May 24th - Port McNeill - A Visit to Alert Bay

We finally got around to taking the BC ferry over to Alert Bay, about a 40 minute ferry ride.

The main attraction there is a fabulous First Nation cultural center. The highlight of their collection are masks that were confiscated from the First Nation people in 1922 when they held a traditional Potlatch in violation of Canadian law. The masks were returned in 1980 and a museum/cultural center built to house them.

The weather today was great with lots of sun and very little wind until the afternoon. The boats with whom we struck up acquaintances all left  today.  Everybody was positioning to get around Cape Caution, an exposed section of coast that can't be avoided if you want to get to Alaska.

The four Selenes from Sequim were going to Miles Inlet while the sail boats from Bellingham were going to Blunden Harbour.

Tomorrow we hope to finally go cruising again. We'll cut across the lower end of Queen Charlotte Strait and go into the Broughtons.

With regards to the batteries, any improvement from our cycling has been small. While cruising, we'll test a process of keeping the battery banks pretty full by running the generator twice a day, morning and evening. We should be fine, just more generator time than expected.