Day 57 - Friday July 14/17

(Posted Friday July 21)

Photos of Skidegate Harbour as we departed Haida Gwaii Thursday night at 10pm on the overnight ferry to Prince Rupert:

Today was a scheduled ‘personal maintenance day’ for us. We arrived at the Prince Rupert dock on the overnight ferry at about 4:30 am, and debarked by about 5 am. We had managed to get about 4&1/2 hours of sleep in the cabin after watching the departure from Sidegate and reading for a few minutes. 

We stopped by the campground where Rocinante II was in storage, unloaded some stuff from the truck, and picked up the hamper of laundry. When we opened up the trailer we surprised and somewhat discouraged to discover that the trailer batteries had totally run down during the 3&1/2 days it had been in storage!! (running only the fridge electronics, the smoke & CO2 detector, and the audio system on standby) 

We were happy to find the 24-hour McDonalds open, and we enjoyed a breakfast sandwich and fresh coffee. After breakfast we ‘camped out’ in McD’s for another 2&1/2 hours or so, until about 8:30, writing and posting blogs, and drinking free coffee refills. We then proceeded to the laundromat we had seen on the main street - only to discover that the only washing machines there were double-load machines at $5.00 per load! We beat a hasty retreat to the other laundromat which advertised $1.75 washes. It was none-too-clean or modern, had cold water only, and was in a ‘sketchy’ part of town, with several men hanging about the next-door doorway passing around a bottle of something.  Never-the-less, we soldiered on and did our laundry there. Michael had to give the one washer’s agitator several assists, as it seemed the fan belt was slipping. On the spin cycle, Nancy had to hold the safety switch down with her finger, like the boy with his finger stuck in the dike! (photo). 

After the laundry was done, we made our way back to the campground and got Rocinante II set up on a site. We had mushroom soup for lunch, read our books for a while, and then had a good long nap. We had chill for supper, and then read some more, getting to bed by about 10 pm. A mostly restful day that was personally maintaining.