Today we had to transit Seymour Narrows.
For any of you who follow my blog you may remember that we came through these narrows on our southbound trip last year.
I had included some info from Wikipedia about slack water, and also a link to a short video about the narrows. I'll skip the slack water lesson this year, but here's the link to the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=getmLam9H80
It runs about 8 minutes and covers the project back in the 1950's when they blew up Ripple Rock, right in the middle of the narrows.
The short form of the story is that the current really rips through Seymour Narrows, sometimes up to 14 knots. Lives have been lost and many vessels lost in these narrows.
In order to transit safely one must go through at slack water, the time when the current flow is momentarily changing its direction and is at its slowest rate.
Here is the map snippet showing the short 7.5 nm run from Campbell River to the southern entrance to the narrows.
 |
| Campbell River to Seymour Narrows |
Slack tide today was about 9:30 AM.
I figured it would take about an hour to cover the 7.5 nm to the southern entrance to the narrows, so we pulled out about 8 AM.
We covered the distance a little faster than I expected due to favorable current.
When we got there a couple of other boats that had left Campbell River about the same time as we did were already starting to go through, so we just went through with them. The current wasn't totally slack but it was running in our favor, i.e. the same direction that we were running, and it was only moving at a couple of knots, so we went through a little early with no problems.
Here is a map snippet of the narrows.
Doesn't look that dangerous, does it?
 |
| Seymour Narrows |
Once we got safely through the narrows our destination was Blind Channel Resort. We had stopped there for one night last year and really enjoyed it, so we wanted to spend at least a couple of days there this year.
Here are two map snippets that show the southern portion of the route and then the northern portion of the route, to Blind Channel Resort.
 |
| Southern portion |
 |
| Northern portion |
We pulled into the resort at about 12:30 PM.
We got a little bit of fuel before pulling into our slip.
Their docks were almost empty.
Only one other boat was there, a boat that had gone through the narrows at the same time we did.
We had covered 338 nm to this point, just a little less than halfway.
Last summer on our southbound trip it was quite crowded when we stopped here.
It was very strange to see it so empty.
Once again, pretty lonely on the floats.
We got to know the couple from the other boat.
They came through Seymour Narrows with us, and were initially also headed to Ketchikan,
We ended up staying here 3 nights, mostly due to weather conditions in Johnstone Strait.
It wasn't planned that way, but each night when we checked the weather for the next day it just seemed more pleasant to stay at the marina another night rather than fight 30 knot winds and associated seas in the strait.
We did rock quite a bit while tied to the dock in the afternoons, and into the early evening.
Lisa said it didn't bother her, so I was good with it as well.
I think it was more from the current boiling up on that point and not so much from the winds rolling through Johnstone Strait.
Here is a link to their official website.
Blind Channel Resort
Here are some photos we took during our stay here.
This is the main facility of the resort, which houses a restaurant, some offices, and a small store and post office.
The compound has numerous other buildings (sorry, did not get pictures.)
The above structure is sort of an open air patio.
It has a big barbecue pit and many lounge chairs.
It is a nice place to hang out in the evenings (if you can stand the bugs).
You can see the stairs down to the beach.
The above 3 shots are just a few of the numerous examples of art work done by one of the resorts original owners (now deceased I believe).
They are very creative, using all or mostly locally collected shells, drift wood, and other materials.
One of the things we wanted to do differently on this trip as compared to last year's trip was to do more hiking. Blind Channel Resort offered access to a series of intertwined trails and we took full advantage of that, hiking them several times.
The above shots show the diagram of the trail system, and also a small portion of the sign warning us about "bears, wolves, and cougars" to be watchful for while using the trails. Since Canadian Customs does not allow US citizens to bring hand guns into Canada I had left all firearms at home. So all we had for protection was Bina to guard us.
She must have scared them away because we never saw any.
The name of one of the trails was "Big Cedar."
It didn't take long to figure why it was so named.
I've seen some big cedars in my many years of hunting, fishing, and wandering around SE Alaska, but I've never seen any this size!
The second afternoon that we were there, the dock staff started to perk up as if something important was about to happen. We watched while 8 boats of various sizes came in and were assisted into their slips.
We found out later that this was the 2016 Waggoner Flotilla.
For those that do not already know, each year a cruising guide called the Waggoner Cruising Guide is published. It provides much helpful information about the resorts and marinas and anchorages on the Seattle to Ketchikan cruising route.
They also sponsor a guided flotilla.
For a fee, boats sign up to travel as a group from Seattle to Ketchikan.
This year there were 8 boats.
The people from Waggoner plan the route, arrange for marina and fuel stops, assist with mechanical issues or getting parts flown in, provide weather briefings, as well as helping in many other ways.
For those that may want to make this voyage but are a little leery of doing it alone, this is a great alternative.
Just by chance we ended up in the same place as the Waggoner Flotilla for several stops.
I even got to know some of them a little bit, which was a good thing.
I apologize that I did not take any photos of the somewhat crowded docks after they arrived at the marina.
No comments:
Post a Comment