In the summer of 1800 the Atahualpa, under the command of Dixey Wildes, left Boston in company with the Guatimozin. The Atahualpa sailed to the Pacific Northwest via Cape Horn to trade with the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast for sea otter furs, which commanded a high price in China. The Atahualpa spent the summer of 1801 cruising the coast, then wintered at Nahwitti, at the north end of Vancouver Island.