Sunday 24 July 2022
Around Cape Caution: Anchored in Port Alexander
Thursday 14 July 2022
Last days in Haida Gwaii, then a fast "day" sail across Hecate Strait
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| Kayaking in Anna Inlet (the williwaws are coming!) |
After Rose Harbour, we has a sunny, calm motor up to the mooring buoy at Section Cove, where we had nice walk on the beach and a quiet night. We then headed north to the water dock at Shuttle Island/Hoya. A busy place, two boats filled up just before we arrived. Thankfully, the water was plentiful (although a little brown with tannins: we chemically treat the water, and for drinking water, we first filter it with a ceramic&charcoal filter that removes sediment, tannins, bacteria and, importantly, any parasites such as giardia and cryptospiridium).
We moved on a couple miles to Echo Harbour for a nice night. Southerly gales were forecast, so we "thought" our old favourite Anna Inlet would be a great spot. Anna Inlet IS a great spot, but this 4th visit we learned it gets big williwaws when there are southern gales outside. All was calm and quiet (and rainy), when suddenly we were hit with a 31-kn williwaw, and later a 33-kn williwaw. This continued for about 6 hours. We dragged anchor and had to letout a lot more rode. All very unpleasant.
[Turns out, the best place to avoid williwaws on Moresby's east coast is the water dock.]
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| Our anchor watch in Anna Inlet -- shows we moved all over the place during williwaws |
After 3 nights in Anna, we motored south back down to Ramsay Island cove (with another stop to fill up water on the way). The plan was to leave the next morning to sail/motor across Hecate Strait, to an anchorage 72 miles away. So hopefully trip fully within daylight hours. But first, we had a visit from a charter boat skipper on the mooring buoy next to us came over to barter: if we had some extra beers, he had some prawns and ling cod. We just happened to have 4 beers we were not fond of, plus some ginger ale for their non-drinking guest. In return, we received a large piece of ling cod and perhaps a dozen prawns.
Next morning, we were up at 430 am, and motored away in the twilight. Based on the forecast, we expected we would be motoring. As it turned out, we had a fast sail in 12-15 knot SW winds that gave us a beam reach all the way across Hecate. The last few hours the winds picked up to 19-21 knots, so it became a little rambunctious, and seas also picked up. Coming into Caamano Sound, we had to reduce sail and the seas were quite rough. Our chosen anchorage, Gillen Harbour, was supposed to be good in all weather, but its entrance fully open to the south and it looked too rough. We decided to keep sailing, all the way to Chapple Inlet, where we headed up to our earlier spot at the head of the inlet, finishing about 6:30pm. We travelled 93 nm that day, and sailed 68 nm of them (record long "day trip" stats for us), averaging 6.5 knots sailing.
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| Hecate crossing in daylight: Ramsay Island to Chapple Inlet (93 nm) |
Exhausted, we celebrated our crossing. But then we had southeast gales forecast starting the next night....
The west coast of Moresby Island -- stunning, with great sailing! Part 2
[These longer posts about the West Coast of Moresby were sent using Winlink email on amateur (HAM) radio.]
Sunday Inlet, as we noted, is our pick for "Best Anchorage Ever". Drop-dead beautiful, wilderness (we were totally alone out there) inlet with excellent protection from all seas. And we had sun! Fishing for large black rockfish was too easy -- bringing up one on the line had several other following it to the surface.*
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| Sunday Inlet anchorage |
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| Sunday Inlet anchorage |
*Drop-dead beautiful doesn't mean it is without issues. Besides most being uncharted, most of the inlets on the west coast of Moresby (and, indeed, as we were to find out later, even on Moresby's "easy" east coast) can be subject to severe "williwaws" (downdraft katabatic winds roaring down from surrounding high mountains) during significant southerly winds.
And almost no rain.
So, we were VERY lucky on our west coast Moresby trip!
We only stayed 2 nights in Sunday Inlet. The wind forecast was for the northwesterly winds to significantly decrease, which would make sailing dead downwind difficult, especially in the ocean swells. We did not want to motor down the coast. So we left after 2 nights.
Our next sail was a fantastic downwind sail all the way down to Flamingo Inlet, with 39 of 45 nm sailed (all of the motoring was getting out and in the inlets). It was a long day of somewhat slow but easy sailing, but punctuated at the end by crazyness as we turned up into Flamingo Inlet: we were met with 25 kn winds on the beam with a little too much sail up. Not normally a problem (often one turns downwind or spills wind to get under control), but we had to fight this while sailing between rocks with swells crashing on them. Ten minutes of crazyness, then all was well.
Clip: Sailing down to Flamingo Inlet...
