our trip to Priness Louisa inlet.

[starcrafttom]

The trip to princess Louisa Inlet


Well this trip was a real fast paced, see it all, cover lots of water and forget to take pictures of half of it, whirlwind. The mission was to leave Friday night after work and travel to princess Louisa inlet (here now to be known as “p.l.”) and back while having a good time and seeing as much of the great white north as possible. Did we succeed? Had we had a better time we would not have came back.

Day one: Work for 8 hours then race home and finish packing the boat. Susan got home before me and was half way done we I got home. A friend was good enough to take James for a few days while we were gone. We left Marysville at 5 P.m. and launched at twin bridges public ramp at 7p.m. for the trip to Bedwell harbor. The trip across was smooth and found us at the customs dock by 9 p.m. The only bad part was running into the sun with out sunglasses. I have never been threw customs by boat before and after hearing all the tall tales I thought it would be a pain. So here’s how it went,
1. Tie up and walk to the phone (no one around)
2. Hi I’m tom, “oh yeah good night eh.” I want to enter Canada ok. Oh yeah that’s o.k. With us eh.
3. Hang up. I mean that’s it. Ok they made me write down a number to put on the boat but that was easy, I can write. http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/menu-e.html

We stayed the night at the poets cove resort dock. Poets cove is just magnificent. http://www.poetscove.com/. They have a heated pool and two hot tubs along with the best showers I have seen at a marine yet. We arrived to late for dinner in the restaurant, but we hear it’s really good. The bar was nice with lots of outside seating. They have a small store and ice cream parlor above the pool. We were the smallest boat on the dock that night. Lots of rental boats going north for the summer. In the morning we would have a long way to go, but getting up early was not an issue for us.

Day two: We woke up at 8 because for us that is sleeping in. Showers and breakfast were first then looking around for a bit before we headed out. Now the “plan” was to leave poets cove and travel to p.l. by nightfall. Its about 140 miles to the falls from bedwell harbor and we have to cross the straits of Georgia at some point, none of them good if the wind is up. Then travel down 20 miles of the queen’s reach, where there is no hiding from the wind. Now that’s a lot to ask for in a 22 c-dory. To top this off I have never ran a boat in Canada before. I have been to P.l. once before in a 40ft trawler with my dad 6 years ago. But I did little driving and it took two or three days from Nanimo, half the distance. Between the falls and us is Dodd narrows and the dreaded Malibu rapids. Not to forget all the shoals and reefs I do not know about and oh did I forget to mention the torpedo range? So what in a plan like this could go wrong?

Well nothing did. As we left Bedwell harbor, by crossing under the Pender harbor bridge and out Port browning and into Plumper sound, The water could not have been smoother. The trip north thru Navy Channel and in to Trincomali Channel was warm and flat as a sierra lake in June. It was in Trincomali channel that it happened. I saw him first, but only seconds before he saw me, and I took the only coarse of action available in this situation, I turned straight at him and him at me. I mean how else can you meet other c-brats if you don’t run them down at sea. The simple biker wave will not do it. There has to be a C-dory inspection of the involved craft, right? We have to compare modifications and sign off on them, right? The clearing and approval of navigation plans, and seeing if they conflict or not, right? All of this transpires with out written agreement or even forewarned oral agreement. It just happens and my wife does not know how, but it does. We had the pleasure of running into the Sea Ram, not the guy you want to turn into at high speed, and her crew. Gary and his wife are new owners of a gray 22 c-dory based out of Ladysmith B.C.

Gray had a really good idea for the mounting of the down riggers. His bracket keeps the down riggers out side the cockpit when the canvas covers is fully closed in. Mine are mounted on the side rails and have to be turned into the boat in order to close up the side curtains. This steals room from the cockpit for seating around at night. He also has an aft steering station with engine controls that looks really great. Gray is an avid reader of the c-brat web site but never post. I hope he will after this. Well they were headed south and we were headed north, so after a half hour of inspections we parted ways and continued on are mission.

Running north pass Wallace and Secretary islands at 20 M.P.H. on flat seas is one of the most relaxing sensations I have felt in a while. Making it so relaxing is largely due to the autopilot and c-80 chart plotter system onboard the Susan E. I know where I am and where all the reefs and shallow water is. I don’t know how I lived with out it all these years. The amount of info available is just wonderful. Currents and tides, ports and services, navigation makers and buoys it’s all there. I did not even need the radar function all weekend, but I had it on anyhow. The books all say that you should wait for slack tide at Dodd narrows or at least for the tide to run in the direction you are headed. Well in a boat that draws only 1 ft or so and runs 25 mph+ wide open, I don’t have to wait. People in bigger and slower boats write all these books and are over cautious. Don’t get me wrong; if I had something over 30 ft with a top speed of 9 knots I would be careful too. You do have to, and I recommend it, call on ch.16 that you are entering Dodd and from which direction you are entering. This is a good idea as they run log booms thru here with tugs and you do not want to meet that in the middle.

As we crossed behind Gabriola Island and crossed over to Nanaimo harbor http://www.city.nanaimo.bc.ca/ we had to be careful of all the ferries and float planes that where coming and going.


