columbia cove

We have a spinnaker! And it works! Woohoo! After East Cove, we headed around the dreaded Brooks Peninsula. Once again, the weather was in our favor and Brooks was pretty calm. Once we rounded the southern end of the peninsula, we popped the chute and were finally sailing downwind! I make it sound like this was a 10 second affair, but it took us about 30 minutes to unravel ourselves from the mess of lines and figure out how the damn thing worked. Having a sock adds about 14 more lines than I'm used to and it took some doing to figure it all out. Fortunately, the dousing went smoother than the raising and we pulled right into Columbia Cove on the south side of Brooks.

We spent another layover day here. There was a trail to a fabulous beach, so we took the frisbee and headed over. The wildlife is great here - bear on the beach, sea otters in the cove and bald eagles flying around constantly. This was the first time in 4 anchorages we didn't have the place to ourselves - there were 5 other boats at one point - it's starting to get crowded!


Lazily motor sailing around Cape Cook on the Brooks Peninsula - also known as the Cape of Storms. We're happy to have a respite in the storms.


As close as we wanted to come to Solander Island. That's not the most hospitable place on earth.


Untangling the spaghetti lines for our asymmetrical spinnaker (or "drifter").


Hoisting our drifter for the first time.


Our drifter!


Christy is never as happy as when she's trimming a spinnaker.


Kayaking in Columbia Cove.




Walking the trail over to the beach at shed #4.


This beach was straight out of Mexico - awesome.


We finally got the hammock strung in the rigging. Thanks for the hammock, Nanette! It is a sunny day slice of heaven!

50°08.329'N 127°41.493'W