Stillaguamish South Pass, West Pass: navigable at high tide?

timflan

New member
Is it possible to take a "short cut" from Port Susan to Skagit Bay via the Stillaguamish estuary?

Not "theoretically possible". I want to hear from sombody who has actually done it! :-)

Thanks!
 
Tim, you asked about at "High Tide"? I know things are different on the Left Coast but here on the Right Coast, the water is deeper then than at
Low Tide. (on edit... Maybe you meant high tide, really... how high? is that pass dry at low tide?) Wouldn't it depend on ..how high the tide, how deep your boat?? :roll:

:?: :?: :shock:

Enjoy your websites, even if the Marines do too! :lol:

Charlie
 
Tim, You should call roger. He lives right on it. From what I have seen of it you could do it in a c-dory at high tide. This year, and it changes, the north end is almost completely dry at low tide. You would really have to go slow and explore as you go. coming from the south its all unmarked channel and you would have to find your own way. Heres a better look at it. link

the johnson farm is just above the bridge on the east side. ( thats the right)
 
Pat Anderson":24xczk7u said:
OK, Tom - explain that link to me! It starts out as a Google maps satellite image, and then gets replaced by a NOAA chart?
The NOAA chart is overlaid on top of the google map. If you use the slider labeled "NOAA" in the upper right, you can adjust the transparency of the overlay.
 
howdy
as Tom said, I live on the north side of SR532 on west pass. when the tide is out there is only about 1 ft of water in the channel. at high tide it will be anywhere from 8 ft to 12 ft depending on the tidal heighth. there is a channel that should be easy to follow from the bridge north but the channel south out into south bay is very hard to find and follow. if you were at extreme high tide and putting slowly you should be able to navigate through. I would want a printed copy of the google ariel photo of the area to sort of try to follow the meandering channel
 
OK, this sound possible, just not...um..."advisable". :-)

Roger, do you feel the satellite image on Google Maps is reasonably accurate? Not too old?

West Pass looks reasonable straightforward, assuming you take it during higher water.

South Pass looks "wicked, tricksy, false." [movie quote!]

Even so, the detail on Google Earth is pretty good; it's dated August 23, 2007. And Google Earth (the app, not the web-based map service) appears to allow realtime GPS plotting. I could imagine having Coastal Explorer and Google Earth running side-by side, both plotting the GPS data in realtime. I would need a navigator to watch that computer like a hawk, giving me constant feedback about our location relative to the channel, while I run the boat and watch the depthsounder like a hawk. One person can't do all three tasks, I would argue.

So I guess I'll need a copilot before I try this. Somehow, I think my wife won't be that interested. She'll say some sensible thing like "Why don't we just go around?"
 
Tim,

Scouting the route in a dingy(with power) and a portable GPS might be a good idea. Start at mid tide (going from low to high), recording the waypoints, and searching for deadheads, shoals, and sunken wrecks along the way.

The Google photo shows a hand launch ramp on the west side of the Stillaguamish, under the bridge, south of the 532.

A portable depthsounder, or pole for checking depths would be helpful.

If you map it and share it, others could use the route.
 
Tim , call me I'm always in for running a boat around. I have been wanting to head up that way for a while. This is the area where the sturgean photos came from last month. That whole area goes dry at low tide.
 
Well, yes, I saw what it does...but I am curious as to how to do it, this is not Google Earth or Google Maps, it is something called Geogarage, a French site. I just did not see how in the world you would get from that site to the view of Stanwood and Camano Island. A garden variety Google Maps view does not have a slider for a NOAA charts overlay!

rogerbum":spbq7gax said:
The NOAA chart is overlaid on top of the google map. If you use the slider labeled "NOAA" in the upper right, you can adjust the transparency of the overlay.
 
Pat here's the linkto the front page of the site. From here you can zoom into any place in the world but only to nav charts where you see them.

If you want to use a zoomed in view in a post you have to go down to the bottom left hand corner. You will see the long lat and the word link. If you hit the link button it will change the link at the top of the page to your zoomed view. Then you can use that link in a post that will take you to the zoomed view, got that.
 
one of the local fishing sites has that map as a tool. You can post your fishing trip and include flags on the map. All the flags from everyones trips go on the one map which is searchable but date and type of fish. really neat. so if you want to know where all the kings are caught in may last year so you know where to fish this year then you just go seach the map and you can see where the most caught fish where. makes a good planing tool. It just take a lot of people posting their catch reports.
 
I am so really going to, like, believe EVERYTHING I see posted there. Fishermen are Soooooooo truthful :shock:

Merv

PS I just posted my last catch.... :twisted:
 
Brats,

I took a photo safari to the Stillaguamish River, West pass, and South Pass yesterday, between 3:00 and 3:30pm. The photo album is HERE, and this is the first photo in the album.

04_17_09_006.jpg

The tide was about +4 ft, actual depths unknown. The tides were +7.2 at 10:35am and +1.4 at 6:15pm

Best of luck to any explorers, if you take pictures from the boat and GPS waypoints, we can reclaim this 'shortcut' and rename it 'C-Brat Pass'!
 
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