The further North we travel, the less connectivity to cellular service and WiFi equates to more card games, yacht zee, and book reading. As Tessa started Dark Safari by Paul Theroux, the quote in the title of this post rang true to cruising the Inside Passage.
Hoping for the picturesque, expecting misery, braced for the appalling.
There are three unavoidable bodies of water to reach the Northern BC Coast. The first being the Strait of Georgia, which we have had our a** handed to us many times. This time: we could have waterskied.
We spent two days at Cortes Island, and were sad to hear that the Squirrel Cove Restaurant is no longer. We were hoping to celebrate our anniversary here, but would have to wait until Blind Channel Resort which has a fabulous German restaurant.
The second unavoidable body of water is Johnstone Strait and the set of rapids that precedes it. These rapids intimidate most boaters, but if you go through at slack, you’d only slightly pick up signals that these small bodies of water can be vicious. Johnstone is notorious for NWterlies pummeling down the mountain lined channel, picking up gusto as they move through the strait. This time: we again could have waterskied. Bonus: We caught the end of a Spring Ebb and had a three knot push most of the way.
We tried our luck fishing Blackfish Sound, and it didn’t look optimistic. We spent two nights in Port McNeill re-provisioning, and enjoying another good meal at the Northern Lights restaurant. The rain showers came, unloaded, and went. Timing your outdoor activities was key.
Cape Caution is the third and final hurdle (unless you are continuing North to Alaska, you have Dixon Entrance). The rule of thumb is to monitor West Sea Otter buoy reports, and pay attention to the wind forecast for Pine Island to Egg Island with the candy conditions 1m or less ocean swell.
All reports looked good for a morning crossing around Cape Caution. The sea was glass, patchy fog, lots of debris in the water as we transited Queen Charlotte Strait.
On a Spring ebb tide, it is not advised to transit Ripple Passage and the entrance of Slingsby Channel. Slingsby is one of the largest bodies of water that transits a narrow passage: Nawakto Rapids. We concur with this advice, as we transited Ripple Passage and Slingsby Channel at the peak ebb of a Spring tide. We surfed significant swells for quite some time, just on the edge of uncomfortable but no green water.
Once past Slingsby and rounding Cape Caution, the low westerly swells reminded us of cruising in the Bahamas. They were definitely not 1m/3ft as forecasted. More like 2+. But stabilizers made it easy peasy. We were back in the swing of ocean cruising.
Hoping for the picturesque, expecting misery, braced for the appalling.
And picturesque we got in spades at Frypan Bay. We were the only one in this popular anchorage, with sunshine and a light wind. We felt like we had just hit the jackpot.