Winds have been an issue for us since we left home. As you may recall, the forecast was a bit dire the day we departed, but conditions turned out to be not so bad.
The same was true today as we left Sidney on Vancouver Island bound for Silva Bay on Gabriola Island. Sometimes even the best marine weather forecasts are unnecessarily worrying. The important thing is not to be lured into danger thinking all will be well.
I once wrote a post explaining that even life-threatening rapids can be traversed safely using simple arithmetic. When will the rapids be at slack and how long will it take me to get there? Today we applied that simple method to crossing Porlier Pass at the northern end of Galiano Island.
Here we are going through 30 minutes before slack. A little bouncy but really nothing. The main thing to watch for are whirlpools that can form as the tide changes. They can whip you around and, in the worst case, capsize a boat.
Our reward for venturing out into the wind, was a sunny afternoon at Page’s Marina in Silva Bay on Gabriola Island.
Tomorrow, weather-permitting, we’ll make the 30+ mile open water crossing to Pender Harbour on the BC mainland.
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