Glacier Bay or Bust

 

Practicing my skills on Nautica, the boat we’re towing, outside of Squirrel Cove.

WE’RE UNDERWAY

We left Decourcy Island on June 15. We are now headed to Glacier Bay, Alaska.

It’s about time I gave you the big picture of our plans. We are cruising in Unwine’d as far North as Glacier Bay and then will cruise back to Decourcy. We are bound by 3 date constraints:

1. We have made reservations with the Glacier Bay National Park Service to enter Glacier Bay July 15-21. (1)

2. Mike wants to play in an annual tennis/dominoes tourney at the end of September in California. Need to be back for that.

3. We can only stay in Canada until sometime in October when we hit our 6-month limit mark. This will vary depending on how many days we are in Alaska, U.S.A. So if, for whatever reason, we miss getting back in September, we need to get back by sometime in October. 

THE CALCULATIONS

Glacier Bay is approximately 1000 miles/1600 kilometers from Decourcy Island. Our average speed is 8.5 MPH. This requires about 120 hours of boating time. We only boat during the day. And our average amount of running time per day we plan is 6 hours. This would mean we will take about 20 days to get to Glacier Bay. 

The big however, here, is that we won’t be boating in a straight line. And, we will not boat across any unprotected ocean “gates” in nasty sea conditions.(2) We will wait for the right conditions.

Also, we need to time the right passage times through rapids. So it will take 5 weeks or more to get to Glacier Bay. We left about 2 weeks later than would have been ideal. (3) 

So we are racing, so to speak, up to Glacier Bay. We plan to make a more leisurely route on the way back down to Decourcy, hitting many spots that we missed in our haste going North. 

SIGHTS AND MOOD

Already we’ve seen some amazing sights. The weather has been generally sunny with great visibility. When we crossed from Comox over to the Sunshine Coast, we managed to avoid rain surrounding us. But the wide views allowed us to witness a neat rain scene. 

Rain dropping in the Straight of Georgia. It was miles away, but the reflection on the calm water gave the illusion that it was closer. 

A sunny day passing North of Desolation Sound. Huge, glacier cut islands compete for the view.

It’s exciting because we’ve now gone further North than the most Northern we’ve ever cruised back in 1996 when we lived in the Seattle area. We remember there were beautiful views, but we had forgotten just how majestic the mountains around these upper Gulf Islands are. 

And boating through the Broughton Islands area is quite moody with many smaller islands strewn out on either side. Many islands are Indian Reserves. We made passage in narrow channels where you can easily watch the shore go by. 

The fir trees grow right down to the water, reflecting in the water to a sort of lovely bottle green. See video below:

Some of you know of the many rapids in the area we just passed. Tremendous volumes of water move around these islands, often causing rapids at shallow, pinch points as the tide breathes in and out. Using Tide & Current tables, we carefully planned when to go through the rapids on our chosen, fast route around slack time. We were anxious that we planned these properly. And adding to the anxiety is that we’re towing our Nautica boat, which is new to us. In the end, everything came off without a hitch. The waters looked like cauldrons around us, with swirls and boils. Bull whip seaweed winds around. As we powered through, our bow veered a little right and left, while the stern sometimes fishtailed, causing us to move in a yaw. Luckily, we never felt out of control as we went through near slack. 

We’ve enjoyed meeting other boat couples at anchorages and every marina. It’s a congenial atmosphere. We noted that everyone was retired. We have received  great advice from these experienced mariners about possible routes.  Many of them have made the trip to Alaska multiple times and return to boating here each summer season. It’s just normal here to cruise up to Alaska or around the Broughton Islands or SE Alaska, in general.

We also noted that we’ve had the smallest power boat in just about every cove and marina. While we are 34 feet overall, most boats range from 37 to 65 feet. It’s a great boat show. If you were here, you’d catch us staring out the window at the big beautiful trawlers with high, sloping bows and large pilot windows, aggressively angled. Lots of storage space below decks and in cabinets. Hmph and hmmm. By comparison, we have to store a lot on our Lido deck. They can store more in hatches under decks.  

Skipper Mike on the stern at Port McNeill. We’ve got extra stuff tied down like our BBQ, crab and prawn traps, a large plastic container with odds and ends, and specialized ropes. Just 5 more feet and that could all be different.

GOOD NEWS

The good news is we were able to plan favorable currents and rapids transiting through the area North of Desolation Sound; the Discovery Passage. We also had excellent weather conditions when we transited through Johnstone Strait, without having to wait extra days. This is a sticking point for some mariners. We just got lucky with our timing. After only 6 days we were already in Port McNeill, to do a little provisioning.

Today, we made it through the first gate, around Cape Caution. This is the most challeging gate because the combination of winds (prevailing from the NW) vs. currents out of the Inside Passage during ebb flow, going West, produce higher, steeper waves. In addition, there are swells from the Pacific Ocean. In addition, just South of Cape Caution is Slingsby Channel, which produces a huge confluence of water into the Pacific, making even rougher seas. To avoid the confluence, we decided to transit about 4 miles from shore.

Yesterday we anxiously checked the weather and buoy reports for today. It said that there would be light winds and swells of 3 feet until late in the afternoon. We created a plan to take advantage of this great window: push off at 5:00 a.m. from Port McNeill and motor just 4 hours through these notorious waters to a good waiting area, Alison Harbour, which is South of the Slingsby Channel confluence. Then we would leave the next day or as soon as the forecasts are favorable. 

This morning we checked the updated forecast and were thrilled to find that it did not change. I popped 2 Dramamine pills and we headed off in the daylight, with cloudy skies—and there was virtually no wind. By the time we were solidly in the waters exposed to the mighty Pacific, we experienced short swells up at 1-3 feet in glossy water. After about 3 hours of unchanged conditions we decided to take advantage of the weather window and continue straight on for 5 more hours to Fury Cove, which is North of Cape Caution, out of the swells. Eight hours is a long time—but somehow seeing new sights, navigating, alternatively sitting and standing, making snacks, taking turns at the wheel (4) and listening to podcasts helps us easily pass the time. 

Check out the gentle rocking we endured from the minimal swells:

I’m sending this to you from beautiful Fury Cove where we are slowly rotating around our anchor. There are about 7 other boats here, some of which we saw and met in previous evenings. It’s a migration we’re all taking. 

The next stage of the journey is through the North Coast of British Columbia Inside Passage, where marinas and stores are more dispersed. The next town is Prince Rupert. This will take a few weeks. Then, we will cross the next gate, which takes us to Alaska. Ketchikan is the first town we’ll reach in Alaska.

Boat miles so far: 340

Hours of boating: 40

FOOTNOTES FOR FUN FACT FANS

(1) We can miss some of the first days of the Glacier Bay reservations without jeopardy to the remaining days. 

(2) Around Cape Caution is gate 1. From Port McNeill to Cape Calvert. 

(3) We really needed to get our new generator moved to a better position in the engine compartment. And, the new coolant container for the generator was leaking and needed to be replaced. This required a trip back down to North Saanich to Canoe Cove. This took a week. Also, the raw water pump, which is located at the bottom of the engine, was leaky and needed replacement. This took a day of Mike’s time as well. And then we took a few days to pack up. 

(4) Most of the time we use our autopilot. So don’t picture us with our hands on the wooden wheel whistling like Mikey Mouse on Steamboat Willie.