Arctic Solo Sail

A gray morning greets us.  We time our departure on low tide just incase we the channel is a little too skinny.  If we are going to get stuck it best be on a rising tide.  Tim proves yet again his versatility as a shipmate guiding Avanti through the twist and turns to deep water with hand signals from the bowsprit.

Deep water and north we go.  The goal for the day.  Joe’s Bay.  By noon, the gray gives way to sunshine but no wind.  Tim fishes past Safety Cove on Calvert Island then we cross Fitz Hugh Sound  and thread our way to Joe’s Bay.  I wonder about Joe and how he happened to this spot of earth.  He must have come by water, the forest being so thick.  Was it the floating foam from the waterfalls where Lake Elizabeth spills into the salt chuck?  Was he hunting for safe anchorage from a storm?  Or was he just like me wanting to be someplace so pristine, so empty of mankind, as to make him feel the first ever to this place?  The only hint we find we’re not the first… a wooden sign on a tree on the south shore proclaiming this place for evermore to “JOE’S BAY”.

We anchor for the night.

The wind was still strong down the Strait in the breaking dawn. Our early start on the slack tide helped make the turn Chatham Point. The oncoming gust made the ride just as lively, but the light of day changes everything. Tim took first watch and kept close to shore to lessen the drag of the head wind. We persevered onward trusting the topography around the strait to afford us protection from the lumpy waters.

There are places on the Johnstone Strait where the current is squeezed between peninsulas jutting out from the Canadian Mainland and others where the water is stuffed among islands only to fall out the other side in its unrelenting pursuit of the moon and sun. The earth turns and the sea rushes to and fro in answer to the invisible lover’s call we know as gravity. It is on this slosh AVANTI rides westward, now faster with the ebb then slower with the flood.

Forward is what we want. The surface of the water is but the bottom of the sky. It is here we move at the grace of the nature world. Even the air is subject to the love of gravity and falls down the slopping mountains in williwaws to either help us or halt us in our progress forward.

Keep the water out and the boat will float, let the water in, the boat will sink. Oh how grateful I become for the simple laws of gravity keeping the water in its place and sky in its place and me right in between, right where I belong. It is a good thing to know where I belong.

Up the anchor and underway for the Hole In The Wall. Timing is everything and my timing was off by an hour. At least the error was on the right side and only required waiting an additional hour for the slackening water to allow us through. A valuable lesson was learned early. The current tables of on the Inside Passage were not to be ignored. To cruise these latitudes in a small vessel demands an attunement with nature land travel never requires.

Having passed between Quadra and Sanora Islands, AVANTI joined the north flowing current of Johnstone Strait. We set our watches for a nights steaming hoping to ride the outward bound current as far as possible. There is current, then there is wind and when wind and current run strong in opposite directions water goes mad. Rounding Chatham Point we ran right into the teeth of a 40+ wind that stacked the tiderip onto itself in rolling waves with very short steep faces that tossed AVANTI like so much flotsam. From down below came the crashes and bangs of things being flung from what we thought to be very secure stowage for these seemingly protected waters. The sky was darkening early in the shadows of cloud and mountain and all fun had been washed overboard with the first three waves.

After thirty minutes of traveling up and down farther than we had traveled forward, I told Tim to brace himself, we were turning around. I watched for a lull which never came, then put the rudder hard over. We made the turn taking only one sea on the beam and then quickly gave up all our hard won progress. Acceptance is the only appropriate emotion with which to meet the sea.

We met two fishing boats coming north in what could only be interpreted as a race. As they closed in on the turn at Chatham Point , the large took the inside between the light and the rocks, (a mighty skinny channel I must add). Tim and I watched expecting a crash of hull against rock that never came. Local knowledge won the race. There are many captains willing to do things I’d never do.

I use every available source of information when on the water. I listen to weather reports and radio traffic. I watch the radar and scan the horizon. I check the plotter every thirty seconds. I read and reread the Coast Pilots and the cruising guides. Then I take that knowledge and blend it together to come to a course of action tempered with good seamanship. My mantra is this “situational awareness, keep your situational awareness”. Around the corner from Chatham Point Light is Otter Cove. We anchored and listened to the wind howling ashore. The Johnstone strait would be best taken in the light of day.

The passage of mankind over the water leaves its mark as surely as it does on the land. Trash thoughtlessly discarded, bilges slops, plastics, cigarette butt; it’s all there. The oceans vastness can handle only so much before it pukes it back on the land. But, if one is careful though, and travels slowly in a small vessel, the impact can be so small as to take but a moment to erase the foot print on the water.

By motor sailing, that is running engine at just above an idle, a little extra lift is added to the light airs across the sails, AVANTI makes a scant 4 knots in a motor sail toward Desolation Sound. A beautiful cool night passed uneventfully. The bow cut the water, the stern stitched it closed again. The sound of the tea kettle whistling pulled away the deep sleep. The steady upright keel confirmed there was no wind, but then none was expected. It was morning and time for my watch.

I had given the watch to Tim at midnight with Texada Island to port and a track line on the GPS. Six hours later, I relieved him with Cortes Island to port. It had been a good run even though the currents dragged down the speed over the ground. My watch would see slack water, then a turn to north. The days goal was to reach Hole In The Wall, anchor and wait for the slack water that would allow us through the tight squeeze into northern Vancouver Island waters. I chose this route for its sheer beauty and remoteness. Seymour Narrows had more traffic and less interesting terrain. We would save that passage for another day.

AVANTI’s tender most times is my wonderful and old Easy Rider Beluga kayak. It looks a little odd hanging from the davits a full 5 feet wider than the boat but what function. I believe the kayak to be far superior to the dinghy as a ship’s boat. I’ve been in seas in it that would have swamped an open boat and felt completely safe.

We anchored AVANTI near shore to wait the turn of the tide. Tim went fishing and came back with a lingcod and a rockfish. Supper!