Goose Cove, Rivers Inlet

“You have to be either nucking futs or very very adventurous”. And “Get a bigger boat”. Two comments I got between yesterday and today in response to my Facebook posts the last two days. My reply to the first is, yes. Lol. To the second, you can’t trailer a bigger boat easily and even the larger trawlers are staying off Queen Charlotte Strait and waiting to round Cape Caution for calmer winds.
The three of us left our anchorage in Miles Inlet just a little after 6am this morning. I was running a tad faster, so got to today’s destination about an hour ahead of Mike and Bill. (We’re all still running around 5 kts.) A few days ago when I checked the forecast for the Strait and Cape Caution, it was looking like this weekend would be the best days to go around the Cape. Winds were forecast less than 15 kts out of the NW. Advice found in various publications say winds forecast less than 15 kts, and a local weather sea buoy showing winds less than 15, along with waves less than 1 meter (3’) and with a period of 9 seconds or greater, provides for a comfortable ride. Unfortunately the winds didn’t read the forecast and have continued to blow 15 kts and greater. (The forecast still remained better for today, than the rest of the week. Sunday is now showing high winds out of the SE. Perhaps that will make the run a little easier, with tailwinds…) The sea buoy this morning was reporting waves of about 5’ and a 7 second period. And that is pretty much what we saw after leaving Miles Inlet. Still, it wasn’t terrible with the wave spacing, it was more of a swell. But there was some 1-2’ chop mixed in with that. As we neared Cape Caution, the waves became steeper and with a little shorter spacing. Mike and I were running about a mile and a half off shore, while Bill was running more like a quarter mile off shore. It sounds like we all got pretty much the same ride. It did seem to calm down some when I turned the corner past Cape Caution, but maybe just because of my new angle on the waves. Sometimes it seemed to smooth out a little bit, but then got rougher again. I did find relief behind Table Island for a short distance, but then back into the waves. Pretty much like this until turning into River’s Inlet for Goose Cove, where we are anchored for the night. Interesting to me, is the power with the water and waves. Not just seeing the waves splash up on the rock shores, but when passing islets or rock shoals, even those just beneath the surface, seeing the spray spout up from the waves pounding against them. The area we are in this evening, Rivers Inlet, is a historic area of past salmon fishing, with numerous canneries that are no longer in operation. Here in Goose Bay, we are anchored right across from one of those canneries.Read more