Author: Jamie Czetwertynski

We arrived in La Cruz (no idea how to say Huanacaxtle), just west of Puerto Vallarta in Banderas Bay early January (time blends and we have no idea what day, time, date it is – not a terrible thing) early in the morning after an overnight cruise. The first thing I noticed is that everyone around us speaks English. While it may seem comforting, I actually didn’t like it. I have liked being immersed in Mexican towns and cultures and having to practice my Spanish as well as to impress the need to learn a 2nd language on the kids. We had lunch with Anna/Babcia/mama, where Paul even found his Eagles’ bar, and kissed her goodbye for her flight back to frigid Canada.

That afternoon, I grew to love the city as Paul and I walked around town to try to find parts for the boat (unsuccessfully). Yes, everyone, even locals, speak English (largely due to large cruising community), but one block from the marina are the cobblestone, dirt roads with bright homes and decor, small tiendas and street taco stands with delicious aromas pervading the air. And everyone greets you with a “buenas dias”.

On Saturday, the kids and I headed to Puerto Vallarta Navarit to do an Outdoor Adventure – one of the best excursions I have ever done. We took a fast boat ride to adorable Boca de Tomatlan, a town nestled in the foothills of mountains filled with lush green and colors so bright, you are instantly drawn to it. We then took a rugged, open bus into the mountains before each being assigned a mule to ride further up the mountain. (no face to ass ride, we were allowed to go at our pace, even nudging the mules into canters if they would acquiesce). We dismounted and were quickly outfitted with harnesses for the multiple ziplines, rappels down waterfalls and waterslides. There was even a zipline roller coaster – a bit jerky, but we all appreciated the novelty. The kids did amazing! We finished the tour with delicious quesadillas at the base camp, which had tons of toys to play with.

The day wasn’t finished! We had reached out to the Nordhavn forum about alternator parts and a wonderful woman, Alexa, replied and was a wealth of information. She connected us into the wonderful kids club. We went directly from the adventure to “kids takeover a restaurant” where the kids helped prepare food, serve and wash dishes at local restaurant, Iguanacaxtle. They collected tips to donate to the Sanctuario de Crocodilas.

On Sunday, we unloaded the dinghy and visited Yelapa, a town only accessible by boat. I was expecting a small, quaint town similar to the small towns we visited in Alaska; however, it had become a tourist destination due to the novelty. It was still a rural, colorful town, especially after you breached the beachside tourist chairs and restaurants. We were immediately met by people with large iguanas and since Andrew was sad to have missed the kids’ club iguana feeding, we paid way too much for pictures.

After advice from friends, we rented a burro (yes!!) taking turns riding for the 6 mile round-trip hike to a beautiful waterfall, that we all took turns riding the strong current. After hiking down, we were famished and had a great lunch before tackling sloppy waves returning to the SeaXII.

On Monday, we volunteered in the kids club’ event, in which they invited a local orphanage to swim in the marina pool, serve lunch, have kings’ cake (Three Kings Day) and presented each child a gift from Santa. It was really cool. These kids, who have so little, had the brightest of smiles and the warmest laughter as they enjoyed the fun day.

On Tuesday, the kids and I visited the crocodile sanctuary, and we fell in love and learned so much about all of the animals being rehabilitated. After the sanctuary, we went to Punta de Mita for a surfing lesson! Kathryn was the most successful, but we all had fun and hopefully can remember what we learned for the next time we have the opportunity to try (my main lesson takeaway…relax-a concept I do not easily embrace).

On Wednesday, the kids and I visited a cacao farm with the kids’ club. We learned the process of picking the cacao bean and making chocolate, and the tour finished with each of us making chocolate to take home (if it got that far).

I had jam packed all of the activities into the schedule because we had hoped that we would only be spending a few days here before continuing south, but reality knocked us into place. After visiting 17 stores, Paul still was unsuccessful in trying to locate a belt for the alternator. (On our overnight cruise, the kids had woken us up, saying there was a burning smell. After tightening the belt, the smell grew worse and resulted in smoke, so Paul just cut the belt.) We also needed to find watermaker testing chemicals, and it was way too difficult to find those as well. We eventually found the chemicals, so we headed out of our slip Wednesday evening to test the water maker. And bam, the water maker worked, but the transmission failed and we had to move to the safety engine. It is difficult to steer with the engine as it is located on one side of the boat, making it difficult to turn, so Paul used thrusters to drive. The thrusters over-heated and not only did we have to pull back into our slip on our back up engine, we had to pull in without a bow thruster. Paul is a superhero driver! We found someone to take a look and he indicated a bad bomba; failed transmission oil pump. Shockingly, they are not available anywhere in Mexico…. So we found parts in the U.S. and paid them to overnight the parts. Unfortunately, the pump was $28 over what an individual can import, so we have to send the part back to the U.S. and find alternative ways to get the part. At least we are stuck in a great town and are surrounded by a great group of welcoming fellow boaters.

