2007 Overview- North to Alaska

2007 Plans – Last year, we purchased Avante in San Diego and sailed her up the Pacific Coast to the Pacific Northwest. After leaving her stored for the winter at Canoe Cove Marina on Vancouver Island, we returned in May to get her ready for a trip north to Alaska.

Year End Review – The below table created from our logs summarizes our actual sailing in 2007.

The trip to Alaska was a great trip, winding over 3000nm through magnificent areas of pristine wilderness. We left Victoria at the end of May which put us ahead of many of the other boats traveling north in the summer. We spent a little time in the popular British Columbia cruising areas of Desolation Sound and the Broughton Archipelago before moving north to see the wild and incredible Alaskan scenery in areas like Misty Fiords, Tracy Arm and Glacier Bay. On the trip north, we took the Inside Passage where the Yanmar diesel engine did almost all the work.

When we turned the corner in Alaska to head south, we stayed on the outside, along the coast, as much as possible.We were hoping for some good sailing here, but often found conditions fairly calm. Once we reached Vancouver Island, we continues south via the Inside Passage to Victoria. Because much of the trip was in relatively protected waters, we did not anticipate many long delays waiting for a good passage weather window. Consequently, we developed a schedule for the trip and invited a number of friends to join us for various segments

We left Avante for 6 weeks in Canoe Cove Marina while we went home for a short summer in Telluride. In September, we returned to the Pacific Northwest and enjoyed sailing Avante around the San Juan Islands and Gulf Islands for a month before storing the boat for the winter again at Canoe Cove Marina.