1100 position 55-05N 132-07W. At anchor in Moira Cove
It was slack low water at 1130AM yesterday when we weighed anchor and wound our way south through the narrow, tortuous, kelp filled channels out of the Barrier Islands. We had delayed our departure first so we wouldn't be heading out against what ever swell was coming in during an ebb tide - a recipe for choppy conditions. Second, we wanted to take advantage of the flood tide once we got out into Dixon Entrance to help push us along towards Ketchikan.
As Thankful poked her nose out into the Dixon Entrance we were pleasantly surprised to find that the winds were light and the seas relatively flat. We turned left and headed east. An hour later, with the building flood tide pushing us, we approached Cape Chacon where Dixon Entrance intersects with Clarence Strait.
Interesting things can happen to the sea state when strong currents force their way around capes. It can be perfectly flat elsewhere, but right at the cape waves can appear out of nowhere and produce potentially dangerous seas. That was the case yesterday.
I am relatively new to power boating, and have a lot to learn about the dark side of the force. On a seaworthy sailboat the seas we encountered at Cape Chacon would be considered little more than a nuisance. It is a different story on Thankful, and I suspect most other power boats. If allowed to hit the boat beam on, the seas would produce a dangerous rolling that would dislodge anything and anybody not tied down. In those conditions we had no choice but to either head into or away from the direction the waves came from, which of course was not the direction we wanted to go. We ended up first heading into the waves and away from the cape for half a mile, and then turning ninety degrees and heading back in towards the cape and into calmer waters in Clarence Strait.
Interestingly, this wasn't usually an issue for the month and a half and 3,000 miles I traveled aboard Starr, also a power boat, earlier this summer because Starr has gyro-stabilizers that keep her from rolling. The stabilizers worked so well that the smoothest ride was had when the boat was beam on to the seas. Rolling in beam seas only became a problem aboard Starr when the stabilizers weren't working, which regular readers of this blog will recall happened a few times.
After our zig-zag tour off of Cape Chacon things settled down and Thankful enjoyed a smooth and quick trip north up Clarence Strait. We arrived at our destination for the day, Moira Inlet, just at the end of the flood tide.
We picked a protected cove to anchor for the night but first stopped in Moira Inlet's north arm to try once again to snag a halibut. A few rock fish later we gave up and headed in, anchoring just after 6PM.
We continue to be amazed at the scarcity of other cruising boats. We didn't see any in Cordova Bay or the Barrier Islands and there are no other boats in Moira Inlet. This whole area seems to be pristine and untouched. Matt pointed out a deer feeding along the shore this morning while we were drinking our coffee in the wheelhouse. We consider ourselves lucky indeed to be able to have this corner of Alaska all to ourselves.
--
No comments:
Post a Comment