June 30, 2012 – Pender Harbour to Fanny Bay

The seas are calm and we make our way north from Pender Harbour, through the Dent and Yuculta Rapids and instead of tieing up at either Shoal Bay or Big Bay, we opt to tie up at a logging float in a small bay off of Phillips Arm. We had found it gunkholing a couple of years back but had never stayed there. Only problem was, there was a boat already on the dock we wanted to tie up on, but on the south shore of the bay, we found another logging dock so we backed in and tied up for the night. Both Sunseeker and Shaman are Gulf Commander built yachts (the brand) and along the way into Phillips Arm we see another Gulf Commander that we hail and let him know we think he has a nice boat. We invite the Calliope to tie up with us if he wishes. We make new friends in Susan and Mark from Seward, Alaska, where they are headed after purchasing their boat in Anacortes. They have a long trip ahead of them and like us, they are living the dream. They actually live in Anchorage, but the boat will be moored at the closest seaport of Seward. Check out a map, our trip from 2011 to Alaska has nothing on the distance we went just covering SouthEast Alaska. They are approximately 50 hours from the most Northern point we hit and with great determination will be crossing the Gulf of Alaska. I doff my hat tot you both, you definetly have bigger cannonballs for your down rigger than we do! (Or I should say, I do) – “Calliope” opts to tie up with us and we have a pleasant evening getting to know the new Gulf Commander owners. It was not so pleasant @5:00 am when we notice that there is barely a few feet of water under us, so Calliope, unties and heads out, we pull the boat a few feet forward and listen to the weather and opt to go back to bed. We look at Sunseeker, but she appeared to have a lot more water under her than we did. Wrongo… @ 7:30 Gordie is a bit stuck and with some sweat and determination and the help of his whaler, we “unstuck” him from the bottom. Mike of course is still sleeping! I fish wife him into getting up and moving our boat once more and after a few projects, we head out @ 1:00 pm to head up to Port Harvey.