This being our 15th cruising trip, you would have thought we’d have at least heard of the Ketchikan Blueberry Festival (its 50th), if not attended it. It is held on the first Saturday in August. As an excuse, I offer up that at the end of the season, our time in Ketchikan is focused on getting in and getting out ASAP. This year, with nice weather forecast, we hung around for the Blueberry Festival. 
It turns out it is a kind of a street fair with several streets closed off to traffic and and booths selling crafts, art and food. Despite the presence of passengers from three cruise ships (actually a modest number by Ketchikan standards), the event seemed very community focused. If we are in Ketchikan on the first weekend in August in the future, we’ll definitely try to attend.
We did leave Ketchikan on Tuesday, August 5. We stopped on the way out of town and fueled up. It turned out the fuel price in Ketchikan was about 50¢/gallon cheaper than the price in Washington, so we took on about 750 gallons to take us south and possibly back north next Spring. We anchored the night in Sitklan Passage Cove which is conveniently located for crossing Dixon Entrance and entering Canadian waters.
The next day, August 6, we headed into Prince Rupert staying at the Prince Rupert Rowing & Yacht Club (PRRYC) marina. We had an usual event at the Safeway grocery store where Marcia did shopping for produce 
we couldn’t bring in from the USA and I waited outside with Drake. The store was quite busy and it was taking Marcia more time than I and Drake wanted it to. Drake was very good at making eye contact with people going in and out of the store and responding enthusiastically when the eye contact was reciprocated. Later, I was a confused and flummoxed when a customer came out from the store and said “Here, a man in the store asked me to give this to you to buy a toy for the dog,” and then handed me $3.50. There had been a pan handler outside the store’s entrance earlier but he probably left when he saw his competition, a cute and friendly dog.
We left at first light the next morning, but not before a quick walk to the Tim Horton’s for some morning treats and cheese tea biscuits for later. We put in a full day and did the entire length of Grenville Channel before anchoring the night in Hawk Bay on Fin Island.
One of the reasons for putting in a long day was so that we fish the early bite off at Turtle Point on the NW corner of Gil Island. We joined a couple of sport fishing boats also working the area. Marcia caught and released a couple of pink salmon but never even got a hit she thought was a silver or king salmon. We returned to Hawk Bay for a second night.
Rather than try fishing the area further, the next day we elected to continue our southbound journey and headed towards Bottleneck Inlet in Finlayson Channel. Initially conditions weren’t too bad even though the winds were 15-20 knots but later in the day they edged up a notch to 20-25 knots and we had pretty choppy head seas. The protection offered by Bottleneck Inlet was a welcome relief for ourselves and the three other boats with which we shared the anchorage.
The next morning, we had light rain and poor visibility but the winds weren’t too bad initially. We elected to exit Finlayson Channel into Milbanke Sound and Seaforth Channel rather than cutting off at Jackson Passage and using Mathieson Channel / Perceval Narrows into Seaforth. Unfortunately the seas were building and we were hit by 3-foot short period seas on our starboard beam as we approached Ivory Island which caused us to roll unpleasantly. It was about five or six miles of that so we decided to put our stabilizing fish in the water to dampen the rolling. We continued through Seaforth Channel to Gunboat Passage and anchored in Forit Bay that night.
Next morning we fished near Rattenbury Point at the NW corner of King Island in Fisher Channel. Nothing but a few pink bites for our efforts. We headed south in Fisher Channel, dropped a couple of test prawn pots in the entrance to Evans Inlet then explored the head of Evans Inlet for an anchoring site. We found a couple spots that were doable but they were deep (75′ to 90′) and exposed to westerly wind and chop. We decided to go with the known quantity of Codville Lagoon for the night’s anchorage.