A cold front came in, bringing a small amount of rain, so we used the time to get school work in. We did a beach clean up with kids club this morning.

And the extra time we now have in La Cruz allowed us to throw a 13th birthday party for Hannah and Kathryn tonight! The kids’ club leader, Kat, has graciously offered her home for the party. We all have rich histories and lives beautifully lived. It is a blessing to get to know warm, kind people like Kat, as well as the other kids and their parents and hear their stories as we travel around the world.

The kids had a blast hitting the pinata strung up in the backyard (a space devoted to their multiple beloved critters), eating pizza, watching Lion King in their open-air living room, and having delicious cake prepared by a local baker and getting sprayed by silly string! An unforgettable birthday!

Hannah recently gave her scout talk on the meaning of reverence. She wrote a snippet on honoring one’s religion. I told her that, for me, reverence is a breath of fresh air; a deep respect for my surroundings. For me, Isla Isabel was a place of reverence.

Paul woke me 45 minutes after my night shift to anchor. Grumbling, I climbed the stairs and went out to loose the anchor and immediately saw a gorgeous sunrise with mountains in the sunlight and thousands of birds flying above beautiful rock formations behind me.

And then I spotted a whale behind the boat, and another whale, and another whale and another whale. A pair came close to the boat and swam in unison with another, their magical breaths being the only sound in the quiet morning hour. This was the start of a two day stay in a remarkable place permeated by majestic humpback whales feeding all around us, stunning their prey by slapping their fins and breaching out of the water (can you imagine the energy it takes for them to heave themselves out of the water?)

We had a great time snorkeling around the rock formations and viewed beautiful, colorful fish before heading to the island for a hike.

We had to anchor off shore as the bottom was filled with rocks and boulders and carried those who didn’t bring watershoes to shore on our shoulders, avoiding twisting our ankles and plunging into the water.

Following another blog we found on the internet, we went between fishing huts (and exchanged greetings in my broken Spanish) with the one fisherman on the uninhabited island) to find the start of the trail.

The trail wound us through the incredible bird sanctuary, filled with blue footed boobies, frigatebirds and pelicans. The calls and sounds of the thousands of birds filled the air and was definitely a unique experience.

We are on a couple of sites that tell us if there are other boats in the area with kids and we located a boat with a 12yo girl and 9yo girl. They came by the next morning. Despite the language barrier (they were from France), the kids got along and had a blast on our island, using the sea bobs, jumping off the fly bridge and swinging off the crane. Toys can bring anyone together!

Some whales passed within 20 feet of the boat and I could not resist diving in with a mask to see if I could see them underwater. After several attempts with different whales swimming by and a lot of swimming, I did it: I SWAM WITH A HUMPBACK WHALE!! Okay, a slight exaggeration but I did see him underwater; it was incredible!

After lunch, we decided to test out our scuba gear. I was nervous; I have never scuba’d on my own with my own equipment, but Paul managed to set up the equipment, swapping out some busted o-rings and we successfully did a stride jump entry into the water.

Unfortunately, Paul did not have enough weight and thought he had a air leak (he now thinks he just had a leak from an over-inflated BC), so he turned back. Being me (and maybe not the smartest), I couldn’t bear to turn back, so I continued to swim on and explore the island. I was surrounded by colorful fish and an angry looking eel, but the best, most amazing part, was listening to the whales sing underwater, sometimes so loud I was scared I would turn and be face to face with a whale. I wasn’t completely unsuccessful but need to continue to improve my underwater navigational skills, but I returned to the boat satiated with healthy, happy exhaustion.

Sadly, we will say goodbye to Babcia tomorrow. It was great to have her with us on our way from San Diego to La Cruz, Mexico!

