Miles Inlet, Queen Charlotte Strait

This morning Mike and Bill were pulling out of the anchorage at 5am, as my alarm was going off. Lol. That was the plan, as Mike wanted to catch the outgoing current as long as they could. I left about 45 minutes later, and caught up with them, shortly after they turned into Queen Charlotte Strait. Earlier is also better, as the winds start to pick up late morning. The route took us back through Kenneth Passage, then Grappler Sound into Wells Passage, and on out to the Charlotte Strait. The Strait wasn’t too bad at first, with 1-2’ of chop with around 10kts of wind out of the WNW. We stayed within a quarter mile of shore most the time, and ducked behind islands when we could, to find smooth water. Just after passing through Browning Island, we came across a large fish farm. Stretched out a couple hundred yards. Even had its own satellite dish on the shore. We’ve seen some other commercial operations with the netting over them, but this one had a very high net. I googled it and learned that the net is to keep the Salmon from jumping out, and predatory birds from diving in to pick off the fish. However, Canada is outlawing the netting after 2029. Other than that, and seeing a lot of floating wood and logs on the shore, it was just a very scenic day. Coming out past Robertson Island, the chop became more like 2-3’ swells. However, by Shelter Bay it was getting rough again, and the winds were picking up. I’d estimate up to 15kts, and eventually closer to 20-25kts. The last five miles today were the roughest with 2-3’ chop in 3-4’ swells. We pulled into Miles Inlet and anchored at the end in some small coves, at 2pm. We plan to leave early tomorrow to go around Cape Caution.Read more