Green Island Anchorage and Ocean Falls

May 9, 2010 – Mother’s Day

We celebrated Mother’s Day by leaving the dock at Port McNeill at 0458, being careful to minimize thrusters, even though we are side tied between “Raindancer” and a 47’ Bayliner, and need to get our bow out into the fairway before we can go ahead. It is not yet light, but we can see where we are going (somewhat). It is flat calm, and no wind as we head out around Neill Ledge and into Broughton Strait and the tip of Malcom Island. It slowly gets light, and we see our first two cruise ships moving North towards Queen Charlotte Sound, one Holland America moving at 22 knots, and the Norwegian Sun moving at only 15 knots. The Norwegian Sun finally passes us in Gordon Channel and heads up Hecate Strait, while we turn slightly to the North at Pine Island and head for Cape Caution. There is still no wind, just a low westerly swell that continues to build.

Our first gray whale sighting occurs just past Pine Island, the same place we saw gray whales three years ago. There is still no wind, and we decide to use the stabilizers as the four foot swell clocks around onto our beam heading past Egg Island and then past Cape Calvert into Fitz Hugh Sound. The swell quickly dissipates and we make the decision to go into Green Island Anchorage near Fish Egg Inlet rather than go into Pruth Bay. We are anchored shortly after 3PM.
Green Island Anchorage is beautiful, we are almost totally landlocked, it is calm and 30 feet deep, but we can see out into Fitz Hugh, where the afternoon westerly is now blowing and there are whitecaps showing. There are several bald eagles circling overhead, probably not happy that we disturbed their territory. Alongside us is the remains of an midden, a fancy name for a garbage dump of shells.

We have covered 80 NM today, on the GPS log, and have travelled 400 NM since leaving Anacortes. We are over halfway to Ketchikan!

May 10, 2010

After a quiet night at anchor, in the isolated calm bay, we headed back out into Fitz Hugh Sound and headed North, taking a detour into Namu Harbor to view the crumbling remnants of the cannery. Surprisingly, there was also some new construction going on. We continued up Fisher Channel and headed for Cousins Inlet and the deserted town of Ocean Falls. We called and called on the radio, no answer. There were a few boats at the dock, but we found no one around. Stopping at the Post Office to mail a letter (the only place open), we found that the harbormaster and wharfinger were both gone for the week, and both the store and the bar in Martin River were closed until Wednesday, as was the Café in the Coast Lodge. The Café is only open occasionally when work crews occupy the lodge, and the store is open a few days a week for several hours at a time. The power plant has been sold to a firm called Boralax, which has plans to sell excess power to “someone??”

Walking around Ocean Falls, one realizes just how fragile human structures are. The deserted town is crumbling into ruins and one can believe that in a few more years on the planet’s scale, there will be little evidence that humans ever occupied this place. It was eerily reminiscent of the “disaster” films where the human race is wiped out, and there is only one person left. One could image Charleton Heston lurking around somewhere!

No pictures today - slow internet connection! And also no cell phone service. Hopefully we will have both in Shearwater tomorrow so we can start arranging the repair of our cruising alternator.