Thursday June 8th, 2023
We left Blind Channel soon after daylight. We were on our way through Johnstone Strait by 5:30 am for an 8 and a half hour cruise to Port McNeill. Johnstone is a beautiful but sometimes “very challenging” body of water. The strait stretches 54 miles along the northeast side of Vancouver Island to Blinkhorn Peninsula. Predict Wind was showing a moderate cruise of 3 to 4 knots with about a half a foot of chop. However (there is always a “however” is boating weather) the only weather buoy in Johnstone Strait, Fanny Island was showing real-time wind of 16 knots at 5:00, increasing to 18 knots when we checked it again at 6:00 am. We were three hours out to this point of the straight. Both Marlene and I gave each other that, “pray that we didn’t get it wrong” look. For the new to boating lingo, this translates as “it will be cruising like you are in a washing machine. It ain’t fun.” Butts clinched, we cruised on.
Two and a half hours into the cruise the wind started to pick up and the waves increased. It was definitely not 3 knots, more like 12 to 14 with a good foot of chop. (Clinch, clinch!!). This lasted for about two hours and then—Thank God—it.mellowed out and the remaining portion of our cruise was mild and uneventful—except for the logs. Enter in Log Dodging. The log booms combined with the turbulent, changing tides, creates a fetch of numerous sizes and shapes of logs. Some are small, maybe a foot or two (not big issue), some are better than 20 feet (big issue). Bottom line: it’s tedious cruising. You cannot take your eye off the helm which reminds me of a conversation I had with our good friends Craig and Catherine Leitch several years ago over scotch. Craig is a Scott. We were telling tales of boating, kinda like this and in mid stream of a great boating hazard story that I was telling, Craig stopped me. “So Greg, please tell me when boating gets fun.” Fair enough:)
We made it into Port McNeil passing by a small cruise ship that was transporting passengers to Alert Bay, which is a not to miss. This is a heritage site to the First Nations People with a wonderful museum and an impressive Totem Remberance Site. Anyway, here is the small boat visiting the island.
We proceeded into Port McNeill and hailed the marina attendant. He gave us our slip assignment and we prepared to enter the harbor. But wait, our good friends from last night at Blind Channel, another small boat, were behind us coming in fast. We backed off and let them dock first. Here is that small boat.
After they were secured we came into our slip and tied up. It was approximately 1:30 in the afternoon. “Marlene, pour me a scotch.”
“No honey. I can’t do that. We have rules.”
“Like What?”
“It has to be past 5:00 pm.”
At this point in the blog you are asking yourself. Does it get better. Well you are in luck. It definitely does. (Think stories to Craig Leitch). Our next gateway is Cape Caution. We will be trying to cross in the next couple of days, maybe even tomorrow. Now in advance of this I have been throwing our “lifelines” to all my boating friends. One such friend is Dave Vacanti, a decorated, patented engineer, with a whip smart nautical mind. I told him about my plans. Here is his response.
“Greg, I’m no expert on big water up north. I’m looking at the height between 5 and noon Friday. By noon waves are predicted between 2.5 and 3 feet. Problem is that it’s not any better till Monday and some predictions are for 5 foot waves on Saturday and 8,5 on Tuesday!!! I’d look carefully at the waves as well as wind coming in from well offshore…”
Now for the happy ending. My fellow tugger friend, Bob and his friend Bud arrive in Port McNeill tomorrow. Our plan is to challenge Cape Caution together. Bob’s friend is his first leg crew member. Bob refer’s to his crew as “victims.”
Stay tuned for more adventure.
