The Oceanconnect.ca thread

[Marco Flamingo]

TF member Hobbit mentioned Oceanconnect.ca in another thread and I downloaded it. Have been using it all of three days and think it deserves a thread. It has some of the characteristics of Windy, but may become my new general daily planning tool. It has wind direction predictions, like Windy, but also has the most detailed current predictions for Canada. That is to say it has direct read predictions, whereas prior planning required some odd calculations (i.e., current flows north 1 hour 26 minutes after high tide in Namu, except M, W, F). That or "local knowledge" (i.e., "I always stay on the north side of the channel during neap tide ebbs").

Oceanconnect.ca isn't just for Canadian waters. It also extends south, covering the entire Puget Sound, and north, covering the inside passage in Alaska. So of course the first thing I did was look at Grenville Channel. I always figured somewhere between Lowe Inlet and Klewnuggit Inlet the current "split" with ebb running out both directions, north and south. What does Oceanconnect say? "No currents data at this location" for more than the entire middle section of the Channel. Okay, it is apparently complex (as I learned last week). Still, the program is a keeper.

Coming down Laredo Channel yesterday, which floods from the north and south, I was surprised to learn the flows don't meet at a halfway point. Far from it. We took a lunch break at the dead zone and waited for the change. Oceanconnect does cover all of Tolmie Channel. I sure have guessed that one wrong a few times.

Years ago, the University of Washington built a scale model of Puget Sound and did a fairly simple booklet of currents, including eddies, changing every 3 or 4 hours. It was a favorite of sailboaters. Oceanconnect appears to have this broken down into half hour increments.

Another thing I've used is the lighthouse reports. Now that we have Starlink aboard, we can go to EnvironmentCanada quicker than listening to WX reports (when we can get them). Oceanconnect has the stations marked and by clicking on them you get a simple written report. When Ivory Island reports 0km wind and seas calm, it's a go. One thing that I miss is that when searching for info, there isn't a "near me" choice. For instance, it seems to default to Namu for tides. I don't care what it is doing in Namu when the Milne Island tide station is 10 miles away. Maybe it doesn't know where I am? That's still a possiblity despite Google knowing to within 30 feet.

There seems to be layer upon layer of info, and I haven't plumbed the depths yet. So far, it seems like a great thing to have in the navigation toolbox.

Mark

 

[GMS]

Discovered Oceanconnect.ca while cruising Desolation Sound and the Broughtons this summer. The site/application was very helpful and generally more accurate in those waters and Windy or PredictWind. Oceanconnect basically makes the new PredictCurrent useless (especially consider the poor coverage in Canadian waters).

Highly recommend checking it out!

 

[SteveK]

Mark,
move the location you want under the square with circle in the center of the page and then tap the current icon in the header.

 

[Marco Flamingo]

That's what I've been doing, but tapping "tides" instead of currents. We are in the Kitasoo Spirit Bear Conservancy right now, with the Milne Island tidal station 13.6 miles away. Wait, there's a spirit bear on the beach!! False alarm, it was a stump.

But even with the location square in the right spot in our Bay of Plenty anchorage (Laredo Inlet), when I ask for tidal info, I get Namu, which is 67.3nm away and in "southern" B.C. (south of Seaforth Channel). Not much help.

I've found the Oceanconnect current info useful, but the tidal info has to be parsed out to make sure it's giving me the closest station. It's probably me that needs work, not the app.

 

[SteveK]

Mark,
move the location you want under the square with circle in the center of the page and then tap the current icon in the header.

Mark, I just checked my current location and my instruction was backwards. It jumps back to your last location as a starting point it remembers. So first tap the current/tide in the header and then move your current or chosen spot under the circle/square. Each time I release the mouse clicker it displays the spot the circle/square is at complete with location name. When I reached my current location it correctly displayed where I am.

 

[Marco Flamingo]

The app seems to be a work in progress. I thought maybe there was a paywall that was limiting my access to some info, but what they have is all free.

I still always default to tides in Namu no matter where I place my location dot, even though there are many closer stations. Right now, we are planning on going through Meyers Narrow three or four days from now. So I put the location dot there and looked at currents. Currents are only predicted out for 40 hours in the app, so that requires a bit of a workaround.

What's odd is that the currents given are obviously incorrect. Using the slide bar to change times, the current in Meyers Narrow varies from 0knt to .3knt from hour to hour, day to day. I know that it can flow at 6knt, so something is wrong there. The current direction is accurate, meaning that it shows changing from west to east today at 1015 (low water slack), but the current strength is all wrong. I would say that Meyers never flows at 0 and only flows at .3 for a minute or two.

Using low or high water slack for passage (I would prefer high water, but right now that would be in the dark) can be approximated by switching from current data to tide data, since low/high tide is generally close to slack. Unfortunately, it gives me the tide data at Namu, even though my location dot is right next to the tide data marker in Meyers Narrow. Obviously, the Meyers Narrow station is the one I want to use.

