A Successful “second crossing” of Cape Caution

Saturday, July 22, 2023

I am pleased to report that we crossed Cape Caution, this time heading south, and survived. For years I have been hearing and reading about this crossing. The harrowing stories of triumph and tragedy abound.

Cape Caution is a headland along the central coast of the Canadian Province of British Columbia. It is the point where Queen Charlotte Strait meets Queen Charlotte Sound. It is actually one of the two places along the “Inside Passage” were you are not “inside”. You are navigating in open seas. Cape Caution was named by British maritime explorer  George Vancouver in May 1793 for the turbulent waters and rocky coastline found in this area. Vancouver nearly lost his ship, HMS Discovery, the previous year on a rock about 24 kilometres southeast of the headland.

I set my alarm for 4:00 am this morning, yes, you read that right, 4:00 am. I knew we only had a scant four hour window to pass through Cape Caution before the wind and waves dramatically increased in the afternoon. It’s like the phrase from The Game of Thrones, “Winter is Coming.” In this case “weather is coming” and you want to get ahead of it. I was determined to outrun the predicted wind and weather event, but we had to wait until 5:30AM to pull up the anchor. Marlene insisted that “My half of the boat is not leafy Fury Cove until we have enough light to see where we are going”. Her half of the boat won.

This “bad boy” seen above was looming in the distance just as we finished rounding the Cape and we were on our final leg of our journey into Queen Charlotte Strait. Fortunately we made it into the anchorage quickly before we felt any of it effects on the wind and sea conditions.

As I have written before, we use two primary weather apps, BuoyWeather and Predict Wind. Both are excellent. We are increasingly great fans of BuoyWeather for its enhanced graphics and detail all on one screen, giving us wind and direction, waves height and interval time, and other associated weather information. For the two big crossings: Cape Caution and Dixon, we also use a professional meteorologist, Chris Parker. Here is his forecast for today:

FORECAST:
Sat22 morning, from 5amPDT-8amPDT, from FuryCove, PenroseIsland(51-29N/127-46W) to CapeCaution: variable wind mostly E-SE under 10k, building to SSE-S up to 13k, wind-chop 1′, building to 2′. STRATEGY: wind/seas building on-the-nose until around Cape Caution, then wind/seas shifting to your Starboard forward quarter. Wind/seas will be lowest if you pass close to Cape Caution (stronger wind/seas the farther W you lie).

Sat22 late morning, from 8am-10amPDT, from CapeCaution to AllisonHarbor, EastCove (QueenCharlotteSound)(51-02N/127-31W): SSE-S up to 13k settling to S under 10k as you move toward Allison Harbor, wind-chop 2′ settling to 1′. STRATEGY: wind/seas on-the-nose until around Cape Caution, then wind/seas shifting to your Starboard forward quarter, while moderating.

If you are delayed getting into Allison Cove, conditions remain mild SE of CapeCaution all day – the problem is in areas near and W of CapeCaution, where wind/seas build to S@15g19, wind-chop to at least 3′ after about 8am or 9amPDT. Suggest you depart as early as possible Sat22 morning, and get around Cape Caution as quickly as possible, then you can relax rest of trip.

SWELL in areas exposed to the W: 2’/6secWSW-W.

FOG: Patchy fog at 5am, gradually dissipating, with 3-5mi visibility from 8am onward.

Translation: We encountered choppy seas with about 1 1/2 to 2 feet waves with four second intervals. Ideally you want at least 8 seconds. The shorter the interval the choppier the ride. In our case because the wave height was somewhat reasonable the cruise was not too challenging. Add in a few more feet—which was predicated for this afternoon and, well, it would not have been a pretty picture.

We arrived in Allison Harbor at 10:00 am. The only item worth noting was near our approach we crossed by Slingsby Channel, the northern channel for entering or exiting Seymour Inlet which faces directly into Queen Charlotte Strait and is notorious for rough seas when a strong spring ebb tide opposes westerly wind and swells. Dangerous sea swells can literally leap up to dangerous levels, tossing a boat like a top for sailers who dare to get near the ebb rushing out. Well….good news, we were two hours off of max ebb (no I did not check this, and no I did not realize we were crossing by Slingsby Channel, but thank God Marlene did). When we passed by we went from a comfortable 8.5 knots, immediately down to 4 knots where we begin getting turned about. We powered on. It only lasted for about 10 minutes but I will never, ever, not check the entrance to Slingsby Channel

The rest of the journey was uneventful, a bit of a down the rabbit hole to get into the harbor, but all’s well that ends well. We are here with one other boat, a sailboat that was with us in Fury Cove and arrived just after two pm. He immediately dropped anchor and probably did what we did: eat, shower, then take a nap. (Well for a sailboat, maybe no shower). Tomorrow: Port McNeil.