We were blessed to have such a beautiful place to celebrate Christmas. Christmas looked a little different this year, which was a little hard, but we were blessed to have Paul’s mom with us. We did our best to keep as many traditions as possible: advent calendars (lego nativity, Christmas puzzle and chocolate for the kids; wine and cocktails for Paul and I!); sugar cookies; elves (Elvis even joined us for a Fournado ride to the beach!)

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day afternoon at gorgeous Belandra Beach, where white sands met gorgeous, clear turquoise blue water, surrounded by beautiful rocky landscapes. We had to anchor the Fournado in the water almost a half a mile off the shore and wade in calf-deep water to the beach, where the kids and I carefully constructed sand snowmen, made sand angels and walked to the iconic La Paz mushroom, which was rebuilt after it was torn down by tourists.

Besides being excited to wakeboard and tube, we had a blast trying out our new Seabobs! They are a blast to zoom both over water and then dive underneath the water to check out the fish! Check out our cute little pufferfish!

The day after Christmas, we had the unforgettable experience of swimming with the beautiful, massive juvenile whale sharks, who come to the waters of Bahia de la Paz in the winter to feed on plankton. The majestic, defenseless creatures didn’t seem to mind when we slid in the water to swim alongside them and observe them feeding (the guide said we are probably like mosquitos to them, and when one of the whales picked up her/his speed in a possible sign of annoyance, she told us to let her/him go).

After the unparalleled morning, we had an amazing seafood lunch with our friends, fellow Nordhavn boat, that we met in Alaska, the Pendana! The next day, we did some food, fishing rod (the fish keep breaking our line!), and souvenir shopping in downtown La Paz. We were too stuffed from lunch to eat dinner but decided delicious churros with caramel sauce would make the perfect treat to end the day. On the way to find the churro stand, I couldn’t resist hugging the Grinch. Despite the hot days and palm trees, La Paz does not disappoint in their Christmas celebrations!

We left La Paz early Saturday morning to motor to Isla Espiritu Santo, an UNESCO world heritage site, where we anchored for the day. I was originally hoping to swim with the sea lions, but you are required to have a guide. Regardless, we found a gorgeous spot to anchor and snorkeled amongst beautiful coral and tropical fish and relaxed on our “island”. Another yacht in the anchorage even let us try out their huge waterslide, which extended from their third level to the water and shot you into the water!

Next stop, a day in Mazatlan!

After an unexpectedly long stay in San Diego, we are back to cruising down Baha California! Woot woot!

San Diego was an amazing place to be for almost 2 months, and I will miss it! The weather was always perfect (okay, one day without sun), hikes, no bugs, running paths, good food, reunions with good friends and a gorgeous ocean and marina to enjoy coffee by each day. We fit in all the things: the zoo, LegoLand, Disneyland, SeaWorld, hiking, ice skating, a visit from my parents and touring the USS Midway, Hotel Del. and other city sites.

We stayed in a boat yard in San Diego, and we got a lot of work done: we converted to lithium batteries, installed solar panels, put a new alternator in, fixed stabilizers (reduced and tightened connections), and washed/waxed the boat. Shockingly, the repairs took longer than expected, which worked out because it gave us a chance to visit friends In Maryland and celebrate Thanksgiving with family in Ohio. We also found out that our paperwork to obtain a permit to cruise to Mexico was not submitted on time and would delay us until mid-December. Paul’s mom flew in, and Paul and I headed to Las Vegas with my sister, Shannon, and her husband, Mark, to see the Eagles at the Sphere – an unforgettable, amazing concert. We returned to San Diego, topped off our trip with a Christmas light boat parade and celebrated Paul’s birthday before finally setting sail early Monday morning.

The boat is running great (it scares me a bit to write that!), which was great, because the ocean was roly poly, and we had to work on getting our sea legs back. We kind of stumble around a bit, looking a bit intoxicated. I do cook; I have pot holders on the stove to hold the pot in place, and I just flounder around the kitchen a bit until something edible appears on the plates. We pulled into Ensenada later afternoon, checked in and went to a great dinner in town. We are already immersing ourselves in Spanish, and the kids are feeling motivated to learn. The next day, the kids enjoyed the hotel/marina facilities, and we played tennis and swam on the pool. Once again, we had to wait for another permit, which came in around 3pm, and we pulled out of the marina around 3:30pm. We are now amid a 3+ day, 24 hour boating schedule on route to Cabo (San Lucas? San Jose? Who knows? We are being spontaneous. (I love spontaneity….). We plan to only stay in Cabo one day before departing for LaPaz, where we will spend a few days and hopefully meet up with the friends we met this summer in Alaska.