We did not stop here but would like to in the future.There seems to be a lot to do in the area From a land based trip I can tell you that the dingy dock pub is worth checking out on a Saturday night. We took the new castle island passage and where treated to a bit of wildlife. On the shores of Newcastle, across from the marina district with all its noise and in the middle of the day was a raccoon. He was right at the waters edge looking for food. I know if you live out side the city a raccoon is not as cutie as it once was. This is not the first raccoon I have seen. Try waking up in a tent at 3 am to see your wife and a raccoon playing tug of war with a soft cooler full of soda outside. That was a big and determined raccoon but Susan got the better of him that night. I just like to see animal’s surviving in conjunction with man. We did sea a really cool seaplane that belonged to “Amigo” airlines in the passage.
. http://www.amigoairways.ca/

Really cool twin-engine plane. Even though my parents and brother all fly I don’t know one plane from another. I’m sure the brain trust here will figure it out.

Well back to the trip. As you leave the Nanaino area by Rainbow passage to the north of Gabriola Island you are faced with a choice, a choice that the navy may make for you. Whisky golf is the join torpedo range in the Strait of Georgia. http://www.npa.ca/en/cfmetr1.htm . The weather channel on the vhf, channel 3 in this area, will include whether “WG” is open or closed. . If it’s not open you have to run farther north before turning or going around Texada Island. I must have turned to channel 3 just after the info because I had to listen to the recording for 20 minutes before I heard it was open to traffic. By that time I had traveled north to Ballenas Island. From there I turned toward the open straits and north Thormanby Island on the east side. Now the last time I was in the straits was 6 years ago in a 40fter in 10 ft seas. Everyone threw up but dad and me and the contents of that krogen were thrown to hell and back. (Side note: its not that I don’t get motion sickens in extreme cases. Its that I don’t like to puke and just refuse too.) We should not have crossed that day. Well today was smooth as silk, the baby’s bottom, glass, good whisky and a young girls thigh all rolled into one. We ran at 23 mph with the boat trimmed all the way up and only turned about 4300 rpm. It just could not get any better.

This is the point that you enter Agamemnon channel, which leads to Skookumchuck narrows and Egmont harbor. http://bigpacific.smugmug.com/gallery/101594/1/3577985

We stopped here for gas. So far we had covered 137 miles since twin bridges and had burned a little less then 40 gallons. Neither tank had gone dry yet so let’s say 38 gallons.137 divided by 38 gallons comes out to 3.60 mpg on flat seas. Some of that was at speed some at trolling speed, some at idle. I think that’s pretty dam good. We did not stop to visit as we were getting late into the day, about 5 pm or so. From Egmont we entered the reaches. Prince of Wales reach, Princess Royal reach, Queens reach. It’s like a road in Seattle, every time the road curves it changes names. Not a great place in the wind because there is little room to hide and the wind just funnels down and around the corners. This whole area is almost with out buildings or roads. Just one big long canyon after another running back away from the water.

As we approached the Malibu rapids area I looked at the tide chart on the c-80. Well the good news was it was flooding into the inlet the bad news was it was at full flood. It was close to 9 knots when we entered. Hang to the left until you are in front of the pool then hard right to the middle then left again, watch for the whirl pool, and power out into a calm smooth bay in front of one of the most beautiful lodges in the world. Why push it? Well because I can in this boat and we only had 10 minutes of day light left and next tide was at 11pm that night.
.

The lodge dates back to the 30s and is now used as a church camp. http://www.younglife.org/malibuclub/index.html Almost makes me want to go to church but they don’t have a fishing program. Guess I’ll pass. We got in to the dock just in time to hook up the bbq and get the steaks going before dark fell. Good food in a great location. If you know of a more romantic steak house then the dock at chatterbox falls let me know. Well 134 miles in one day across big water, passes and some of the most beautiful country on earth, Time for bed.


Day three: Well if you have to wake up because the waters running, then having the water be chatterbox falls is pretty good. Got up and walked the falls. It’s a really short walk and to tell you the truth there is not a lot to do here. A kayak would be fun but there are no hidden bays to explore just the inlet to look at and man, what a view. We had breakfast and looked around awhile waiting for slack tide at 10am. All the big boats were leaving to make the run to the rapids. We let them get a head start before we left. I found a new use for autopilot, set the boat at idle and point the auto pilot at the other end of a straight inlet then get on the roof and watch the cathedral of nature go by




Well this is way to long already so I will save the return trip for later in the week.

[starcrafttom]

I wrote this in word with a lot of pics. Why did the pics not tranfer.? help here computer guys.

[gljjr]

Very nice write up Tom! Sounds like a great trip.

The best way to get the pics is to upload them to your gallery. Then right click on the picture you want to insert in your text and get the address of the picture. Then paste the address into the text where you want to have the picture surrounded by the tags as shown below.

[Ron on Meander]

Tom,
Now that sounds like a fast trip! Man did you ever get the right weather for visiting PL. Was the return as smooth? When the sun gods smiles on us, the Pacific Northwest (including north of the border) has got to be some of the most spectacular cruising in the world.
Ron