{"id":3648,"date":"2016-07-22T07:07:51","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T14:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leslieval.com\/?p=3648"},"modified":"2016-07-22T07:07:51","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T14:07:51","slug":"on-to-haida-gwaii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leslieval.com\/?p=3648","title":{"rendered":"On to Haida Gwaii!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"crossingMap\"<\/a>The Hecate Strait which lies between Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) and the BC mainland has a fearsome reputation. When a strong pressure system is around, the waves can become so high that the bottom of the sea is revealed. This would not be where you would want to be! A large portion, especially at the north west, is quite shallow which helps the wind driven waves to perk up a lot. Now, the big problems in the Hecate Strait are usually in the winter. But, this is a serious piece of water.<\/p>\n

We waited with our two Canadian cruiser couples for two days listening to fragmentary weather reports that we could sometimes get on our VHF marine radio. Often, the radio would say things like:<\/p>\n

The forecast for the Hecate Strait will be winds of !@#$%%^ coming from the )(*&&^^%%<\/em>
\nor
\nThe forecast for the **(*&(^Y(*& will be 20-25 kts from the )(*&^%*&(<\/em><\/p>\n

We tried, by listening to multiple repeats of this garbled information, to fill in the blanks.<\/p>\n

After two days, our Canadian friends decided to stay and wait for a ‘better forecast’ but we decided to poke our nose out there and see what what was going on.<\/p>\n

We left at 6 am in heavy clouds and as soon as we left our anchorage at Spicer Island, we found the wind blowing 10-15 kts from the NW with a 1-2 meter swell also coming from the NW. Since our desired direction was a bit south of west, these were good sailing conditions. For about 6 hours we sailed along, slipping over some waves and banging over others. Then the wind dropped. So we turned the motor on. Less than two hours later, the wind picked up from the opposite direction (SE) and we turned the motor off again and sailed on the other tack until we came to Queen Charlotte City which is at the middle of Haida Gwaii. The total distance was 80 NM and it took us about 13 hours.<\/p>\n