M/V Royal Sounder

Capt. Linda Lewis - www.privateboatinginstruction.com and Capt. David Parker
__________________________________________________________

4 – Crossing Queen Charlotte Sound & Northward (June 8 , 2011)

We arrived in Port McNeill on Saturday afternoon, June 4 and then had to wait-wait-wait to make our Queen Charlotte Sound crossing. Gale-force winds blew for three days. We tow our 18’ skiff and there is no way we are going across until a weather window opens up. We monitor forecasts and current conditions for both Queen Charlotte Sound and Central Coast from McInnes Island to Pine Island. The 1600 (4 PM) forecast on Tuesday 6/7 felt like an opening to at least get to the Walker Group; perhaps beyond.

Finally we saw the forecast (shown at top right)…and decided to see if we could make it to the Walker Group on Wed. morning.

Bottom photos: It’s dawn on June 8 and time to get going. Here’s what the beginning looked like. I didn’t take photos during the rest of the crossing; I was busy.

We did make it to the Walker Group nicely and decided to press on. It was a bit bumpy going across, but very doable. We logged the actual conditions on Wednesday, June 8, as a 1-2’ chop on top of a low westerly swell. Winds never got higher than NW 15 K and that was at 1:30 in the afternoon, when winds usually are on the rise. By then we were almost across. Visibility ranged from ½ mile to 6 miles.

We favor a crossing route from Port McNeill, past the Deserter’s Group, the Walker Group (for a quick bail-out if needed), then on to Cape Caution. That usually gives us a good angle to the seas.

After holding a mile off Cape Caution and passing Egg Island, we would have liked to start heading a bit NE. However, we have always found ourselves unable to keep to that route.

The westerly ocean swells always mean a zig-zag routine for us to make good the course after Egg Island. We don’t have stabilizers (45’ twin screw vessel; 7 K cruising speed) and we’re towing the skiff. So we need to take the seas at about a 45 degree angle.

I forgot to turn the tracking feature on at Cape Caution, but you can see our (light) red tracking lines for the latter part of the crossing.

We decided to take advantage of the good conditions and bypass Fury Cove and Green Island Anchorage. Instead, we anchored at Goldstream Harbour. The next day we were up early again and heading north.

As we approached the Shearwater area, we encountered the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry: Columbia.

I love the gold stars on blue forming the big dipper and the north star. That is Alaska’s flag. Dave says there was a contest in about 1957 to create a state flag. The winner was a 12 y/o boy. Another unique feature on the AK ferries is the sight of (camping) tents on the back deck. This is the budget version of cruising to Alaska. Take the ferry and take your sleeping gear.

At Shearwater, the CCGS VECTOR (Canadian Coast Guard Survey), was identified on AIS (Automatic Identification System) as a Scientific Survey vessel. It was very interesting to see them doing wheelies around this buoy as they constantly criss-crossed a busy area just above Shearwater. They called a Securité several times to let vessels know what they were doing.

After Shearwater, we like to take a shortcut up Reid Passage. The Douglass book, Exploring the North Coast of British Columbia (http://www.fineedge.com), clued us in on this one. Rather than take the rolling Milbanke Sound turn north out of Seaforth Channel, we take this small but very navigable channel.

The marker below in Reid Passage is a little deceiving at first glance, but the chart shows the path.

Top right: it’s beginning to reveal itself. As we’re heading north, we’ll leave this marker on our port.

Our timing was going to be just right for Perceval Narrows above Reid Passage. This spot can run 5 knots at full flow, but we were there just about 45 minutes early and didn’t have a problem

Things were going so well we decided to bypass another anchorage, Rescue Bay. Instead we cruised right on through Jackson Narrows. It’s a tight-turn spot and we remembered to do a Securité before entering. We went through at just about Low Water, so we watched the depth sounder. At the lowest point we encountered 12.7’; that’s good enough for us. (It was a Neap Tide, so it wasn’t at its lowest low possible.)

Now for the glorious Jackson Passage. And waterfalls of all shapes and sizes.

We’re heading for an anchorage near Klemtu. We’ll pick up there in the next installment.                            

--end--