Longtime Colorado friends visit Jupiter, berthed aboard for an escapade within the appealing Broughton Archipelago – months in planning for eight days of convivial coasting.

Cindy administers an extensive mountain hut system, and Curt renders woodcut art and graphical design.

A persistent and gusty northwesterly occasionally throws up chop and finds a way even into the most sheltered anchorages. Rain stays home, clouds settle low then part in the afternoons.

Days are long. The sun emulates an exuberant toddler, rising impossibly early and setting reluctantly late. Fellow mariners are few and far flung, and nothing much interrupts May’s solitude.

Sea otters in singles, pairs and rafts bobble and dive in the offshore passages, and Dall’s porpoise perform a muscled tango in Jupiter’s bow wake, but only as long as you are watching them. Two tiny Kelp Crabs are pulled up once in our trap and quickly returned to sea. Nearly uninterrupted line fishing off the boat yields nothing bigger than a boot.

It is always inspiring to view Jupiter’s environs through the eyes of others, but particularly rewarding to witness anoesis of British Columbia’s fine and fishy cruising grounds rendered by an artist’s hand.

Ink sketches of our destinations by Curt
Click on images for a closer look

We make way a few hours each day in search of prospects, protected coves, and shoreside opportunities.

Jupiter’s tender splashes daily from her bunk aloft to sea and back again completing her own dripping orbit.

Curt’s ambit is elliptical as he rounds the deck blithely shifting between sketching and fishing, wanting only two more hands to do both at once. Cindy and Chef turn around each other in the galley conjuring victuals and vintages. Four handfast friends afloat talk long, eat well and sleep deeply.

Jupiter’s route from Port McNeill is a widdershins wandering of isles and islets, mountains, channels and rustic settlements. Ultimately, Jupiter’s final anchorage near Mars Island lies barely 1.3 nautical miles from her first.

The floating village of Sullivan Bay