Flamingo is essentially the last inlet on the west coast before one turns up into areas east coast cruisers visit (and which we've visited 3 times previously). So the last unknown, empty anchorage. Our chosen anchorage was Sperm Bay, largely uncharted (and what is charted is incorrect, in a good way) but again, David's high-resolution satellite "chart" showed rocks and shallows. On arriving, to our dismay, there were already 3 other boats anchored! Unheard of on our west coast travels! One was Henry on SV Kelkara, so not a real surprise, and the 2 others were 2 French sailing vessels who we learned the next day (when they left) were hoping to sail UP the west coast.& Because winds were forecast to be light that night, we decided try to anchor away from the others in a less protected but spacious spot. No go. The anchor and chain were rattling and grinding on the bottom -- clearly a rocky bottom and not good. So, we went back to the main anchorage but in an area the (inaccurate) CHS charts indicated was a drying bay (i.e., no water at low tide). But the satellite charts showed a different story. We slowly nosed around and indeed found the whole bay deep enough (even at low tide) for us to anchor. It was tight but we had a snug, protected (though no winds came) spot with a muddy bottom.^
& The 2 French boats likely had a good trip up after a difficult first day, as the winds not only lightened, but then turned southerly.
^ While motoring into and around Sperm Bay, we recorded our depths, to later be corrected and placed on to a new satellite chart.
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| Uncharted Sperm Bay |
We spent a nice 2 nights in Sperm Bay, with just the 2 boats (Pelagia and Kelkara) on the second night. After this, we headed around into the east coast. We did a detour up Louscoone Inlet to the Parks Canada water buoy (a buoy normally with a fresh water hose attached) but found the buoy with no water and in very poor maintenance. Parks Canada should fix it, or at least inform boaters it is not functioning (their 2022 literature indicated it was present). We wasted about 15nm motoring there and back, and because we needed water, we had to add on a longer trip up to east coast to get water at the Parks Canada Shuttle Island/Hoya Passage water dock. (Fortunately. because all the charter boats fill up water at the Shuttle Island dock, it is in good working condition.)
We stopped for a night on the single mooring buoy at Rose Harbour. We called "Old Squaw" (named for the bird) on VHF Channel 6, and were pleased to find there was space for us for dinner at "Susan's". Indeed, Susan herself was cooking as Frances was off on a 10-day break. (Susan has technically "retired", and Frances does the dinners.) We've had dinner at Susan's the previous 3 visits, and this 4th dinner was excellent as always. A real treat for us. [New for these dinners is a new large separate "cook house" finished approximately in 2020 for cooking and dining. Quite lovely.]
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| Dinner in the new "cook house" at Rose Harbour |
Our west coast adventure was finished.% We were much earlier than expected (due mostly to being able to sail almost all of Moresby's west coast), so we had extra time for the east coast. Besides, we had to go 50 nm north to get water....
% We were very lucky with weather on the West coast. We only had northwest winds, nothing too strong (we did wait out a gale for an extra night in Security Cove), and NO southerly winds or williwaws. But as it turned out later, we could not totally escape the williwaws (Anna Inlet...).
Tuesday 12 July 2022
Back on the Mainland: Chapple Inlet
Monday 11 July 2022
Last night in Haida Gwaii
Saturday 9 July 2022
The west coast of Moresby Island -- stunning! Part 1.
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| Sunday Inlet: The most spectacular anchorage ever.... |
We have now completed our trip down the west coast of Moresby Island, and are currently on Moresby's "easy" coast, the east coast (anchored in Anna Inlet).
Our transit through Skidegate East Narrows turned out to be easier and less stressful than expected. Going through the narrows on our dinghy the day before certainly made it easier. Still, we had to pay attention (despite several bear sightings on the channel's shores).
Essentially, we
- (i) went on a rising tide, and
- (ii) waited until the "Skidegate East Narrows" tide level was +3.0 metres (CCG recommended we use the NOAA "Skidegate East Narrows" station).
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| Satellite image of Skidegate East Narrows: Scary! |
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| CHS chart for Skidegate East Narrows (shallowest section dries at +0.3m/+1ft) |
The East Narrows is VERY well marked, so easy to follow. So well marked, we didn't really need to watch the chartplotter (though we did, focusing on the official CHS vector charts).
Entering at a +3m (9.8ft) tide level (rising):
- The shallowest depth we saw was 3.5m (11.5 ft).
- The strongest currents (flood, in our direction of travel) were currents of 2-3.5 knots (we had no issues staying in the channel despite these currents).
