We got away from the dock at Shoal Bay at 8:30 this morning in order to get through the last of the rapids on the ebb current. Up at this end of the Island ebbs flow north and west around the top of Vancouver Island. We got to Greene Point rapids early enough that I was worried about going through and we actually ran slow for about half an hour in order to delay our arrival. I don’t think I needed to have worried. Other than whipping us along at well over 12 knots they were mostly a non-event. By getting through them early we were able to arrive at Wellbore Channel before they had turned to flood so we got both sets of rapids behind us on one tide cycle.
All that extra speed from the rapids got us to Port Neville by around noon. There’s a rickety old government float here that we’re tied up to now and we’ll spend the night on it. We talked to some locals who assured us that its owned by the government so its free and we should just stay as long as we want.
After a couple of days of running in tight narrow channels, when we got closer to Port Neville everything opened up and all of a sudden we were back in big wide open water. We’re now back into Johnstone Strait which is the commercial route from the Pacific into the north end of George Strait. We didn’t see anything particularly big today but there’s a vessel separation lane shown on the charts so the big guys definitely go here.
We’ve been amazed by the degree of cellular coverage that we are accessing. We have been briefly out of coverage during the day but this is the second night at a relatively remote location where we have a ripping fast cellular internet connection. I’m sure that will end pretty soon but we’ve really appreciated it so far.
No comments:
Post a Comment