I’m midpoint in the Straigth of Georgia and there is a 6+ foot wave bearing down on me presently. Goose the throttles, I think we can get ahead of him, miss the crest and eek right over the shoulder somewhat gently. Whoops, there’s an even bigger one behind him and I did not even notice. Chop the throttles, were at a dead idle and we take the crest right on our bow. The bow goes up sharply and we come down with a crash. It’s actually not that bad, no suddering, just a lot of water splashes over the bow, we bled our speed off pretty quickly. Still, I took this one head on and I’ve been doing a pretty good job of picking and choosing as I call it. See, waves are not uniform. Take the worst looking wave and chances are that fifty foot to the left or right, the wave is not near as big. It’s just a matter of reading the situation and making a decision. A quick decision. If you decide you can get in front of the wave, don’t be late. Picking and choosing allows you to “minimize” the sea state that you actually experience. If its running 4-7, than your seeing hopefully 4’s and 5’s. The advantage is not just less sea state, it also means that I can take the 4’s & 5’s closer to my beam. I want to go east, but the wind and seas are out of the North. The quicker I can make my easting, the sooner I will be out of it. The catch of course is to not get caught in a wave at the large end of the spectrum on your beam. That’s what we call bad. We don’t like bad one bit. Right now, I’m picking and choosing just to keep the sea state down. My eastward progress has slowed considerably and I’ve been at this for 3 hours now. I just made a mistake because I’m getting tired and a little complacent. But this is the defintion of committed, the only reasonable option is to simply keep going. The ride will be done, when the ride operator says so and my job is to make the best of it.
We left Nanaimo around 6:45 with the flags in the harbor flying as gently as I have seen them this week. I want to get well into my crossing before the sun gets high in the sky. In years past, this has been a good strategy. I have no idea how to predict weather this year. As we pulled out of the harbor we were called by a vessel on her way in. We spoke briefly on the radio, he was asking what the weather report said. I think he knew well what the report said and was being polite. He had stuck his nose out and turned back. It WAS a little disconcerting I admit, but I had a good ten foot on him and while I won’t state the brand of boat he was on, I’ll just say it was more of a cocktail cruiser style than a sea boat. I also know that the waves out of the North are going to bend around and pile up just outside the channel entrance. It’s worth sticking your head out and going just a little bit further to see if things calm down.
Immediately we were seeing 4-6 foot conditions and pretty steep. I was not much more than idle just outside the channel past protection island. They were stacking up pretty good, and pretty close. I figured we would not lose the height, but they might spread out a little and that’s just what they did. Still, it was no cakewalk. Fast forward three hours and just as I get out in the middle of the Straight, were in the worst of it. The tough part was that the further we went, the most our track started to head North and not East. Looking at our track across (the west most track is the way out, the east track is our way back), you can see how as the waves built, our track changed.
There were three other boats that went out near us in the morning (I doubt many others went at all that day). Early on, I did not cut as eastward as I wish I had. There was some confusion on my part as to whether the Whiskey Golf range was going to be open that day (it wasn’t), as it had been active two days prior, so I did not immediately press across it. I wish I had. A 45 Bayliner we ran with for a brief time went straight across and as a result got a significant lead on us, easterly at least. Around the 3 hour point, not only did we converge, but he was running significantly to the North of us. Had I achieved his early easting advantage, it would have helped enourmously. Still, as the waves increased, the edge was in my favor as my Tolly hull is deeper than his. In short, I can take more than he can. I had also been running slow for the first two hour. When things got rougher as we moved further into the straight, is the point I took a much more active role at the flybridge helm and increased our speed to about 9.5 knots. The only way I can run at that speed is very actively picking and choosing and by actively working the throttles. At the three hour mark I so wanted to get out of things, was just getting tired, that if anything I was even more agressive at trying to move our tack eastward. I’d seek out the worst waves and just narrowly miss the worst part, invite a little roll off the backside as often I could momentarily run almost beam on before the next big wave would come. This went on for another hour before we finally started getting benefit from the islands to our north.
All in all, it was a fun passage. Cliff kept repeating over and over that he was suprised it was not really so bad out. All I can say is tha the might have had a different opinion if he were at the helm the entire time, but I take it as a great compliment. My preference though would be for a bit shorter passage this way.
By the time, we reached the opposite shorline, I was convinced that after the crossing we just had, I very much wanted to get a little further than secret cove since we had already lost a couple extra days in Nanaimo this week. We ended up in Pender Harbor.
The public dock was both full and not answering their VHF (which they later apologized for). There were a lot of boats in the harbor, given the weather situation. We ended up over at Garden Bay Hotel & Marina. It only cost us $53/night and I would heartily recommend staying there again.
The restaurant/pub had great food and there was a band playing. We had a great lunch, but I admit that come nightfall I did not venture up for the music. I was early to bed that night!