As 2021 progressed, we had a hunch that the US – Canadian border would remain closed to non-essential travel for the better part of the boating season. March 16 2020 we found ourselves working seven days a week, keeping our restaurants afloat (and/or closed due to covid restrictions). In 2019 we had planned a major retrofit to commence January 2021, and took nearly ten months. Year 2020 was the perfect year for such a project as we couldn’t enjoy our favorite (BC) waters due to the border closure, and we were doing all that we could to keep our businesses afloat.
Mid-April 2021, we lucked out on the best weather to date this year to deliver our boat back to Philbrooks in Sidney BC for repairs and maintenance. All we could do was pinch ourselves that we were enjoying the San Juan Islands during April with no crowds and summer weather. The planning had commenced for “transiting through” BC Waters to SE Alaska. With the border closure and the Jones Act keeping cruise ships out of Alaska until end of July, and limited ships after that, we believe this year is THE year to cruise to Alaska as a pleasure boater.
Fast forward to June 15 2021, we position our fishboat (aka trailer her from Bainbridge Island to Anacortes) and gear, and charter a wheeled flight to Roche Harbor with our world traveler Portia kitty to take delivery of our boat after a week of delays. The excitement to take delivery after a year and finally spend significant time aboard cruising and enjoying SE Alaska was palpable. More realistically, we were thinking about all the sh!$ we needed to do provisioning wise and the race against our limited weather window. After a celebratory dinner at Roche Harbor, it was back to Anacortes for three days of provisioning.
This isn’t our first rodeo provisioning for a long cruise, we left Ft Lauderdale in 2018 with hopes of going through the canal. The weather quickly squashed our hopes as we endured tropical storm after tropical storm – in the “cruising season”. This time we had not only our Walker Bay tender to reunite with Docktails, but our fishboat and all of our fishing gear. Like moving into a new house, you can’t believe all that gear will fit, and somehow it does. Also at some point you need to cut the lines, as you’ll always forget something, and let the weather dictate when you depart. And that’s exactly what we did.
We positioned ourselves in Friday Harbor, a short “shakedown” cruise after Philbrooks not one, but two, sea trials. We should be good, right?
Seemed like it. Other than Tom updating the Simrad software and neither of our two depthsounders working (took him six hours in FH to get one of two to work), and needing a new chafing cover for our starboard bridle line. NBD.
Our WINDow was small and compact. We didn’t have room for error as the high pressure moved into the Seattle area. Our error of deviation was 1 – and that was rounding Cape Caution. Everywhere else our room for error was 0. Not exactly our favorite way to cruise, but we have to “transit through” BC Waters with only anchoring for the night and stopping for contactless fuel and essentials.
08:00 June 21 2021 we embarked from Friday Harbor to Van Isle Sidney BC for clearing customs.
10:00am As the fuel dock employees helped us contactless tie up, one said, hey we have a Docktails in our marina! And Tessa replied, this IS the Docktails from your marina!
As Nexus is not a form of travel document accepted currently, two friendly agents met us after we phoned in. The information on “transiting through” has changed like the weather changes as covid continues, but we were prepared. We had a Float Plan ready to give to the agents (they kept it), vaccination cards are not considered, they boarded and searched the boat and asked the usual questions along with covid related questions. They gave us an orange piece of paper with our CBSA transit number, asked us to check in with the ArriveCAN app, and informed us to fly the yellow quarantine flag while we were in BC waters.
12:00pm we were underway to make the Dodd Narrows 3:00pm slack. It was calm seas until we transited Dodd Narrows, and it was snottier than snot outside Nanaimo with a stiff NW wind.
Windy predicted it would calm down north of Nanoose Bay, and thankfully Windy was correct. It flattened out and we arrived Tribune Bay Hornby Island at the “golden hour” at 6:00pm. Ten hours on the water on our first day, with an unusual early warm summer wind, we basked in the warmth as we served up dinner and FaceTimed our friends vacationing on Donlop Point Hornby Island, as we are not allowed to leave the boat.
