanted by the Velela jellyfish, which look like crystal sundials floating on the ocean surface. We have since learned that these wash up on the Queen Charlotte Islands, just a few days before beachcombers start finding glass fishing floats there. Apparently there is a band of ‘garbage’ that floats around in a continuous circle on the currents between Japan and Canada, down the west coast and back across to Japan just north of the equator.

Our friend Glen was in Prince Rupert when we arrived so we literally got off the boat and partied for four days. The first night we stayed at his place in Prince Rupert, enjoying the luxury of a warm, dry bed after a magnificent seafood dinner on a sunny deck overlooking the harbor. The next day we drove 140 km to Terrace for a BBQ - farewell dinner for some friends of his. He has a great cabin right on the lake there so we basked in 30 degree sunshine for a couple of days before returning to Prince Rupert for another BBQ overlooking the harbor. By this time Costa Vida and Pegasus had arrived and joined the party. They had not been so lucky as we were skirting around the weather systems, so had a few extra days on their passage.

Now we are back on Blue Moon, in a marina jammed full of every kind of floating craft imaginable. Everyone rafts up together here – fishing trawlers, yachts, pleasure cruisers 6 or 7 abreast on a float. It’s a busy place. We have a little list of things to do, which we hope to finish off next week. Our plan is to cruise down the east coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands, then the inside passage to Victoria by the end of the summer.