According to Navionics, between April 4th at 1300 and April 7th at 1730 we traveled 243.6 Miles. 76 Hours including our stop in Port McNeil for engine repairs.
The trip started off quite slowly with a through boat check. This turned up a couple of things, which we got sorted and then got moving. This was the theme of the trip as we constantly had somebody playing around with the boat getting it set up and prepared for its offshore leg.
Lots of motoring for most of the first day, and then the engine quit with a blocked fuel line. Got towed into Comox to make repairs and then off again. The unscheduled stop totally destroyed my nav plan so I had to come up with a new one one the fly. Ended up with a nice route up through Calm Channel and staying in shelter as much as possible. We went through a couple of places with names like "Whirl Pool Rapids" and "Green Point Rapids" with lots of current behind us.
We got up to the Johnston Straight quite a long way ahead of schedule. The current should have been against us, but we found that there was 6 knots against us on the south side, but if we hugged the north shore we had null current or about 1 kn with us. The forecast had been saying 40+ knot squalls due in the afternoon so we moved along from shelter to shelter and kept evaluating the weather. About mid afternoon we saw visibility reducing and lowering layer clouds. We prepped for rough weather and headed for a little nook for shelter. By the time we got there there were signs that it was already passing after some gusts above 20 kn. Visibility was going up, the barometer was rising and when we called the air port at Port McNeil they said the squall had passed them without any terribly high winds. Onward we went and arrived in Port McNeil to clean up the boat and have a nice dinner. Next day we handed the boat over to the instructor and crew and headed back home. Quite a challenging trip, but I am very glad I did it.
Here's a bit of GoPro footage from our departure from Comox and entrance to the Broughtons.
