Up the Inside Passage and Down the Outside
Pictures and random comments
J/37 Jeorgia Summer 2002, based on a true story
Paul Lever
(click on the small images to get a larger view)
"Have you gotten to sail much on this trip? I always see you sail boaters motoring around here", said the old guy off the 40 ft. trawler. His wife pipes in, "Yea, I always take a picture of the sail boats when they have sails up - you don't see it very often." Hell yes I've done a lot of sailing on this trip. It takes some planning, a boat that performs in conditions ranging from light air to man-against-the-sea and a propensity to ignore the common wisdom of the guide books.
Alaska is about 500 air miles north of the Puget Sound. I left Edmonds, WA. on May 30th and returned August 22nd putting a total of 3,000+ miles on my J/37 Jeorgia. (Chart: Dixon Entrance Alaska to Puget Sound) There are half a dozen medium to long passages on the round trip. Everyone of them was a good sail. A typical day gets you about 30 miles closer to your destination. The longer passages range from 20 miles of open water to 200 miles open water. Most of the guide books are oriented toward power boaters that need to take the longer passages in as calm a conditions as possible. The guides spend a lot of time on the strategy for getting across some open ocean section with minimum wind and minimum seas. Now I'm not one to want to go voluntarily bash my head against the elements when there's an easier way, I also don't like hours of motoring.
Now you're not getting to Alaska on a sail boat without a decent amount of motoring - fast boat or not. On the Inside Passage there are many long, narrow channels that have three types of wind: Dead down the channel on your nose, dead up the channel on your stern and no wind. When its dead on your nose, you might just as well motor. Chances are you pissed someone off in a former life and the current will be against you also. When the wind has decided it is going to be dead on your nose down a channel, it really means it. We were heading north through Seymour Narrows at the middle of Vancouver Island. We waited the requisite time for slack tide, as the flood through the narrows hits 16 kts. The wind was blowing dead down Discovery Channel at about 18-20 kts. Now I didn't think this was too bad, as I knew that in 12 miles we'd find Chatham Point and the channel turns 90º to port and becomes Johnstone Strait. I figured this was good for two reasons. (Chart: Seymour Narrows to Johnstone Strait) One, turning 90º to port meant we were going to get an outrageous beam reach sail and two, I assumed the strait must have been named after Rod Johnstone the designer of J/37 we were in. I knew the strait was narrow and had a wicked reputation, but everything seemed to be falling into place. After a couple of hours of motoring, the wind picked up to 25kts and we were approaching Chatham Point Light. There was a slight drop in wind speed near the point, we made our 90º left turn and the wind picked back up to 25kts - dead on our nose. No way was there going to be any sailing on this leg. After a couple of hours of 25kt winds and 3 kts of current against us, we decided the better part of valor was to duck into Walkem Islands and drop the hook for awhile. Maybe we couldn't wait out the wind, but we could wait out the current. Johnstone Strait was the only really long passage that we couldn't get any reasonable sailing done. I did see a guy sailing with a poled out head sail going south bound. He was smiling when he went by.
Once you arrive at the north tip of Vancouver Island you have to deal with crossing Queen Charlotte Sound. (Chart: Port Hardy, Queen Charlotte Sound, Cape Caution) The sound is wide open to the Pacific Ocean, is about a 30 mile crossing, gets fog, lumpy seas and gale force winds on many occasions. During the crossing you round Cape Caution, an aptly named cape. Fortunately for us sailors, you can work your way west toward Port Hardy, giving yourself a decent jump-off spot. The winds are typically NW here, except when a southerly gale blows. Either way, you get a great sail north if the wind doesn't get too rambunctious. You have to clear Pine Island Lighthouse first before you can turn north after leaving Port Hardy. Listening to the marine weather becomes a bit of compulsion once you get this far north. For the entire summer, the Pine Island Lighthouse delivered its wind speed and wind direction as "estimated". Now this manned lighthouse is an expensive proposition. The Canadian government pays to have a family live at the lighthouse and report conditions. While I think this is nice and perhaps a bit nostalgic, it seems that they could at least give them a working set of wind instruments.
Before we left to cross Queen Charlotte Sound
we buttoned the boat up tight and took the outboard off the dinghy. We motored to
Pine Island, got a nice WNW breeze and had a fantastic sail past Cape Caution,
all with one tack. We tucked into a very pretty set of islands known as Penrose
Island Marine Park. You weave your way in through a group of rocks then turn
into a pretty basin. The basin has a long sandy beach. (Chart: Anchorage
behind Fury Island, Penrose Marine Park) It was low-tide, so I
decided to tuck fairly close to the sandy beach and drop a hook. The next
morning I woke up early laying in the V-berth. Something didn't feel right. My
head just wasn't the correct morning wake up pressure. I jumped up, looked
outside, only to find Jeorgia stuck in the sand. While it was low tide when we
anchored, it wasn't the lowest of the two low tides. In an area that gets 20
foot tide ranges this can be important. Fortunately it was all sand and we just
stuck out another anchor off the bow and waited for the tide to come on back in,
as it does everyday. 
I've learnt a lot over the years sailing and cruising
boats. I'm not sure if it is good thing or bad thing that I have a stock of
knowledge and experience in getting boats off the bottom.
The channels north from hear are the classic Inside Passage. While there are lots of variations in the paths you can take, rookies like me generally go up a fairly well known route. This route takes you through miles of narrow channels connected by numerous open sounds. On most travel days you can get at least 2 or 3 hours of sailing in somewhere along the path. Sometimes you just luck out making some fantastic distance all under sail. Grenville Channel runs NW for about 45 miles. It is narrow and carries cruise ship and barge traffic, although I only saw one other boat on the entire trip. I started out from Hartley Bay, a First Nation village with no roads. First Nation is Canadian for Indian. There are board walks that are heavily traveled by the locals on 4-wheel ATVs.
