July 2 – Foggy trip to Prince Rupert

We awake to thick fog. We leave the anchorage following our “breadcrumb trail” (GPS record of our path in last night) and with the help of our radar and Grahame’s AIS, which identifies large ships in the area, we pick our way through traffic and islands to Prince Rupert Harbour. The fog lifts as we come in, and we see our FIRST cruise ship (we had thought we’d be ducking them all the time!) at Prince Rupert dock.

Moorage is hard to come by in P.R. We have reservations at Cow Bay Rowing and Yacht Club, but the space they offer, on the outside of the breakwater, doesn’t look good. We move on to Rushbrook, ½ mile out of town, where we are lucky to find a boat just pulling out. We get one place at the dock, where we raft up with Tangleberry.

We take a quick walk to town, where we find a well-equipped marine store and pick up some things we need – no sail slugs though. Cliff returns to the boat to do some work, and the rest of us browse around town.

Prince Rupert has suffered “cloud failure” – it’s a bright sunny day. We still feel chilly and are wearing jackets, but the local girls are out in shorts and tank tops, grabbing summer while they can. The town is clean, attractive, and spiffied up for the cruise ship season. Lots of tourists are out walking. We have a delicious dinner at the Cow Bay Café. Civilization feels good.