Welcome back to our SeaXII adventure; it feels good to be boating!

We have come full circle this summer, and unfortunately our summer journey has come to an premature end. We are ending where we began – at the boatyard to address both anticipated and unanticipated issues. On the bright side, we are only cutting things short by a week. Read on to find out why, but I prefer to go in chronological order, so don’t skip to the end or you will miss the full dramatic build-up. (Throwing in some cute photos for those who are just reading this for the pics. For some reason, I did not think Paul would want to smile and say cheese while his hands deep into the poop tank.)

08/16/2024 One of our great friends from Virginia, Todd, told us he would be in Vancouver for work, so we changed directions slightly and headed to Vancouver. It was weird to pull up to a big city after we were used to small towns in Alaska and British Columbia. I am not sure I highlighted this fact before but several of the idyllic towns that we visited are only accessible by float plane or boat; they do not have any roads! Pretty cool. The marina in Vancouver told us they had room for us; they did not tell us that it would be a tight squeeze nestled within a foot of the boat in front and in back of us. I was so impressed with Paul; he did amazing, and I was happy to have the marina help us tie up and talk Paul through the distances (since I usually at least 1.5 to 2 times off of the actual distance).

We had a great lunch with Todd and then enjoyed a couple of beers while people watching and enjoying the great weather. The next day, we rented bicycles and rode approximately 7 miles around the Sea Wall, Stanley Park. It is a beautifully planned park: a splash park, beaches and a massive pool. Yet, it was not over-planned; there were plenty of places that you could just enjoy nature and the beautiful views. It was a beautiful, perfect day and the kids took full advantage of the sun and water.

We were going to leave Sunday but decided to stay due to the projected wind making leaving without a lot of buffer room a scary idea. It worked out because Hannah woke early (around 8a.m. – what?!) because her room smelled like a sewer – yuck. We pulled up the hatch in her room and found atrociously smelling, black liquid in the bottom – yuck. The bilge pump was able to suck it out, but in an effort to find the source of the water, we found water in the hatch in the master bedroom (we just have more vents that helped to relieve the smell). Paul called his cousin, Adam, who lives in Vancouver, to go to lunch, and he ran Paul to Home Depot to buy a pump. We had a great lunch with Adam and his family, and the kids and I rented bikes to go to the playground.

Todd stopped by and helped Paul pump out the water. It was clear – making Paul believe that it was not the black water (Poop tank); maybe the gray water tank (holds waste from every other source other than the toilets). Soon after pumping out the water, the air conditioner exploded – a surge of power from the marina fried our air conditioner unit – the smell of burnt electronics rivaled the effluent sewage smell. And then…the bilge in Kathryn’s room was running nonstop, so we (okay, Paul) looked for the source of the water and he found a ruptured hose bleeding out our freshwater system in another hatch in the master. The next morning, Paul cut off the ruptured part of the hose and re-attached it, but noticed a slow leak from the pressure regulator. So off went the water – no flushing toilets, no washing hands, no water to drink after the Brita was drained. Time to throw in the “wet” towel and head back to Philbrooks Boatyard in Sidney, BC. (Thanks to Phillbrooks – apparently we have reached the monetary value spent required to get full on the water support, and they helped us several times during the summer.) But first, a quick lunch at Roche Harbor in the San Juan Islands, WA. Although anyone would want to visit picturesque Roche Harbor, why take time to get lunch when our boat was leaking water (who has been watching the news of the Lovebug in Maryland and the Bayesian in Italy?)? If we crossed back in the United States before re-entering Canada, we could not come in on a service visa and have to pay tax on our service done at Philbrooks.

08/20/2024 Philbrooks to the rescue – they were able to come the next morning at 10:30 and replaced the hose and removed the pressure regulator. So, at least we had water. The day proceeded without any additional drama thank goodness. There was enough drama to be had the next day.

