2/12/08  9:30

Everyone’s up and mostly recovered from a few bottles of wine we had last night, the first alcohol since leaving Port Williams.  Nik and Paolo left their boots and shoes outside in the cockpit last night, something I don’t imagine they will ever do again.

Cold wet footwear in the morning not a treat.

The plan is to motor over to Pendulum Cove where there are hot springs and to throw The Finn in to see what happens.  Actually we’ve been warned that in a distance as short as a meter you can get scalded, frozen or nicely warmed. 

12:00 Noon

 Of course when we put out our long lines it was low tide, so this morning, the rocks they were fixed around with strops were under water. And the wind had come up in a direction to blow us toward the anchor and the shore.  We freed one slack line and used to extend a stern line so we could retrieve the anchor while hanging on 160 meters of stern line.  I gave Nik my dry suit and he happily retrieved the slightly underwater lines. This all took us about 45 minutes.  Had we moored at high tide, our lines wouldn’t have been long enough.

We should have visited the hot springs at Pendulum Cove yesterday when we arrived at low tide and could see the steam.  At high tide the steam disappears; also the weather today is not really conducive for a dip. So Nik was spared being chucked in and had to be content with wading to retrieve the shore lines.

We cleared Neptune’s Bellows at 11:40 and Neptune lived up to his reputation by furiously pumping away, to spit us out to the sea.  Within minutes of escaping his clutches, the wind dropped right down to 10-15 from 30-35 knots.

The original plan was to go direct to Enterprise Island which is a run of over 100 miles.

A yachting couple we met in Puerto Williams told me about an anchorage in Mickelson Bay, Trinity Island which breaks the journey more or less in half, so we are going to try for that option.  

It’s 12:30 now and the wind has dropped even more so we are motoring again.

Nik took a picture of a very strange worm like creature that came up on the anchor chain when we left Whaler’s Bay.  It’s the one on the left. He also took one of our ace wildlife photographer and a really nice shot of the Anchorage in Telephon Bay.

Sorry Folks the Fleet 33 connection just died at 61 Degrees 11  minutes South.  So I can't send the pictures.