Today we traveled through Discovery Passage and Seymour Narrows to the beautiful April Point Resort Marina. It was our third long and challenging day of travel. Today's challenge was negotiating Seymour Narrows which has such strong tidal currents that it must (in our boat) be traversed at slack current. This stretch of water has a storied history; Ripple Rock in Seymour Narrows was responsible for 119 shipwrecks which took 114 lives. In 1958 Ripple Rock was blown up. Literally. With explosives. Even now, the narrows are very hazardous and as we made our way through, I read aloud that even in slack current, numerous boats have capsized with resulting fatalities. Rob asked me to stop reading aloud. Slack waters in Seymour Narrows do not look slack. There are numerous tidal rips and we felt a bit on edge until we were all the way through. About one-third of our way into the passage, a huge yacht, pulling a huge "dinghy" sped by. The wake from that boat tipped us sideways so severely that all of the unwashed dishes in the galley (and they have been piling up...) crashed into the sink. I watched our dinghy with baited breath to see if it would be swamped. Some people have no manners.
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| Just before we entered Seymour Narrows, a tug pulling this load called us on the radio to say that he needed the middle of the channel. We said ok. |
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| "Slack" water in Seymour Narrows |
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| Discovery Passage is beautiful. |
At April Point Marina we are relaxing on the boat on a sunny, hot afternoon and looking forward to a day of rest tomorrow.
August 17 - after four loads of laundry, boat cleaning and showers, we are going to the fancy resort restaurant for dinner. It has been a wonderful relaxing day and tomorrow we are off to Comox.
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