Fog Bob….Again

Sunday, July 23rd, 2023

As you might recall from a previous posting, fog is NOT our favorite weather condition. We always remember Marlene’s mother yelling out “Fog Bob” if there was a hint of fog. Bless her heart but she really did a number on her daughter—my wife—Marlene as well. Hold that thought.

I set the alarm last night for 6:00 am for an intended departure from Allison Harbor at 6:30 for our 4.5 hour cruise to Port McNeil. I woke early, looked out the back of our boat and saw that we were surrounded by thick fog and lots of it. You could literally cut it with a knife, and at that point I could not even make out the surrounding tree line in the very small bay. I turned off the alarm and went back to bed. At roughly 7:00 am Marlene woke up and checked the time.

“Greg, Oh My God, we overslept.”

“Marlene, take a look out side.”

I think I heard her mumble under her breath, “Fog Bob,” but then again I may have been hearing things.

“What are we going to do?”

“We are going to wait until the fog lifts and then just leave later.”

Return to the back story. Marlene hates fog like her mother but, interestingly enough, there is another strong motivation factor—her desire to get home and stay on “schedule” for our reservations in Pt. McNeil and Blind Channel. These places get really busy this time of year, and we don’t like being caught out with no place to stay for the night.

“I don’t think the fog is that bad Greg. I think we just need to go. Besides, it’s probably just foggy here in Allison Harbor. As soon as we get out to the Straits it should be fine.”

I wanted to wait. but I agreed to go. We carefully, and very slowly, worked our way out of the harbor paying close attention to the GPS charts. Once out of the harbor, guess what? Fog, lots of fog,, just as thick as inside the harbor. And so we were off on our cruise in the fog. Without a GPS navigational system this kind of cruise would have been impossible for us, however Navionics changed so much in the boating world, and all for the good. With our course plotted and clearly demarcated we were able to proceed as Navionics tracked our every move. Additionally, AIS (Automatic identification system) for boats also greatly adds to the safety of this type of cruise. Any boat with this system on it will show up clearly on the screen, and ALL large boats (Cruise ships, Freighters, Tugs etc.) have this installed so we can track their movement by AIS and by radar to make sure we are not in their path.

For those of you who have never cruised in dense fog it has a kind of hypnotic effect. You really cannot see anything, in any direction. It’s disorienting, but also kinda soothing. I was just waiting for the pirate ship to come raging out of the fog with Jack Sparrow at the bow of the boat, “Arghhhh, mates.” But I digress.

We continued to travel in dense fog for the better part of two hours and then it broke free and the visibility was excellent. The seas were like glass the whole cruise so we couldn’t complain. We arrived in Port McNeil about 12:30. This was our first opportunity to veg up, and fruit up since Prince Rupert. As we wrote earlier, there is absolutely nothing in ShearWater: no food, no water, and a questionable restaurant. We moored and then headed to the store to provision. We are off on a long eight and a half hour cruise to Blind Channel tomorrow via the dreaded Johnstone Strait. We shall see how it treats us this time around.