After having spent a wonderful few days with Lottie we realised that we were now about half way through our fantastic sojourn on the water. We had given up the idea of going all round the island and so set our sites on a leisurely cruise home via anywhere but Johnstone Straight and so set our sites East and South form now on. Our first leg was to explore the west and North West of the Broughton's giving us one last hurrah through Blackfish sound. After saying goodbye to Lottie first thing on 30 July, we provisioned, cleaned and planned expecting to spend the day in harbour. During our planning though we realised that to hit the right tides we would need to leave today and so finally said our goodbyes and slipped our moorings from Port MacNeil at around 2pm. We went past the East end of Malcolm island just after slack and as we rounded Donegal point with we picked up a fresh breeze and put up full sail. Crossing the sound one last time we were again treated to humpbacks, orcas and kamikaze sealions charging straight at us; all this as the wind picked up pushing us, under too much canvas, at over 8.5 knots. As we dodged the rocks going into Spring passage thankfully the wind died down and we puttered into Carrie Bay, a wonderful anchorage just big enough to fit us.

That evening, as darkness closed in, we heard snuffling and grunting on the shore, not more than 50 yards away at it's closest point. As we settled down we crossed our fingers and hoped we were right about the fact that bears can't climb onto boats.

The next morning we woke early, and as the fog cleared, our visitor was back for breakfast and we were treated to over half an hour of his majestic presence, Benjy was so excited to see his cousin!