#2013-07 Cape Caution today?

A little past 4AM, Alex was up listening to the morning weather forecast.  As expected the storm still has to blow some more with 20-30 knots expected.  The local weather observations were quite a bit different. At 4:30AM, Egg, Pine, and Herbert Islands, which we pass on the Cape Caution route, were reporting light winds, rippled seas and low swell.  Alex noticed the tug Henry Brusco just about 4 miles off Blunden and gave him a call on the VHF.  The Brusco reported flat seas, calm winds and 2 mile visibility.  We quickly pulled anchor and started north.

Soon we received a call from Alaskan Song about 3 miles behind us.  He too was attempting Cape Caution. The Song is an 80-foot charter boat with 4 guest staterooms. Built out of light woods for the military during WWII as a super fast attack boat, the Song is 59 years old.  It was converted into a fine yacht in the 1970’s.  Richard has owned it the past 6 years.  We see the boat in Alaska each year running week-long charters between Sitka and Juneau. Richard has to be in Juneau by May 15 for his first charter, so he’ll be rounding Caution today, come hell or high water!

Alaskan Song was anchored in Blunden next to us.

By 7:30, just a couple hours into our cruise, the large ocean swells drove us to anchor in Miles Inlet, just 2 hours short of Cape Caution.  Later Alex realized the large seas were probably a local effect of the large outflow from Slingsby Channel.  Had we continued a few more miles, the seas would have subsided.  We will repeat today’s routine and poke our nose into the Sound again early tomorrow.

We surfed the swells into Miles Inlet and anchored in the northwest finger.  Miles is one of the prettiest anchorages along the BC coast.  The Nordic Tugs 52 True North was anchored for a day previously.  The Nordic is regularly moored just across the finger from Wild Blue at Skyline Marina in Anacortes.

Beautiful Miles Inlet is tiny but secure.

Wild Blue and True North anchored in the peaceful Inlet.