Today's the exciting day! We're going to try to go through Seymour Narrows!
Seymour Narrows connects the Strait of Georgia with Johnstone Strait. It's only eight-tenths of a mile wide, so the tide rushes through at a tremendous rate, sometimes as fast as 15 knots! (A knot is 6076 feet an hour.) Today, it will max at 7.5 knots. Since our top hull speed is 6.5 knots, we obviously can't buck that kind of tidal current. We have to go through the narrows at slack, and since we're heading north, we want slack turning to ebb, so the ebb tide will carry us speedily along in Johnstone Strait. The slack turning to ebb occurs at 3:10 this afternoon. We're currently approaching Discovery Passage, so we'll hole up some place until it's time to make the dash for Seymour Narrows.
We made it! In fact, it turned out to be a piece of cake. We were almost disappointed; we'd been looking forward to some excite-
ment. Oh, there were some eddies and rips, but nothing compared with the entrance to San Juan Channel. We didn't even hole up; we were outside the narrows at two o'clock, and the water looked so calm that Roy decided to make a run for it. We waltzed right through, no problem.
The scenery continues to be overwhelmingly beautiful. Saw four Orca whales playing in the water. Sometimes they came up so far, we could see almost their entire bodies. Lots of good views of their flukes.
The tidal current pushed us along at a good pace. We covered nearly 70 miles today! Arrived at Kelsey Bay around 8 o'clock.
Had our first scare just when we thought we were safely at the end of our day's journey. A fishing boat backed away from the dock just as we were approaching. they almost backed right into us. Roy blasted the horn, and they slowed down, giving Roy time to get by and turn around.
Tied to a government dock at Kelsey Bay. It's free! We didn't even pay for the electricity!
Roy bought two pounds of live prawns from a fishing boat. Then we walked a mile or so to the prosperous lumber village of Sayward. We were greatly impressed by the neat, attractive appearance of the village. All the houses were well-built and attractive, with green lawns and lots of flowers. We didn't see a single shack or run-down house or littered yard. Everything looked brand new. There was a park with a lake and a large playing field. There was a volunteer fire department, a community center, grocery store, restaurant, branch college, and an office of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
While we were eating our prawn supper, a very pleasant woman from another boat came by and gave us a salmon her husband had caught that day! They had more than they could eat. That was certainly nice of them. The fish was even cleaned. So we'll be feasting on salmon for several days.
The weather has started to turn cold. Rained on and off all day. It's hard to believe I was wearing shorts yesterday.
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