Hartley Bay boardwalk, a visiting
otter and Jeorgia tied up next to a purse seine boat 
I had motored too
much the day before so
I was determined to sail today. Got a long tack just outside the harbor in 3 or
4 kts of air. Started tacking down toward Cape Farewell. The wind picked up to
20kts and I was closed hauled working to make a tack around the Cape. Tacked,
came up on the Cape - nope, won't make it on this tack. Take long tack out, the
wind picks you to 25 kts. Tack toward the Cape - it's looking like I'll make it
on this tack, I'm close to the Cape. Man, there's no wind now! I'm now 2 hours
out of Hartley Bay and about 3 miles closer to may destination. Worst of all,
I'm now motoring. I enter Grenville Channel and feel the wind pick a little.
I've timed the entrance to attempt to get some current with me the whole way.
Grenville Channel is like many of the long channels in this area. It floods from
both ends. If you time things right you can enter on the flood and have the current
with you for hours, then approach mid-channel and have the ebb with you for the
remainder of the trip. Intuitively
this just seems wrong to me. A channel that is ebbing out of both ends must have
a big hole in the middle. 
Once inside the channel the wind starts to pickup from dead astern. I roll out the head sail and start trucking down the channel at 5 kts. Ten minutes later its blowing 25 kts up the channel and I'm making 10.5 kts over the ground. Six hours later I'm anchored at the north end of the channel in 50 feet of water.
Anchors
You can forget about the 7-to-1 anchoring scope in this part of the world. Deep anchoring is typical for this area. Often it's deep anchoring in greater than 60 ft. with very limited swinging room. This calls for a heavy anchor and a decent amount of chain, 'cause you aren't going to meet all of the manufacture's test conditions when you set the anchor. While anchoring in deep water can be difficult, many of the anchorages are so protected that almost anything reasonable will hold your boat. Many anchorages require you to travel 45 minutes or an hour through fjord like canyons into secluded and very well protected basins. When you are quietly tucked into these holes you have no clue what the weather is outside. It could be blowing 35 kts on the outside and two on the inside. Not to let your mind become too relaxed, in some areas in unsettled weather there can be very strong down mountain wind gusts know as Williwaws. They say they announce themselves with the roar of a freight train.
My main anchor is a 33 lb Bruce (genuine) with 100 ft. of 5/16 in. high tensile chain. This is backed with another 150 ft. of rode. Anchors seem to bring out religious fervor in boaters. Many skippers swear by their Bruce anchors. I'd have to say my Bruce failed to set at least 30% of the time. I like to have a fair amount of backup when it comes to anchoring. On this trip I also brought along a number of Fortress anchors. These are lightweight aluminum Danforth style anchors. They are strong, have tenacious holding power when set, take up minimum room when broken down and don't drop the boats waterline another inch. I have a rigged FX-16 that can be easily handled in the dinghy. This allows me to run an anchor out quickly to stabilize the boat if (when) you run aground. An FX-23 mounted on the stern rail to be used as a main anchor when a Danforth anchor holds better than a Bruce (sand, mud). And finally an FX-37 to be used as storm anchor (we got to use in the remote west coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands.)
It Rains in SE Alaska
The trip north through British Columbia
offered some exceptional weather. We probably had 2 or 3 days of light rain in
three weeks. The good visibility is handy any where on the inside of BC. The
logging industry is in full force, even with the new American tariffs, with seeming little concern for cleaning up
after themselves. Floating debris and logs are a constant danger. Its not
uncommon to see whole floating trees, 60 ft logs 4 ft. in diameter, and slash
floating by every 15 minutes. 
We crossed Dixon Entrance into Alaska with a light wind and a nice 5kt beam reach sail. While crossing Dixon Entrance can be tough at times, the open water section was only about 15 miles where we crossed. Things lightened up after the crossing turning the remaining trip into a motor boat ride. Clearing customs into Alaska is a royal pain. You cannot use the 800 number and PIN approach that is available when clearing into Washington. Legally you can't stop without going to a dock at a port of entry. The closest one being Ketchikan, 45 miles north of the border with Canada. This makes for a long trip. Most cruisers just blow-off the rules and stop at one of the overnight anchorages (such as Foggy Bay) after crossing Dixon Entrance. When you do arrive and tie up in Ketchikan you can clear in via a phone call. The focus of the phone call will be making sure you have your $25 annual custom's sticker.
Arriving in Ketchikan was our first sighting
of whales - a pair of Orcas fishing in the distance. Ketchikan is a typical SE
Alaska 'large' town. It is somewhat overrun with cruise ships. The city gets
something like 170 inches a year in rainfall. This makes Seattle's 35 inches
look like a desert. To enjoy SE Alaska you just have to get used to the drizzle.
I setup a remote for my Raymarine autopilot mounted next to the companionway. 
This way I can sit in a stadium chair in the companionway under the dodger,
watch for logs and stay out of the rain.
Alaska brings wilder scenery, greater wildlife,
tougher navigation and deeper anchorages. Bald eagles monitor almost every anchorage
announcing their presence with their harsh cackle. 
Humpback whales become so common that they don't draw the crew's attention unless
they are really close. Seeing one of these 30 ton monsters going completely
airborne is an awesome sight. One did his (or was it her) acrobatics 50 ft. off
our bow. My daughter and I both had cameras out. After he came back down and the
splash had subsided we both looked at each with the same question, "Did you
catch a picture of it!". "Ah, ah, no, did you?" That picture is
tightly locked in each of our's brain, never to be printed on paper. Hearing the
bellowing shush of their blowholes 15 ft. from the boat is an unforgettable experience.
Unremarkable whale photos: 