08/21/2024 Paul was preparing our tanks to be filled up when we get back to the Sea XII by pumping diesel from one tank to another. A worker on the dock started loudly knocking on the door and notified us that we had diesel pouring out what looked to be the bilge pump. Uh oh. We called the gas dock and they came over and we put out a boom to contain the diesel and threw “diapers” into the water to sop up the diesel that had spilled. Based on the levels of the tank, no more than 25 gallons of diesel had poured from the boat. We also had to call the Coast Guard. They came and looked at all the bilges, which were all clear. We really have no idea what happened for the diesel to pour out. At least the boat is in the right place for them to examine and hopefully fix any issue. And then, when Hannah went to take a shower (we are all showering in the Master bathroom; the pump on the shower in the guest bathroom needs to be replaced), she noticed more putrid sewage in the shower. The good news is when Paul checked the hatch in the bedroom, it was clear that at least one the leaks was coming from one of the gray water hoses). Add it to the list…

08/22/2024 So, here we are, on a ferry from Victoria to Seattle. We will fly to Newark tomorrow and will spend the weekend in New York City before heading to Rawdon (Montreal) for the family tennis tournament.

On Labor Day, we will drive to Maryland to spend a week with friends before visiting family in Ohio. We will fly back out to Seattle and ferry to Victoria for leg 2 of the Sea XII adventure. So signing off of the Sea XII blog for a few weeks. Join us mid-September for leg 2 – there will certainly be drama and new learning experiences with our sleep deprived 24 hours of boating down the coast of Washington and Oregon. Leaving you with some interesting numbers Paul put together from an overall successful first leg of our adventure:

3,000 miles/4,800 kilometers traveled, 58 legs; 14 dockings; 44 anchorages (no groundings besides with the Fournado…), 3 hospital visits, 1 mechanic on board, 13 calls for technical support, 3,500 gallons of diesel (don’t do the math; it is depressing), 3 guests, 100 gallons of gasoline (Fournado), 1 oil change, 1 TB of Starlink data, 2 fish/1 crab caught (ouch; that is embarrassing), 7 border crossings.

Wait, what? It isn’t the start of summer?

Actually, we did start the summer in Desolation Sound In June, but we decided to return to Desolation Sound and stay for a few days on our journey south, and we are finally gifted with sunny, warm days. Our time in BC/Alaska has warped our sense of heat – the 70 degree days have left us fanning ourselves and seeking out water to jump in.

Quick side – before Desolation Sound, we trudged through the alarmingly hot, sunny 73 degree day in Campbell River to a playground while waiting for the currents to be more favorable to our SeaXII chug. While at the playground, we saw a group of people with cameras, celebrating the retirement of Martin Mars water bomber – the largest water bomber of its kind, able to drop 25,000L of water on a fire. It was cool to witness.

Back to Tenedos Bay, Desolation Sound. We dropped anchor, and watched skiff after skiff, paddle boards and kayaks heading to the “beach” in the inlet. Hoping to find social connections, we abandoned school work loaded up our kayaks and headed into the Tenedos Bay, Desolation Sound Marine Park. We quickly wandered over to a stream, which was warm and found a great swimming hole with small waterfalls to swim.

A couple enjoying the area told us that there is a lake a 10 minute walk in, where everyone was heading to swim. Never wanting to miss a thing, we followed their advice and all enjoyed swimming in the warm, fresh water beautiful lake.

After swimming, we returned to the boat and took a exhilarating swing off the crane into the water before all cramming into the steam shower.

The next day, my kids were thrilled (rolling of eyes means thrilled, right?) when I announced that we would tackle the 4.7 mile scramble, out and back hike along the lake to Melanie Cove. Unfortunately in the 70 degree sweltering heat, we dropped like flies. Claire fell, so Hannah stayed with Claire and walked back to the swimming rocks to wait for us. Andrew and I hiked 2.6 miles (uh, I thought we were supposed to be at the half way point already?) and there was no end in sight, so we turned around.

Paul and Kathryn made it the furthest but still didn’t reach the end point (did All Trails lie to me?). Kathryn was the superhero of the day; hiking like a pro at lightening speed that no one could match.

By the time we got back to the swimming area, Kathryn, Hannah and I were too cold to swim but Claire and Andrew had a great, refreshing swim. Followed by…..taco Tuesday!

All the toys were brought out!

The next day we decided to head out in the Fournado to Pendrell Sound – where the water was warmest due to a tidal “quirk” for a day of watersports. We had a blast tubing and swimming, but decided we were too cold to wakeboard.

Paul found a small town (no roads; you come in by boat or seaplane) to get ice cream at the general store, so we headed to Refuge Cove. True to its name, it was a quaint, adorable cove of about 15 houses that run the town as a cooperative and we decided to stick around and eat dinner at the unexpected restaurant.

