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Old 06-01-2012, 11:31 PM   #19
Marin
Scraping Paint
 
City: -
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 13,745
Peter--- Find Thorne Bay on a SE Alaska map or chart. It's northwest of Ketchikan. From there the Inside Passage goes south (it's really east but that confuses the hell out of everyone so it's easier to say south) past Ketchikan, along the BC coast across Dixon Entrance to Prince Rupert. From Prince Rupert the Passage goes southeast past the mouth of the Skeena River to the top of the first of two long narrow passages between the mainland and its eastern islands and the western islands that lie between the Passage and the Pacific. The two long channels are Grenville Channel at the north and Princess Royal Channel to the south.

From the lower entrance to Princess Royal channel you work your way down through some islands to the First Nations town of Bella Bella or the "white" settlement of Shearwater. Then it's down through Hakai Passage to the bottom of Calvert Island. At that point you have to go "outside" around the unprotected headland of Cape Caution. Full fury of the Pacific and all of that.

Once you get round that you're in Queen Charlotte Strait. You can skirt through the islands on the mainland side or cross the Strait to Port Hardy, then south to the top of Johnstone Strait. You can go down Johnstone which can have some serious winds that make life tough or thread through the islands to the east. Either way, you end up at Campbell River on Vancouver Island or in Desolation Sound to the east. Both are at the top of the Strait of Georgia which separates the lower half of Vancouver Island from the mainland.

From there you can run down the east shore of the island through the Strait of Georgia to Nanaimo or you can run down the mainland shore on the other side of the Strait of Georgia past Powell River and Texada Island to Pender Harbor. At that point most people go down to the bottom of Texada and cross over to the west to Nanaimo or Silva Bay at the top of the Gulf Islands. We prefer to run from near Campell River down the east shore of Vancouver Island to Comox, and then make the next long run from Comox to Nanaimo. Shorter than the mainland side but you have to watch the weather because there are precious few places between Campbell River and Nanaimo to duck for safety if the winds kick up.

Thread your way from Nanaimo down through the Gulf Islands, then cross Boundary Pass over to the San Juan Islands on the US side of the border, thread your way through those to Anacortes. La Conner, Eric's final destination, is just south of La Conner on the Swinomish Channel.

That's more or less how we fly the Passage coming home from SE Alaska. Eric may be taking detours along the way but that's the basic route.
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