| Wind and/or swell against
the tide: |
| When wind waves or swell are
opposed by a tidal current the period of the waves is shortened and
their height increases. This makes for short, steep and sometimes
breaking seas that can rise very quickly from a benign chop or swell as
the tide changes. |
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| Some particularly bad places
for sea against tide are Johnstone Strait, the NW / SE channels between
the islands in Queen Charlotte Strait, Scott Passage and Nahwitti Bar at
the north end of Vancouver Island, off the mouths of Smith and Rivers
Inlet, the mouth of the Skeena River, Dixon Entrance at the mouth of
Portland Inlet and close off of Cape Caution. In Alaska, Clarence
Strait, Taku Inlet and Snow Pass are hazardous in certain conditions.. |
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| The solution to transiting
these areas is to be there when conditions are right. For example: The
50 mile crossing of Queen Charlotte Strait from Port Hardy to
Calvert Island, in summer northwesterly conditions, should generally be
made in the early morning and while the tide is flooding to avoid
running into ebb currents from Smith and Rivers inlet meeting the
westerly swell. The common mistake people make on this crossing is to
leave Port Hardy on a big ebb tide figuring to take advantage of the
following current on the way north. They then arrive at Egg Island in
worse case sea against tide conditions with the westerly swell piling up
on a huge ebb current out of Smith Inlet and scare the crap out of
everybody on board. |
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| Considerations of what the
tide will be doing on the days that you will likely be making a given
crossing should play a part in your overall trip plan. Departing one
week earlier or later than a best plan date can make for a trip where
sea, time and tide combinations are against you for the entire trip. |
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| Afternoon Northwesterly
Wind: |
| During typical summer
conditions on the north coast of an established high pressure center
offshore and a thermal low or trough over the interior of BC,
winds usually go down near sunset and remain light through the night. As
the morning progresses, thermal convection in the interior draws in cool
air from offshore causing onshore winds to develop in the late morning,
often rising to strong to gale force northwesterly in the afternoon. In
these conditions we like to move at first light and arrive at our day's
final destination before noon. |
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| Tidal Rapids: |
| Tidal rapids come in various
shapes and sizes. Some we will run at almost any stage of the
tide, others... well lets just say that some of the others you don't
want to be there except during one of four 15 minute windows per day. At
the Yaculta/Dent, Okisollo, Skookumchuck, Seymour Narrows, Dodd Narrows,
and perhaps the granddaddy of them all the Nakwakto Rapids we get there
for the turn. We have bucked through the Yacultas an hour late and
the Nakwaktos about 40 minutes after the turn but it was no fun. (Actually
it was fun but not enough fun that I'd want do it again tomorrow.)
One might think that if the current is
going your way you can 'just shoot right through'. This is often true in
some of the lesser rapids, but .... We where heading out of
Slingsby Channel one morning against a smallish/medium size flood,
planning to buck out through the Outer Narrows and get around Cape
Caution while the tide was still flooding, but as we approached the
narrows, there in the entrance was a rotating, boiling hole of spinning,
pitchpoling logs, stumps, tree branches and assorted other drift
blocking the entire channel. On that day, anybody heading inbound
who 'shot right through' the Outer Narrows of Slingsby Channel
would have been dumped right into the middle of that mess.
The skipper of the logging tug Vulture
tells a story of one night when he decided to 'shoot right though' the
same Outer Narrows. He was traveling at cruising speed outbound on
a big ebb tide and as he entered the rapids in the dark his GPS
indicated he was doing 16 knots (double Vultures hull speed). Scanning
the cliffs of the entrance channel and the water ahead with the
spotlight he says the last thing he saw was what appeared to be a black
wall ahead. Shortly thereafter all hell broke loose as Vulture climbed
and leaped airborne off of the top of a series of four huge standing
waves at 16 knots. He says he should have known better having on other
occasions seen the westerly swell pile up into steep 30 footers just
outside of the narrows.
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| Debris and Drift: |
| There is one given: If
you wander around on the North Coast long enough you will run into
something big that floats. What happens, when that happens,
depends on what you are driving.
Most single screw, eight knot displacement boats will shrug-off
collisions with floating objects other than a massive deadhead whereas a
planing, twin screw speedboat can loose its propellers and rudders to a
small, floating pecker-pole. |
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|
| Fog: |
| We run into a lot of people
who are terrified of traveling in fog. We actually had one yachter
fellow come over to the boat one morning as we prepared to leave the
dock at Prince Rupert bound for Ketchikan in a real pea-souper and
admonish us for being so careless as to set out when we couldn't see
where we were going. I explained to him that between the chart, the
sounder, the RADAR and the GPS tied to the chart plotter we had a pretty
good idea of where we are, where we are going and what is around us.
I kind of like traveling in fog. If there
is fog around it generally means that winds are light and that a lot of
traffic that would otherwise be out there zooming around is tied to the
dock busily admonishing others for heading out into the fog.
We have, on occasion, traveled an entire
day in the fog, never sighting any landmark from departure to arrival.
Yes, it does require constant vigilance on the RADAR for collision
avoidance but with the tools available to any traveler on the north
coast, navigating in fog should not be a concern.
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| Marine Traffic: |
| General rule: If its
significantly bigger than you, then you get the hell out of the
way. Worst thing you can do up here: Drive between a tug and it's barge,
hit the towline and disable yourself, then get run over by the barge. |
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| Summer Storms: |
| Occasionally,
during the summer, a small, intense, low pressure system will form
close-off of the west coast. Meteorologists refer to them as summer
"Bombs" due to their intensity and quick development. These
summer gales lack the widespread power of winter storms but they can be
dangerous to small craft. A half dozen times now we have ridden out 50
knot blows at anchor in the middle of summer. The good news is that they
are usually well forecast, giving one time to select a suitable place to
hide-out. |
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| Gillnetters: |
| Traveling in an active
gillnet fishery area can be a trial. Gillnetters have nets up to 2000
feet long trailing behind them. Avoiding them generally isn't a problem
when they are thinly spaced but trying to make your way through a pack
of them can be difficult. The outer ends of the nets are marked with a
large red buoy but the problem lies in identifying which buoy belongs to
which boat.
This is the one exception to my lack of
concern about fog. Traveling in an active gillnet area in the fog
is a problem. The tail end floats do not show up well on RADAR and even
if they did you would not know which target they belonged to. The
only option out in the middle of a bunch of gillnetters in the fog is to
slow right down and post an alert lookout for net corklines in your
path.
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