Once again, I am a little tardy in recording all of our amazing adventures and have to look at my pictures to remember all that we have done.

We finally succeeded in getting some crabs at our anchorage in Captains Cove!

We wanted to wait to pull the trap for the kids to see the crabs when they crawled out of bed (usually not until 11a.m.; east coat time will be a harsh awakening!) and the trap door stayed open and a couple of crabs escaped. When we pulled it with the kids, we had three crabs left; one crab was too small to keep (we have to measure), one was a female (can’t keep the ladies!), so we only had one to feast on. Still a pain to pick (thanks for helping, Kathryn), but it was delicious.

Good thing that we caught crabs; we threw the trap back in the water at Hevenor Inlet (the salmon head bait in it seemed to be the turning point in our catching success), but forgot to pull the pot when we took off early the next morning. We have now lost two traps and it was probably a sad funeral for the crabs in the trap; at least they had a good last feast of salmon!

We then went to Bishop Bay Hot Springs, which was more developed than Baranof Warm Springs (not knocking Baranof; I loved the completely natural state of Baranof) – no slimy algae or smelly sulphur.

The only thing was, it was a beautiful day, probably in the 70s, and we were too hot to jump in right away. We decided to take a cold plunge into the ocean before the hot springs.

It felt wonderful, and Hannah and I decided that we would swim back to the boat when we were done at the hot springs (we went by kayak; Andrew and Kathryn paddled back). The hot springs were a wonderful treat, and it was a super fun day overall. I just wish we would have brought a memento to leave of the SeaXII visit.

From Bishop Bay, we had two more anchorages at Promise Island and Shearwater before our next stop was Hakai Institute. Hakai was a recommended stop on our journey north, but we decided to stop on our way south, when we had less time constraints. Hakai is a developed research institute in British Columbia that studies the coastal habitat. We kayaked in from the SeaXII, took a short hike to a beautiful sand beach. We all loved taking off our shoes in the soft sand. We had a picnic lunch, and Paul and I walked along the shore, while the kids built forts (houses – watch their tours on https://www.youtube.com/@fournado4) from the driftwood on the beach.

After a night of anchoring in Fury Cove, we arrived in Port Hardy – a small town, but they had a store and a pub! We celebrated Claire’s and Andrew’s half birthday with molten lava cakes and team games all planned by Andrew!

The next morning, I went on a slow trail run on the Fairy Trail – so cute and fun little loop!

We pulled anchor and headed to spend a couple of days in Braughton Islands. The thick fog in Braughton was relentless and forecasted to dominate the area for the next couple days, so we decided to pull anchor and continue south.

Wow! I didn’t realize how far behind I was in my blog! It took me forever and a day to put together a poorly constructed boat tour video (in all fairness, we did the tour videos July 6th, so the 4 days it took for me to do the video edits was nothing). The video link is below.

On the open ocean on the route back to Ketchikan, we discovered that Andrew is unfortunately prone to sea sickness (he got sick whale watching in Norway but shortly thereafter we all got the flu, so I wasn’t sure if he was sea sick or started the flu). We also discovered that all of our upholstered furniture is not good for kids in general, but is especially not great for scrubbing out smelly…..

7/31/24 I have been enjoying finding trails to run to and then doing hikes/jogs on the trails at all of our stops, and I explored the Carlanna Lake Trail in Ketchikan.

It was slightly drizzly, but cleared up later in the day and the kids and I headed out to do a scavenger hunt (Roam app) before Paul met us for dinner. The highlight of the day was watching the resolute spawning salmon (who haven’t eaten and were probably lacking in energy!) in what looked like an impossible quest to run upstream and smacking head-first into the rushing waterfalls. The salmon, most likely pink salmon, return to the same stream where they were born to lay eggs.

8/1/24 The next afternoon, the kids and I went to the Lumberjack show, which was very entertaining, before setting sail. Andrew won the chair the lumberjack was attempting to carve into a bunny (all part of the show).

After one night of anchoring in beautiful Foggy Bay, we made it to Prince Rupert – a cute, clean town full of bright colors and fun character.

8/3/24 Prince Rupert is called the Cow Bay area for a load of cows delivered to the area for the start of a dairy farm in 1908. The shops were cute and colorful, and I enjoyed a delicious latte from Cowpuccinos after finding two trails to run – Rushbrook Trail and McClymont Trail.

