Video: Desolation Sound to Yuculta Rapids

2007 heading to Yuculta Rapids

In 2007, we had sunny skies and calm water as we headed from Desolation Sound toward Yuculta Rapids. This view always inspires us, as the Rapids mark the northern boundary of Desolation Sound and are the entry to North of Desolation Sound where the cruising becomes more remote—with magnificent scenery, more wildlife, colder and harsher weather, fewer services, and fewer cruising boats. It always represents adventure.

In June, we shot another short video during our morning cruise from Squirrel Cove, Cortes Island, to Dent Island Lodge. It was such a gorgeous morning and I was trying out a new camera, a Canon PowerShot N. It’s a cute little point-and-shoot with excellent optics and a generous zoom, and its small size makes it easy to have on hand for quick photos. Also, it is WiFi enabled, so it is easy to transfer photos from the camera to my iPhone so that I can email photos if I want. It uses a micro SD memory card, and it is easy to move photos from the camera to my computer from the SD card. I took many of the photos on our June-July cruise with the “N” to see how it works and also because I liked the results.

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Video: 2013 Cloudy Entry to Desolation Sound

2004 Entering Desolation Sound

When we entered Desolation Sound in 2004, we had this spectacular view of the B. C. mainland mountains that lie behind the waters of Desolation Sound. Sarah Point is on the right.

Getting to Desolation Sound is always a “feel-good” event for us. We’ve cruised in and through Desolation Sound numerous times since our first cruise there in 1980. Each time, we look forward to the spectacular views of snow-capped mountains as we enter the waters there.

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New Batteries!

New Dyno batteries in cabin

After all the charging problems we had on our June cruise, we decided to replace all our house batteries. Here are the six new Dyno batteries sitting in the main cabin of Phoenix, ready to be lowered to the engine room.

As readers of this blog know, we had continual problems with charging our batteries on our June cruise due to a few worn-out batteries in our house bank. It goes without saying that we should have replaced the 5-year-old batteries before we left Anacortes, but we thought we’d be able to get by a little longer before we shelled out our cash. Batteries are one of the major expenses on a powerboat. At any rate, Jim recently made a trip to Anacortes to buy new batteries and replace the bad ones.

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Navigating Tidal Rapids in the Inside Passage

canoe pass slack

Canoe Pass is a narrow passage that flows alongside Dent Island Lodge. I took this photo at slack water from our boat shortly after we arrived. At slack water, the current is calm and the sea is flat. The side deck of the lodge is visible at the right in the photo, and offers a great place to watch the current ebb and flood.

The Inside Passage is famous for big tides and fast currents. As the water floods and ebbs from the Pacific Ocean, it is constricted when it forces its way through narrow passages, called tidal rapids. There are many tidal rapids all along the Inside Passage. When we were at Dent Island, we had a chance to watch the tidal rapids in Canoe Pass from the shoreline and see how the water changed throughout the day as the currents changed direction.

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Dent Island Cruise Wrap-Up

sunrise anacortes marina

The glow of the morning sunrise was a stark contrast to the dim early morning light on boats in Anacortes Marina.

Due to some of the issues on our Dent Island cruise, we got back to Anacortes Marina a few days later than we planned. Because we had to be back in Bend, we had only a few days to clean up the boat and get things in order after our cruise. The item of highest importance, needless to say, was doing more serious testing to determine the status of our house batteries.

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July 5 – Port Browning to Anacortes

leaving port browning

Looking back at Port Browning Marina in the early morning as we were leaving on our way to Anacortes.

It was glassy calm and clear at o-dark-thirty this morning. The forecast calls for wind to fill in later in the day, but it sounds like there will be less wind in the San Juan Islands than in the Gulf Islands. Today might be a good day to get back to Anacortes.

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