Bowen needed his 4 month vaccinations and it just so happened he could have an appointment on Wednesday afternoon. This being Monday we thought that timing was ideal so we were locked in for the next 3 days, and the weather was just glorious- and HOT! We rented a car, borrowed a car seat and headed for Masset. As neither kid is really used to being in the car, I always end up sitting in the back with them. Not my favourite spot. I was happy when we made it to Old Masset for lunch at Rosie’s Cafe and a stop to look at some art just down the road. We were looking for a paddle to buy but couldn’t find anything in our price range.

From there we headed for Tow Hill and North Beach. North Beach was magical. We all fell in love with it. The sand was silky smooth and the beach stretch for miles.

We watched surfers learning in the rolling waves and a family of boogie boarders join the fun. Another family was having a BBQ on the sand. It was idyllic.

Happy Family

We had been mulling over whether or not we were going to Haida Gwaii. It was not that we didn’t want to, we just weren’t sure about the two crossings to get there. However our desire to visit these island overcame our apprehension, and the rig was all fixed up and ready so after only one night in Prince Rupert we were off. 2 nights later we started our crossing of Hecate Straight at 3am. We got a lot more than we bargained for on that ride. The wind built up to 25 knots, which in itself was fine, but the seas were so confused and very steep.They were simply a mess. Hard to the wind Asunto sailed about 15 nm below the entrance to Queen Charlotte City. She was hard over, the port rail frequently awash and white water hitting the dodger. Down below the ride was pretty intense. When we hit the waves too hard I was getting airtime in the forward berth. Some time during the really early morning Fynn woke up calling for me. “Mama why roll-roll?” She asks. “Because we are sailing and there are some big waves” “O-tay”, satisfied with this answer she was soon fast asleep. At one point when I was nursing Bowen we had so much water over the deck that it came under the closed hatch and landed right on top of us. He was not pleased. I dogged the hatch even tighter and it stayed dry after that. For whatever reason Fynn slept in to 10am then she was happy on the couch watching movies till about 1pm. We could do little else. Around then we started into the lee of the Graham Island ad the waves abated it and smoothed out the trip. Eventually we had to motor sail to reclaim our lost 15nm. We anchored down around 3pm and promptly went ashore for ice cream. We had sunshine and we had Haida Gwaii. We were happy.