Actually, it was Skidegate West Narrows that surprised us (we hadn't checked it out on our dinghy). The West narrows has more depth, less current, and is much shorter than East Narrows. Easy-peazy, right? What surprised us was the large amount of kelp we had to travel through.(It also didn't help that we had 15-20 knots of wind against us when we came out to the West narrows.) Nevertheless, we made it through both sets of narrows without incident (well, except the movie we made of our transit was lost due to a defective SD card).
Video of chartplotter during Skidegate East Narrows transit: YouTube
After the narrows, we headed over to nearby Armentieres Channel to anchor and celebrate. Anchoring was awkward due to a perfectly placed deadhead (waterlogged log, exactly where we wished to drop our anchor) AND the 15-20 knot winds blowing through from Buck Channel. Indeed, after an hour at anchor, we decided to move on. We weighed anchor and headed west out to Dawson Harbour. Winds were gusting 22 knots in Skidegate Channel, making us wonder if we had made a wrong decision. But as moved west, the winds decreased to 12 knots, and in the Dawson Harbour anchorage, there were only light (5 kn) winds. A nice place and a quiet calm eve.
Next day, we headed out for our first foray in the open ocean of Moresby's west coast. At first, though, we had to buck uncomfortable waves to get out of Skidegate and past Chaatl Island. Once out, the winds picked up, as did the seas, and we had a fast downwind sail to the entrance of Engelfield Bay.
Movie clip: sailing towards Engelfield Bay
Seas and wind decreased as we motored up to our anchorage in Security Cove. Security Cove was peaceful. We ended staying there 3 nights because of 1 day with gale warnings on the west coast of Haida Gwaii. No winds were felt in Security Cove.
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| Pelagia anchored in Security Cove |
While in Security Cove, we were joined by Henry, single-handing his 27-foot sailboat "Kelkara" down the west coasts of both Graham and Moresby Islands. We had met Henry in Prince Rupert, and had been in regular contact via our satellite communication systems (us: Zoleo; Henry: InReach). So we knew he was coming, and invited him for dinner. (Our first, and so far only, dinner guest on Pelagia thus far this summer! Very odd for Pelagia.)
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| Pelagia sailing towards Tasu (Henry Lickorish photo) |
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| Kelkara sailing towards Tasu |
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| Pelagia and Kelkara (far left) sailing towards Tasu (Moresby I.) |
After 3 days in Security Cove, both boats headed out to round Denham Shoals. (The shoals are known for turbulent waters, so we stayed 4 miles off of Cape Henry, and had no issues.) Sailing was excellent, all the way to the entrance to Tasu Sound (sailing about 22 nm). (We had been interested in stopping at Kootenay Inlet, but were worried the seas were too big for the tricky, and uncharted, entrance; besides, the sailing was so good we kept going.) The entrance to Tasu was very dramatic; coming from the north, one cannot see the narrow gap between the mountains until one is at the entrance (imagine: large freighters used to enter Tasu for the now-gone mine). Kelkara went to the old Tasu townsite at Hunger Harbour, whereas we went to the better anchorage at Two Mountain Bay. We had a peaceful 2 nights there, allowing us to go kayaking and to be (relatively) close to a bear on the beach in Barrier Bay.
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| Sailing towards Tasu Narrows: Can't see the entrance |
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| Sailing towards Tasu Narrows: Entrance finally visible |
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| Sailing into Tasu Narrows: such a narrow entrance |
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| Bear on Barrier Bay beach (Tasu Sound) |
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| Kayaking back to Pelagia, anchored in Two Mountain Bay (Tasu) |
After 2 nights in Tasu, it was time to head back out again to the open ocean. This time, our goal was the relatively short trip to Sunday Inlet (Kelkara went further, to Barry Inlet). Again, sailing outside was good, but only 6 nm of the total 19 nm. Views of the coast along the way were astounding: such a wild, rugged, mountainous coast!
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| Pelagia sailing below Mt. De la Touche (Henry Lickorish photo) |
Entering Sunday Inlet (which is in Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve) was easy with each minute revealing remarkable views of mountains towering over this beautiful inlet. We've been to many places, but Sunday Inlet easily is the most beautiful place we've been to on Pelagia.
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| Entering Sunday Inlet |
[Officially, Sunday Inlet is also uncharted. But David had made "satellite charts" of Sunday Inlet, with unofficial soundings from CHS (NONNA10). These made it SO much easier to enter and anchor in Sunday Inlet.]
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| Current CHS chart for Sunday Inlet: No info |
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| Sunday Inlet: Satellite "chart" with depth soundings (metres) |
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| Sunday Inlet: Satellite "chart" with depth soundings: zoom in on anchorage |
Part 2 to come....