Beginning on April 3, I have been proudly carrying the SSSS burgee northward into Canadian waters, sailing singlehanded in my venerable Columbia 22, Old Coot. She now is berthed at Heriot Bay on Quadra Island, and I will return in June to bring her back. Ain’t retirement wonderful? I have had many adventures, but the following was the most dramatic. It was the turning point of my voyage.
On April 16 I left the government dock at Squirrel Bay on Cortes Island at about 8:30 am. Cortes Island seems like quite a civilized place. The young men drinking on the dock the previous evening and trying to repair an outboard had been mellow and friendly. I had enjoyed an excellent meal at Cafe Suzanne, a place offering quality and refinement with a slight backwoods touch. I could not find the Harbour Manager, so I wrapped eleven dollars for moorage in a piece of paper and taped it to the bulletin board.
At twenty before nine I was under sail. Soon I reefed the main, but the wind was right on the nose from the northwest and I had a schedule to keep for the tide at Yuculta Rapids, so I dropped sail and powered on. I found some positive current in Lewis Channel and Calm Channel and made good time. I passed a little resort on the northernmost Rendezvous Island with a big “open” sign on the dock. There was a wonderful tree house way up on a hill. At 1230 I was beginning to find negative current coming out of the rapids. I was early getting there, and hindsight tells me I should have anchored or hove to and waited.
Yuculta Rapids runs north and south and lies in a gap between Stuart Island on the east and Sonora Island on the west. It runs south on the flood and north on the ebb. I was trying to catch the tail end of the flood and the change to ebb. The strongest currents are at the north end, opposite Whirlpool Point on Stuart Island. A short distance after that, a course change of about 80 degrees to the west leads through narrow Gillard Pass and onward to Dent Rapids.
Even though I was about an hour earlier than advised I forged ahead, and following suggestions in Waggoner’s cruising guide I was able to make it past Kellsey Point and over to the Sonora Island side, motoring very slowly against the current but without a lot of difficulty. When I got to the little bay opposite Whirlpool Point, however, I just could not proceed, and there were scary whirlpools. I was at the tail end of a flood, nowhere near maximum current; yet some of these whirlpools looked like boat eaters. After a few minutes I found a back eddy along the west side of the channel that enabled me to get to the mouth of Gillard Pass. The flood was still running hard there, giving me no chance to get through. I motored around in circles for a while, waiting for the slack.
Then my motor died; worse yet, it jammed in gear so I was unable to try to restart it. I raised sail, intending to make it into Big Bay, immediately to the northwest, where a public dock and a big fishing resort lie out of the worst of the current, but there just was not enough wind. I got to the Stuart Island shore somewhat south of Whirlpool Point, which marks the entry to Big Bay. There I could not find water of anchoring depth far enough from shore. I fended the boat off the steep, rocky bank with my boathook as I whirled along. Trees took out the tip of my windex. Finally I was able to anchor in God knows how many feet, the fathometer fluctuated wildly, with about 250 feet of rode, bring the outboard into the cockpit, and attempt a repair. I freed the frozen gearshift, got the motor back on the bracket, weighed anchor, and began motoring toward Big Bay. Then the engine died again.
Once more I made sail, but there was no wind, and I was making random loops in the weakening current. At that point a Good Samaritan in the person of a man with a German accent name Dieter, owner of Big Bay Resort, appeared in a runabout with a big outboard. He asked if I was all right, and I had to admit that I was indeed having some difficulty and would appreciate a tow. Soon I was tied up at no charge to the dock at the resort, which was not yet open for the season. Dieter also loaned me a big gas can to enable me to filter my gas through a T-shirt, as it seemed that dirty gas was what was killing my engine. Thank you, Dieter.
In the morning there was frost on the dock. Again, I was early for the change of tide. I am a slow learner, and the tide did seem to be turning later than the Canadian Hydrographic Service predicted it would. But I negotiated the rapids in the southward direction without difficulty, and after a pleasant day of light air sailing made my way to Von Donop Inlet on Cortes Island. This is entered from the Island’s west shore and is separated from Squirrel Bay on the opposite side by an isthmus less than a mile wide. That was a beautiful place to stop for a couple of days, review my situation, and then move on.
The lessons for me in this were chiefly to be more diligent about attending to the state of my gas tank and the adjustment of my gearshift. Another important lesson was that the right time to take on these rapids is fairly precisely stated in the various cruising guides and sailing directions and Volume 6 of the Canadian tide and current tables, and that being too early is almost as bad as being too late.
It was here that I decided it was imprudent to continue on to Port Hardy, my original objective, and a better idea to return to more settled parts and make sure my 5-horse Honda was tuned up and ready to give its customary reliable service. I cruised in some wonderful country, and had a terrific, if sometimes challenging, time.
Pete Holm, Old Coot