Rounding Cape Scott

After a fun couple weeks in the Broughtons, we headed for Port McNeil on Vancouver Island to provision and fuel up for the rounding of the North end of the Island and our West coast cruise. We had a few days in McNeil to wait for good weather for rounding the Cape so we visited Alert Bay, an island nearby that has a lot of historical significance as a fishing port as well as a first nations site. The totem poles on the island are impressive. 

In Alert Bay, we found Ryan's new house. You need a row boat to get to it though. 

After fueling up and loading two dock carts full of groceries and beer aboard, we headed north for Port Hardy for the night, then up Goletas Channel to Bull Harbor on Hope Island which is the traditional staging point to make the trip around the Cape. 

Walking on the beach at Roller Bay. 

We were up early to cross the dreaded Nahwitti Bar. We had actually planned to take the "inside route" between the kelp line and shore, but with calm conditions we went straight over the bar with a nice 3 knot ebb pushing us towards the ocean. There were still some pretty impressive waves on the bar! The fog set in a few miles out but luckily we were able to follow our friends on EVENSONG through the thickest of it.
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We anchored near Winter Harbor for the night, then headed into "town" at Winter Harbor the next morning for fuel.