Paul successfully changed the oil and shockingly discovered that he does not love fitting in tight spaces:)

8/4/24 We continued to make our way back south and found two beautiful anchorages, Captain’s Cove and Hevenor Inlet. Paul was able to make his comeback and row the Kita! So far his butt is holding up:)

Check out our video tour! Maybe not LA quality video editing, but Paul said it is a lot better than the video tour I did in Victoria, oh so long ago.

I am writing this post because a) it was an interesting experience for us and b) in case any other ignorant boaters are googling the area, maybe they will happen to come upon this post. I was at the helm on route to Sitka and entered a place with a lot of whirlpools all around us…uh oh. As we learned with Hole in the Wall, these whirlpools are not usually a friendly welcome. They may look like calm, swirly pools, but they can throw our boat around. Paul took over (I decided to let him to make him feel good…haha) and we teased our way through, rocking side to side, until we came upon a narrow channel. Paul called down that he didn’t think we could do this, and I came back up to the pilot house to see rapids rushing out of the channel and one of the channel buoys knocked on its side. Nope; I don’t think we can. We start googling the channel – this caught us completely unaware. I could not find anything about the dangerous currents/tides and it being an area that had to be timed to the current (not the tide in this circumstance; the current turns at a different time than the tide, so the current must be timed). We decided that we had no choice but to wait for the current to changet at 3:19p.m. Paul didn’t think that we could anchor; it was too deep and the current was too strong. Luckily, because it was a channel, one of the buoys had a current reading on it and we could look at the tide and current in the channel. Indeed, it was reading about 7.5 knots when we got there; way too strong for our boat to navigate through. Around 3:10, the current slowed to 1.5 knots, and we successfully made it through, to find several other boats on the other side waiting to navigate through as well; apparently some people knew about it!

We made it to Sitka around 7p.m. and rushed to get ready to go to dinner (Mike and Christine kindly offered to treat us to dinner, and I was tired of cooking!) We found a small, cute restaurant and my black cod tips were delicious. We then hit up the Mean Queen for some delicious drinks and crawled back to the boat close to midnight. We had to say goodbye to Mike and Christine the next day, so we went all went to the WildFlour Cafe and Bakery for an amazing sandwich (the avocado toast was scrumptious!) before they hailed a cab to the airport, and I found a scavenger hunt of Sitka for our family. While the scavenger hunt did not lead us from one place to the next, it offered points and trivia questions for various destinations around Sitka. We visited the Russian Bishop’s House – a free museum that gave great information about the Russian occupation of Alaska; we took a lot of silly pictures for points; we visited a fun playground (that was not part of the hunt but was a fun playground); we did a totem walk at Sitka National Historical Park; and probably everyone’s favorite, we visited the Sound Science Center, which offered an incredible touch tank and an extremely interesting tour of the salmon hatchery. We were pretty dead after all the walking and found a great place to get burgers and local beers before heading back to the boat.

I was immediately sold when Paul’s sister Sophie recommended visiting Baranof Springs; natural hot springs in this state of perpetual cold?! It sounded amazing. The kids and I have been trying to figure out where we can fit a small hot tub on the SeaXII, but a natural hot spring, right next to a waterfall? Always a better option. We pulled into an adorable “town” with approximately 15 total houses and a gushing waterfall and realized that we would not be able to use the town dock, so we anchored out and lowered the Fournado (our davitt/crane has been a little irritable lately, but thankfully it was working. After being stuck up for more than four hours after Dawes Glacier, Paul called Doctor Philbrooks.

We walked approximately 1/4 mile up to the hot springs, located next the water fall. The water was hot and it took a while to ease into it. The pools were natural, filled with a lot of slippery,slimy algae. There were two large hot spring pools and if you walked to a small pool by the waterfall, you could experience the polar plunge part of the experience – brrr! We ate a picnic lunch and then walked further up to Lake Baranof – so pretty!

Cold pool!

Andrew and Mike were twinning in their pink flamingo trunks – flamigos forever!

Walking back to the dock, we decided to check out the bath house with three rooms, each with a deep tub with piped in hot water from the springs. The sulphur smell was pretty strong, but it was clean water, perfect for boaters with limited water supply or no showers on their boats. Kathryn, Andrew and I tried the baths out before getting back on the boat and then drained, cleaned and refilled the tubs as requested.

Clean and ready to voyage to Sitka!