We had been away from civilization for 9 days now and could finally start seeing the end of what had been a very adventurous journey up north. By now we had made the decision that going round the island may be a bit too adventurous for us after the last couple of weeks and looked forward to reaching Port McNeil; our furthest town north that we planned to get to. We just had two days to go and hoped for smooth cruising.

We left our new friends at lagoon cove early and cruised with the current down towards the ominous sounding 'Beware passage'; a rock strewn channel requiring careful piloting. Arriving at close to low tide though we threaded ourselves gingerly through the rocks and cleared the passage unscathed. It was then a straight forward cruise up to Goat Island in improving weather.

On arrival we dropped the Kayak and SUP and had a lovely time exploring the shoreline

After a very pleasant night's sleep we had a leisurely morning knowing it was not long now before we were back in civilization. We fired up the engine and Heidi went to have a go at pulling up the anchor. Just as it broke the surface, the engine spluttered and died. We quickly dropped the anchor and started scratching our heads. After a frustrating two hours trying to diagnose the engine problem we had run out of our ideas and were dreading needing a tow into Port McNeil, still almost 20 NM away.

Luckily we had cell phone coverage and managed to raise a local marine diesel expert. They baffled us with a bunch of complex information and as we were on the verge of giving up and asking for a tow he suggested we call "old Marcus - who knows those old engines!" We got in touch with Old Marcus and within minutes he had reassured us there were no major issues and that we just had to keep trying. Soon enough the engine sputtered to life and thankfully we were away!

The cruise down to Port McNeil was in lovely weather and a very pleasant cruise apart from being introduced to the wild rips around Blackfish sound, an area we were to get to know very well over the next few weeks.

Arriving in Port McNeil felt like a real milestone. We had pushed through some incredible adventures to get here and were now in a base where we could really unwind and explore. We had a great dinner at Gus's Pub and looked forward to a bit of admin.