04 July - Having done this trip once before, we knew that the next stage of our journey, heading for Uclulet and Berkley sound, was not going to be the most enticing.  The Juan do Fuca straight has a bad reputation with strong winds daily being funnelled from the east, the direction we had to go.  After watching the weather though we figured we had a fairly good shot up the straight to Port Renfrew before it got too bad.  After an early start, leaving the anchorage in Becher Bay at 06:00 we progressed well past Sooke but soon after, we entered thick fog which stayed with us the rest of the way up to Port Renfrew even when the stronger winds arrived!  With the wind on our nose, blowing at times up to 20 knots, there was nothing for it but to plug away on the engine for 9 hours in the fog.  We did have company though, two other sailboats that were on the same journey and for once, it was pleasant not being the slowest!

Pulling into Port Renfrew Inlet - fog drifting through the hills 

As we got up to Port Renfrew we had hoped to anchor in a small bight on the north coast of the inlet.  On investigating it though, it gave us no shelter from the 15 - 20 knots winds and so we went back to investigate further in the inlet.  As on our last trip though, the wind blasted full strngth all the way to the back and so we ended up pulling into PAcific Gateway Marina (a very small fishing marina that could just squeeze us in for the night.  Having docked, it was pleasant to be able to walk on land though and we visited the local general store for (very expensive) basic foodstuffs before heading back to the boat.