8/3/08  09:00

We were underway by 7:20 this morning and by 8:00 we had the Pacific swell on the beam.  Then the  wind did a strange thing, it went South so it was not in our face.  The swell only lasted  about 45 minutes as we turned towards Canal Cockburn. The other odd thing about today so far is that it’s not actually raining.

10:30

The WSW wind builds to  20 knots and we actually  start sailing for the first time in the canals.

12:00 Noon

We’ve had rainbows and sun and now a squall, amd we’re zipping alongpoled out at nearly  10 knots. The water is still pretty open and the wind dead behind.

13:30

The wind  drops and we’re motoring again. We managed to sail 18 miles and saved a few litres of fuel.

18:00

We sailed another 5 miles or so before arriving at Puerto Hope described in the guide as “this wonderful natural harbour opening between high mountains snd beautiful forests…”  which is certainly fair comment.  We had  quite a lot of sun today between showers; one of the best days so far.  We all went ashore  for walk through the spongy moss and when it started raining we came back to the boat, the others retrieved their wellies and I decided to stay on board and  sort out the blog. Todays run was 66 miles.

The pictures include a few shots along the way and  Puerto Hope itself.