The next day, we headed back north up Fisher Channel and fished the west side of the channel along the shoreline of Denny Island about a mile south of Gun Boat Passage. Again, only a few bites from pink salmon. From here we headed back to Evans Inlet and retrieved the prawn pots we dropped there. More disappointment, when we pulled empty pots. Since we were pretty close to Codville Lagoon, we dropped the two prawn pots in a popular prawn site. By this time, we were getting close to the afternoon salmon bite so we crossed Fisher Channel, entered Lama Passage and fished (with no luck) the SE corner of Denny Island from just west of White Point to about a mile north of Start Point. We finished this meandering by returning to Codville Lagoon and anchoring at its north end.
We were getting a bit tired of fishing with no catching so with a very early start on August 13, we first retrieved our two prawn pots with several dozen (yay!) mostly small (boo!) prawns and headed up to Ocean Falls. Even though we arrived before 10 AM, the notorious Ocean Falls winds were blowing us off the dock. Fortunately, there were other boaters on the dock who got our lines secured and the boat tied to the dock. Later that day, fellow Queen City Yacht Club members, Ann and Craig Wilbour on Shot-8, tied up on the other side of the dock from us.
We ended up spending 4 nights at Ocean Falls. There are not many shoreside services but the road running from the top of the dam behind the town to the community of Martin Valley gives you a chance to stetch your legs a bit. The docks are in good repair, the power ample (the power plant at the dam is less than a half mile away) and the water is clean. We did have rain (heavy at times) for about 2-1/2 days and some gusty wind a few times but it was more pleasant than spinning around on an anchor and not being able to leave your boat.
Finally, on August 17, continued south into Fitz Hugh Sound. Our destination for the night was Bitter End Cove at the far southeast corner of Fish Egg Inlet. On the way in, we dropped three prawn pots. It was a quiet night by ourselves.
The next morning we headed out and started fishing the shores of Addenbroke Island north of the lighthouse. There were other boats from the local fishing lodges fishing as well. The action seemed to be mostly pinks but near slack current, Marcia hooked and we landed a King salmon, our first salmon of the season. We called it quits for salmon fishing and headed back into Fish Egg Inlet to check our prawn pots. Unfortunately two of the three pots had octopus in them. The octopus enjoy the easy 
pickings of the prawns already in the pot and deter anymore prawns from entering the pot. While we did harvest a decent number of prawns, we elected not to reset the prawns as we judged the possibility of continued octopus predation as high. The two octopus returned to the water to hunt again and we headed back to Bitter End Cove for the night.
On the morning of August 19, we again headed out to Addenbroke Island hoping for a repeat of our prior day’s success. Again the action was disappointing until near slack current when Marcia hooked and we landed a coho salmon. At this point we felt that Drake needed some shore time so we crossed Fitz Hugh Sound and entered Kwakshua Channel towards Pruth Bay. We anchored near the head of the bay with good access to the docks of Hakai Institute. They are kind enough to allow public access to their docks for transiting on their trails over to the broad sandy beaches on 
the ocean side of Calvert Island. The beaches are considered the finest beaches along the inside passage and provide welcome relief from confines of the boat. We spent two nights anchored in Pruth Bay and went to shore five times.
After one last beach visit on the morning of August 21, we stored our dinghy back on our boat deck and exit into Hakai Passage and made our way to the NE corner of Hecate Island where we fished along the shore of Hecate Island outside the entrance to Goldstream Harbour. Marcia caught another coho salmon before we called it a day. We went into Goldstream Harbour where Marcia cleaned her salmon and we had lunch. Afterwards we proceeded to Safety Cove along east shore of Calvert Island to anchor for the night.
Since fishing was slow, we decided to take advantage of the fine conditions (light winds, low seas) and head south around Cape Caution on August 22. Depending on your route, you have 30 – 40 miles in which you are exposed to ocean conditions. If ocean conditions are good, the route is no big deal. If conditions are bad, you could die or fear your imminent demise. In between are various degrees of unpleasantness that depend on your tolerance or misfortune. We always try to stack the odds towards “no big deal” by choosing benign conditions. While we had fog most of the way, we only had modest rolling waves out of the WNW and did not put our stabilizers in the water. Our speed was good and we arrived in Port McNeill about 10 hours after departing Safety Cove.
Leg Statistics – 18 Days, 569 Miles, 107.2 Engine Hours
