Alex has now taken part of my role onboard. Zappa is now coming to Alex sometimes on his hourly "give me attention" cry.
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| Zappa has a new best friend |
We did have one little bit of excitement as we made the passage to Kelp Passage. A large Canadian Coast Guard vessel showed up on AIS quite a distance away, long before we could see it. Eventually it came into view and slid past us. But, their small tender was out zipping around and came sweeping by us, then stopped, and came along side. They wanted us to stop. We did and they asked for all of our paperwork. It was a routine stop. But, there was some confusion from the Coast Guardsman over Alex and Paulo. You see, in Brazil people do not have middle names. Instead they take each parents sur name. So Alex (Dad) and Paulo (Son) have different last names. Alex's sur name is derived from his parents last names, while Paulo's is derived from his parents last names. It took a minute to explain this. Once this difference in cultures was cleared up they wished us a happy trip and were on their way. They were VERY nice.
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| Stopped the Canadian Coast Guard. Everything onboard Adagio was in order, and it was no big deal. It took about 20 minutes. |
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| Being a lighthouse tender seems a very lonely existence to me. |
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| Canada has very nice lighthouses. |
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| Zappa getting as far away from us as he can. At anchor in Kelp Passage, BC. |
We crossed the border around noon and reset our clocks and watches. Alaska is in it's own time zone, one hour behind the Pacific timezone. We arrived at Foggy Bay and found one other boat there. It's a great anchorage with complete protection from all weather. There is a small passage out into Dixon Entrance where you can observe the conditions out there before pulling anchor. It also has a great holding mud bottom and our anchor set instantly.
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| On the border. The bow in Alaska (USA), the stern in BC (Canada) |
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| Now in Canada. You can see the various engine and transmission temperatures I keep on eye on. They are coming from sensors on the NMEA 2000 network. Engine Room. Stabilizer oil. Both exhaust risers. Both transmissions. And then some other random stuff. |
A few other boats arrived through the afternoon. One is a large Selene that we have seen a few times in previous anchorages with us. Alex and I explored by dinghy. This is a great place with some interesting shoreline to explore. It would be great kayaking this place.
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| The narrow entrance to Foggy Bay's inner anchorage |
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| We are greeted by a deer in the narrow entrance. |
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| Adagio at anchor in Foggy Bay, AK |
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| Starfish and colorful sea weed. The tide is low. Daily tidal swings are now in the 20 foot range. |
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| Zappa was mesmerized by the jellyfish in Foggy Bay |
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| Peaceful Foggy Bay, AK. |
I changed fuel filters (first time in the trip) and cleaned the sea strainers for the both engines and the stabilizer cooling pump. This is the first real maintenance I have had to do so far, other than adding a little oil to the motors every few days. I also switched to the aft keel fuel tank, away from the forward two fuel tanks. The forward two tanks still had fuel from Mexico in them. We have finally burned off all that old Mexican diesel and are now running on fresh fuel, purchased just a few weeks ago in Anacortes. Adios Pemex diesel! We also took down our Candian "Courtesy Flag" today.
We have traveled about 650 miles from La Conner to Foggy Bay AK, and put about 90 hours on the engines. Absolutely trouble free, I might add. All that hard work getting the boat ready is really paying off. We have used just over 1/3 of our boats fuel capacity. In theory, we could likely make it back to La Conner, after spending a month exploring Alaska without ever needing to fuel up. But we will probably take on some fuel here in Alaska before heading for home in about 5 weeks.
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