Sunday July 27, 2014

Passing What's Left of Namu

Sunday July 27 the captain is pleased with himself today as he has managed to make it to the bridge today without spilling his coffee. The sun is shining and the Admiral has left her berth below. Chevy and I are ready to respond to orders and we put ashore for doggy duty. We up the pike and a slow bell out of the bay as its low water and I would rather not thump the bottom at speed. I have secretly listened to the weather reports (it upsets Pens tummy as she only hears 25 knots and it could be at the entrance to Victoria harbour 500 miles away) and plotted a course to the outer lip of the planet edge that is known as the Spider Group.

I have rambled on before in an older part of this Blog about this benign and wimpy (LAF) area to cruise in. This is over the edge of Penny’s comfort zone, but it’s not new territory for us and she occupies her mind with navigation or checking the location of the dog or securing everything,
I set course for NALAU PASSAGE THAT IS THE SIDE DOOR INTO SPIDER GROUP OF ISLANDS. We enter onto KILDIDT SOUND and turn to starboard and are exposed to the Pacific's large swell that we have been out of the influence for a week or so. Again penny readies “OA” for the long rolling motion between the troughs that we have to endure them for a short time till we come into the lee of the SERPENT GROUP of islands.

We don’t know our final destination for our night’s moorage location but we will check out Goodlad Bay first. We arrive and do not find it interesting in its topography and work our way into STEWART INLET behind a small island on the port side. Not very often do we have more than one attempt at setting an anchor but you can hear the anchor and chain rolling over the rocks on the bottom we have backed towards some reefs.

Nalau Pass

Second try, ok. I have a short nap then prepare“Hugin/Munin” for the flight up into the KILDIDT INLET. The inlet has a narrow tidal bore that can run up to 8-10kns near its entrance and D and P have never been in this inlet and there seems to be little information on it so we go prepared with the water proof handheld VHF radio, Eperb (SAT emergency beacon) some rations and the little boat comes with tools lighter flashlight etc. You never know what to expect when you go into a tidal bore for the first time. It is on a flood in and yes there are some rapids and whirlpools. We stand away from them but careful to steer away from the kelp beds that mask the reef and rocks that the current is sweeping over. We rely on I phone Navigation and Penny tracks the course on a chart that she has folded in her lap. We do most of the long inlet but Pen is concerned about the current reversing and we skedaddle our butts back to “OA”.

An Old Snag at the end of Kildidt