Northward Bound May 1, 2012

Our First Lighthouse Sighting

We push off at 7AM on May 1 for Nanaimo, BC, where we'll clear customs.  It is a 46 nm trip and we have calm seas and beautiful weather.  We call customs ahead of time, tell then our "approximate" arrival time -  1:15PM - and they instruct us to tie up at their dock - but - if we expect to arrive more than 15 minutes either side of 1:15PM we are required to call to inform them. They however, plan to arrive at our boat at exactly 1:15PM and if they aren't there by 1:16PM, we may leave - at 1:16PM.  This level of precision cannot possibly work - I mean we didn't even synchornize our watches. However, we actually tied up at their dock at exactly 1:15PM.   We're here, they're not - but we wait until 1:30 just to be sure but no one comes.

Meanwhile, we have a leaking water heater and our water maker isn't working.  We're on the water but can't access water,  hmmmm.   So Jim spends much of the afternoon diagnosing the watermaker problem and fixing it and we continue on the next morning to Campbell River.  Unfortunately, the fixed water maker still isn't making water and Jim spends much of the eight hour voyage in the engine room further diagnosing the problem.

Tug first in line for entering Seymour Narrows

 Two days are spent in Campbell River as Jim makes repairs.  The water heater and maker are fixed and we leave Friday morning, May 4th, for  Johnstone Strait.  This is a long crossing that takes us through the dreaded Seymour Narrows, a bottleneck  channel that must be traversed at slack water, and at that, a whole chapter of a book explains how treacherous the waters are.  Watch for the boils, avoid the tide rips, back eddies, forward eddies, swirls and ripples.   The author includes diagrams, a strategy chart broken down by whether we are in an ebb or flood tidal situation and cautionary tales worthy of a Stephen King novel. 

Charting the Straits

The fish boat exiting the Narrows and entering Johnstone strait

We  enter at the appointed time following a fishing boat (we respect "local knowledge") and watching him get thrown to and fro makes me dizzy.  Making it through without incident we continue up the straits as the water swirls and rips but our boat handles it well.  It turns out to be a long, long day and we arrive in Pt McNeil at 7:30 PM , after 10 hours of cruising.