That is how I estimated best time for passage, i.e., old school. If the current information was accurate, I could see whether low tide is actually low slack and whether an 1130 passage would still be okay. If you are familiar with Meyers, you don't change your mind halfway through. Also, since 40 hours is as far out as the Oceanconnect app shows, I need to add about 25 minutes for the next day's slack, etc., and get a close estimate beyond 40 hours. Or go to Navionics.

Oceanconnect not only gives current predictions for the location dot but also a general "color coded" approximation. It goes from light blue (0 knots) to navy blue (+4.3 knots). The color in Meyers Narrow never changes, meaning that it is another area that the app should designate "currents not available for this area" (as is the case with Nakwakto Rapids.)

Mark

 

[SteveK]

Using the search feature (magnify glass icon) it comes up no current available so what you are seeing is a placeholder current? I have been using in the more travelled areas and comparing to other apps.

 

[SteveK]

Today I compared phone app and laptop app. The phone goes to my current location, but the laptop app returns to my previous location that I remember adding as a favorite, something I cannot find now.
So it may be a work in progress.

 

[Hydraulicjump]

On the advice of another Helmsman owner I gave Oceanconnect a complete workout this summer on a Seattle-SE Alaska and back trip. Of course, like many, I use Windy for wind, wave, and precip. All of that can be the same as what you get in Oceanconnect since is built off of the new HRDPS/RDWPS models from Environment Canada, just with a nicer web interface (you can select these models in Windy).

Data Sources - OceanConnect - Documentation

OceanConnect offers free marine forecasts and current ocean conditions for surfing, boating, fishing and all other ocean activities in BC and Washington. This documentation provides information on our service and data sources.

oceanconnect.ca

As for the currents, it was fantastic to have this and, in general, the performance was good. As I think everyone who cruises in the PNW knows, there are predictions and there is reality, with the two often not in sync. After 2000 nm I determined that the “worked in your favor” mis-predictions equaled the “worked against you” mis-predictions. Still, I thought this was a great resource. What was a bit mystifying were the lighthstation presentations. I think somehow Oceanconnect gets updates on conditions more frequently than those posted online by Environment Canada, but on occasion I found that they did not match, which was worrisome, especially when trying to get around Cape Caution or across Dixon Strait. But it was not consistent so I can’t draw any firm conclusions.

Overall, hats off to the Hakai Institute for putting this out there, making it easy to use and, most important I guess, making it free. It is now my go-to-first app for weather, tides and waves pretty much anywhere in the PNW.

Jeff

 

[Bmarler]

Just downloaded it. At first glance looks pretty good, just need to figure out where everything is and how it responds. The current arrow at the top I’m assuming is pointing compass direction? Map is always north up?

 

[Marco Flamingo]

Frustrating how often the light stations and buoys said "no report," but it was nice to have that info with just a click instead of listening 20 minutes to a scratchy WX report only to hear "no report."

 

[Portage_Bay]

Frustrating how often the light stations and buoys said "no report," but it was nice to have that info with just a click instead of listening 20 minutes to a scratchy WX report only to hear "no report."

20 minutes? On a good day. My attention is drawn to other things and I realize I just missed the report I'm interested in and have listen to the entire string again.

 

[MichaelD]

I’ve not used it much but what sold me was what it shows within a few hundred meters of our house. North facing shore of San Juan Island with interesting counterintuitive current rips and standing waves from nearby point, that I’ve watched with interest from shore show up on the app. Amazing.

 

[Marco Flamingo]

Having referred to it for a couple of weeks, I'm not as impressed as I had hoped to be. It tends to imply an accuracy that it doesn't deliver. For instance, currents in the various passages, where accuracy is really important. The time line showing current changes is in increments of one hour! 1300, current is flowing east at 1.4kt. 1400, current is flowing west at 4.2kt. Somewhere in there is slack, and that's what I'm looking for. Washtub size whirlpools are to be avoided.

The apps "color coding" for the different current speeds (darker as speed increases) also seems haphazard. Coming through Whirlpool Rapids and down Johnstone Straight, there are obvious eddies and my knot meter can quicky change plus or minus 2 knots when crossing them. The Oceanconnect app would just show a mottled area that didn't really correspond with reality. But it looks like it is supposed to.

I actually went out of my way a couple of times to check out what the app showed as a current anomaly. It was accurate almost 50% of the time. That said, the current arrows and speeds given on my Garmin app (probably CHS data) aren't a lot better. Cruise over the top of a current arrow on the MFD chart in the direction of the arrow and look at the table. It will say something like "+2.5 knots" right at that time. Do I get that? About 70% of the time.

I know that current accuracy on the inside passage, especially counter-currents, small eddies, changing from neap tides to spring tides, etc, is really, really hard to get accurate. But pretending accuracy doesn't help. Oceanconnect isn't the panacea I had hoped for, in fact, it may be slower than just doing the calculation using Waggoner Ports and Passes. And less accurate.