Seattle to Ketchikan Day 20

Monday May 23

One is never sure when one can make the Queen Charlotte Sound crossing, so I waited until we were part way across and then called ahead to Shearwater to make reservations.  Once again I knew the Waggoner Flotilla was headed there as well, so I wanted to make sure we had a reservation.

Here is the intended route for the day, up Fitzhugh Sound, and around Denny Island, and into Shearwater Resort.  It is mostly protected waters, so I had no concerns for the weather.  We had stayed at Shearwater last year and really enjoyed it so we planned to spend at least 2 nights there.

Distance was about 51 nm.

Here is a link to Shearwater's website.

Shearwater Resort and Marina

We pulled anchor about 8:30 AM, well before any of the Waggoner Flotilla boats, and headed out.
No particular problems, but the bottom here is sticky mud, which made my newly cleaned anchor locker look like someone had used it for a rest room.  Enough said.

As we headed up Fitzhugh Sound I knew the Waggoner boats were behind us.   I could hear them on the VHF radio.

We were cruising along just like every other morning, and that's when the drama began.
You just never know what's going to happen on the water on any given day.

One of the boats in the Waggoner Flotilla was a 60 footer called "Just (barely) Gettin' By."
I heard him call the Canadian Coast Guard and report that they had a medical emergency - his sister had just passed out.

One of the other boats in the flotilla was skippered by a retired orthopedic surgeon, and his boat was fast, 30+ knots fast.
They transferred the patient to his boat, and a Canadian Coast Guard fast rescue boat came by to escort them to Bella Bella, the nearest place with an emergency medical facility.  My new AIS display confirmed they went past me at over 30 knots.  I wish I had had time to take a picture, but I didn't know they were coming until they were almost past me.

I played a brief but hopefully helpful role in the drama as the Coast Guard could not communicate directly with the doctor's boat, so I relayed communications for a few minutes.

Here is a blurb about Bella Bella from Wikipedia:

Bella Bella, British Columbia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with Bella Coola, British Columbia.

Bella Bella Waglisla
Bella Bella from the water
Nickname(s): The Rock
Bella Bella Location of Bella Bella in British Columbia
Coordinates: 52°09′43″N 128°08′42″WCoordinates: 52°09′43″N 128°08′42″W
Country	Canada
Province	British Columbia
Area code(s)	250, 778

Bella Bella

Bella Bella, also known as Waglisla, is the home of the Heiltsuk and is an unincorporated community and Indian Reserve community located within Bella Bella Indian Reserve No. 1 on the east coast of Campbell Island in the Central Coast region of British Columbia, Canada. Bella Bella is located 98 nautical miles (181 km) north of Port Hardy, on Vancouver Island, and 78 nautical miles (144 km) west of Bella Coola. The community is on Lama Passage, part of the Inside Passage - a transportation route linking the area, and northern British Columbia as well as Alaska for marine vessels carrying cargo, passengers and recreational boaters from the south coast.
...to the Heiltsuk, Bella Bella forms a national capital of sorts to an unceded traditional territory of 16,658 square kilometres.
Founded between 1897 and 1903, Bella Bella is located on Campbell Island.
Originally styled New Bella Bella to distinguish it from "Bella Bella", the community's official post office name for some time was Waglisla, meaning "river on the beach" in the Heiltsuk language. Old Bella Bella, the Heiltsuk village site that is located south of the current village was known as Bella Bella. As it grew, a post office was located in the store. When the Heiltsuk relocated their settlement to the north, the post office, and the name Bella Bella, moved - first to the store in the BC Packers Cannery, then to the village of Shearwater. The post office name was retained while moving location several times. This is a source of confusion and the reason 'Bella Bella' sometimes appears on Denny Island rather than Campbell Island on some Provincial maps.

Here is a map snippet that shows the community of Bella Bella, and it's geographical location in relation to Shearwater.   Bella Bella is circled in the upper left, and Shearwater is on the lower right.

I have since become friends with the doctor who took the patient to Bella Bella.
I believe she recovered fully and flew home from there.

The other more locally oriented drama this morning was that Lisa called me on the intercom and informed me that Bina had eaten a half a cube of butter!

About 3 PM we pulled into Shearwater.
Our mileage completed thus far was 535 nm.

Another drama was playing out just as we were getting settled into our slip at Shearwater.
A 50'+ boat was coming into Shearwater at about the same time we were and hit a rock less than a mile from the resort.

Shearwater has a ship lift and they pulled him out of the water right away (I'm sure at great cost.)
They left the boat in the slings over night and I went up there the next morning and took a few shots of the props.

Port prop

Starboard prop

I learned later on from the owner's brother that they hit so hard that the port shaft was bent and the impact pushed the port engine off its mounts.

The owner had a spare set of props on board, so they took the port prop off, put a new prop on the starboard side, and relaunched.  He ran the boat back to Sydney BC on one engine.
Postscript - his wife says she won't go out on the boat with him any more, so he is selling it!

Here are some more pictures from our stay in Shearwater.

Gee, they didn't have a sign welcoming the Faraway to Shearwater.

I told Lisa if we win the lottery then I'm going to buy a Nordhavn, like this one.
Then I could run from Ketchikan to Seattle, and back, without having to stop for fuel.

Catch up on laundry, groceries, e-mail, bills - it's getting to be a routine now.

We spent 2 nights here, and then it was time to move on.