Day 101: Thurston Bay to Teakerne Arm
- Laurel
- Aug 15, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 25
We left Thurston Bay this morning before dawn. We encountered the usual morning fog, so between the darkness and the haze, navigation required a great deal of faith in our instruments.
It took us two hours to get to the narrows. The most exciting moment was passing Matanuska, one of the Alaska State Ferries, in the narrowing passage in the fog. We passed within 1/4 mile of the ferry and could barely make it out through the mist. We would have liked to see more of Seymour Narrows, but the fog didn’t really lift until we got to Campbell River.
The Seymour Narrows has an interesting history. The narrowest point in the Discovery Passage, the Seymour Narrows has huge volumes of water moving through it with the tides; and mariners traversing this passage encounter currents of up to 15 knots (17 mph) and apparently the highest turbulance to occur regularly in a natural marine water channel. Explorer George Vancouver described it as “one of the vilest stretches of water in the world.” Vancouver had it worse than us, because prior to 1958, there was an underwater mountain peak, called Ripple Rock, just 9 feet below the surface right in the middle of the channel. You can imagine how scary it would be for a big low-tech sailboat with almost no control to traverse this narrow, turbulent, fast-flowing waterway with a hull-ripping rock right in the middle. It was such a terrible, dangerous section of an important waterway that in 1958 they dug a tunnel from shore, under Seymour Narrows, and up into the peak of Ripple Rock, then planted 1375 tons of explosives, and blew off the top of it. It was apparently the largest non-nuclear explosion in the world up to that point. The explosion was televised, and you can find videos of it on YouTube.
We stopped in Campbell River for fuel and supplies, but it wasn’t very fun. All the marinas were full and wouldn’t entertain the idea of us tying up for an hour to get some groceries, even the one where we spent a bomb filling up the fuel tank. In the end I hopped off and went in by myself while Ryan hovered until he found an empty finger that was hidden from the marina office where he could lie low until I finished.
After Campbell River we visited Mitlenatch Island, a provincial nature park, in the middle of Sutil Channel. Throughout the summer one can use the bird blind to watch glaucous-winged gulls raising their chicks on the rocks there. We were too late for gull babies, but we had a nice chat with this week’s caretakers. Apparently, the park service has volunteer wardens who live on the island for one week each throughout summer. The woman I spoke to was on her 23rd summer.
Perhaps more interesting to us than the gulls were the huge oyster beds in the bay, and the napping harbor seals lining the shore of the island.
Those seals are full-body nappers!
Finally, we met up again with Scott and Laurie on Float Plane in Teakerne Arm, another provincial park. After rafting up, we all jumped in the Float Plane dinghy and motored over to spectacular Cassel Falls.
Cassel falls is the outlet to Cassel Lake, which could be reached via a park service trail, so we got out for a little exercise to visit the lake.
Cassel Lake itself isn’t anything spectacular—I’m afraid this trip has spoiled us—but the water was warm and there was a slick-rock beach that looked like it would be a fun place to swim and sunbathe.
By sunset, Ryan and I were ready for bed. Today was a busy day!
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