Inside the Inside Passage

At the end of a most amazing day, we gazed out on this.

(This was written on August 2 or 3 but didn't get posted. It really goes after Gunkholing in Desolation Sound and before We've Run the Rapids!) We left Gorge Harbour and easily navigated Uganda Passage, which had looked impossible to use when we'd views it from the road during a Cortez Island walk two years ago. Skipper Jack then piloted us from the waters of Desolation Sound into the inside of the Inside Passage. This is the place where the waters change direction: South of Desolation Sound the tides flow in and out from the South, through Malaspina and Georgia Strait. By the time you get to the 50th parallel, currents are restrained; this one of the attractions of Desolation Sound, which nonetheless has remarkable and interesting tides. North of Desolation Sound, tidal waters generally flood south and ebb north. Here Vancouver Island lies very close to the mainland. Not that you can tell in this swiss cheese of land mass what is mainland and what's not. It's all watery. Islands separated by relative narrow passages.

Commercial traffic travels west of here fairly close to Vancouver Island. We have not seen a cruise ship since Vancouver. We passed a skid road where a small timber operation was rolling logs into the water; but no tugs towing log booms. Those vessels use Johnstone Strait, which can be sixty miiles of williwaws howling in the afternoon.

Instead, we're dealing with rapids. The first set lie at the end of the appropriately named Calm Channel between Sonora and Stuart Islands. These can only be taken at slack waters. Skipper Jack sits down with the tide and current tables and calculates when it's optimal to pass. Yesterday we did three closely grouped sets of rapids. Well before slack we arrived at the Yuculta Rapids and restudied the charts while watching the southbound boats speed past on the flood.

There was also some significant drift and we followed that as well, to learn the currents. We saw one particularly large log with a bald eagle perched on it. The log was spinning around just like a merry go round and the bird was clearly enjoying it. How fine to see a bird playing! I thought back to an afternoon in Yemen when we'd watched a group of crows play tag with a plastic bag, snatching it from one another's beaks in wild mid-flight. Then suddenly the eagle took flight toward our boat; instinct had kicked in and it was in hot pursuit of a plover a tenth its size. The would be prey executed a series of heart stopping ariel manoeuvres and avoided the jaws of death.

Jack calculated the time to enter the rapids perfectly. A slow boat like our needs to start in the Yuculta Rapids 45 minutes before the slack and fight the current of the flood. Aurora was up to it but the size of the drift logs and the masses of entwined ell grass kept us on our toes. We arrived at Gillard Passage ten minutes before the tide turned and were though them just as the northbound ebb started and took us rapidly past the Dent Islands and the notorious Devil's Hole between them.

The day was waning and it was raining quite hard by now, but it was fine as we were through what some consider the most difficult part of the entire trip to Alaska. Soon we found ourselves at the most extraordinary intersection of Cordero Channel, with Frederick Arm to the north and Nodales Channel to the south. It's a vast expanse but the waters were calm and the light was perfect for spotting orcas. It was high tide and there was no shoreline - tree covered slopes fell right into the sea.

We've Run the Rapids!

We finished off the rapids to the Broughtons on August 3. Here's how we did it. Jack spent a good part of the day before studying tide tables, poring over a new set of 1:20,000 charts, and packing them carefully in the zipable Hefty Bags recommended by his friend the Armchair Sailor.

At 5:30 am the day of departure I was sitting in the aft cabin berth with my coffee and the four charts laid out on the feather comforter. Jack gave an overview of the plan and, with my mind morning-fresh, I came to terms with it and saw it should work.

We shoved off at 9 am so we could cover the distance up Cordero Channel and arrive at the Green Point Rapids exactly at low water slack, just as the ebb out turned to the flow in. We rounded Green Point along with a fishing schooner. A piece of cake. Best of all we missed sharing the rapids with a huge log boom pilled by a powerful tug with a smaller tug bringing up the rear.

Our next challenge was Whirlpool Rapids, which we would take on the next slack, the high water slack. It was a spectacularly sunny day so rather than sailing aimlessly around Jack suggested anchoring for lunch in the sun followed by a long nap. We could see the clouds against the high mountains of Vancouver Island that border Johnstone Straight (see photo) but we were in good weather.
In Charlie's Charts. cruising author Margo Wood recommends dropping anchor in a small bay off Chancellor Channel just before it meets Wellbore Channel. Alas, we poked around the shores but with the exception of tiny bay with a crab pot smack in the middle, all the bottoms we over 100 feet. We'll have to complain to Margo if we see her at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival in September.

So we headed up Wellbore Channel, where the flood was already underway and backeddies made our progress difficult. But just before the rapids was a calm crescent beach with a sialboat already moored. We dropped anchor and had a leisurely lunch in the hot sun followed by naps. I took mine on deck under a sun hat with my fleece neck gaiter - yes, we still don snow pants and fleece dickies - protecting my lower lip from sunburn. Delicious.

We took the Whirlpool Rapids at dead slack as well, though it was a flood slack. Nothing to report except a lone fisherman in an open boat perhaps 15 feet long. We waved, reminded of our friend Don Wisham who died this past year doing what he love most - fishing. Evidently he stepped into a hole while fly fishing in wadders off the banks of Oregon's Deschutes River.

Just beyond this final set of rapids is an inlet called Forward Harbor where we'd considered dropping the hook. But there wasn't wasn't a cloud in the sky and we were completely refreshed with naps so we headed on into Sunderland Channel, expecting to make Port Neville well before nightfall. Again our estimated time of arrival was short. As we entered the infamous Johnstone Strait, the wind hit us full force in the face. We motored laboriously on.

We had a couple of encounters with drift. A log 2 feet in diameter and many feet long spun past on port. I impulsively grabbed my camera to photograph it only to hear the thump of a much smaller long as it hit starboard. Another lesson well learned. Drift follows drift. From then on I squinted into the blinding sun looking for the stuff.

The only other boat underway we saw all afternoon was a small speedy vessel that bounced up and down along the south shore. We passed a single safehaven just large enough for one boat: and it was already taken.

When we finally reached Port Neville - a long finger of a bay - the sun was setting orange, making the long bunches of eel grass easy to see. There being no place at the public wharf, we anchored out.