A technical reporting day

Tuesday May 21st, 2024

We arrived in Lowe inlet yesterday afternoon around 2:30. We have been to this inlet once before. It’s beautiful place to hang a hook but there is a bit of discussion amongst boaters as to “where to drop your hook.” Several of our boating friends choose to anchor in front of the falls, clearly the best view in the Inlet. The issue we have with the falls is that both the Douglas Guide as well as Waggoner report anchoring in front of the falls as having “poor” holding. It’s akin to saying, your hook will “probably” make it through the night. We had our eyes on getting to Prince Rupert today and I just wanted to make sure we had a good holding for a good night’s sleep. The second recommended area is the south shore off of Nettle basin. It’s deep Moorage but we have had excellent results, no anchor movement. We anchored in roughly 80 to 90 feet. With Marlene at the helm I dropped out 200 feet and then snubbed the chain. By doing this we can really pull back on the anchor without fear of over-stressing the windless. Once we knew we were hooked we put out another 100 feet along with the bridle and called it good. The next morning when I pulled up the anchor I could tell it was really stuck, so, once again, I snubbed the chain so that Marlene could pull back hard to break the anchor free. It works like a champ. We were on our way to Prince Rupert.

The next issue we faced as we were working our way up the ditch to Prince Rupert, running with Radar on, was this red (means approaching) blob that was following us. We saw this yesterday as well but didn’t know what it was. I thought it was probably a fishing boat but I wasn’t sure. I decided to consult with our good boating friend Dave who is a radar expert. He has helped me out many times with radar problems. I sent him this photo and this is what he came back to me with:

”Greg it can be your wake or if you are in a very narrow high sided canyon, you are seeing “side lobe Doppler.” The antenna pattern is not a perfect beam facing forward but has little beams that face sideways and even a bit backwards. They don’t cause issues till there are nearby huge reflections from a big ship or the walls of the canyon. When the antenna faces aft the side and back lobes are facing the canyon walls. They see your forward motion as Doppler heading towards you from the current antenna angle. When the canyon widens or the calls are less steep the blob will disappear.” If you are interested in more information on radar issues and solutions I recommend you check out Dave’s website: Vacantisw.com.

Our 8.5 hour cruise through the ditch to Prince Rupert was pretty uneventful and relatively smooth until the last two hours that became lumpy with about 12 knot winds and 1.5 waves. We also had a good challenge docking today with the winds blowing heavy in Cow Bay Marina. Sometimes our fly bridge enclosure acts as a wind sail when we don’t want it to. It ended well but it took work—thrusters were involved:)

We are planning on departing for Ketchikan tomorrow at daylight if the weather holds, the weather predictions continue to look favorable and we got a good report from our meteorologist, Chris Parker. This parting photo is of an eagle in the marina. I think this boat is his home base:) Also a good omen, right?