Lowe Inlet to Baker Inlet

Today, I woke up at 4:00am and it was already starting to get light out. I suppose that is to be expected for the longest day of the year. Unfortunately, summer solstice will not be completely sunny for us. A front is moving in and we expect the weather to become drizzlier by tonight. We had a very peaceful evening in Lowe’s Inlet and considered staying another night, but eventually decided to keep heading north and try out Baker Inlet next. When we were dreaming about cruising to SE Alaska a few years ago, I remember reading about Baker Inlet and how amazing it was. It is so cool to actually be heading there.

While we were getting some computer work done, Don spotted a pair of brown creatures on the shore. All of the other boats had left and we had the inlet to ourselves. The creatures were too small to be bears and we thought they might be deer or wolves. We both got binoculars and realized they had wings…definitely not deer or wolves. Upon further research we realized they were most likely Sandhill Cranes! Very cool, but too far away to photograph. They are much larger than a blue heron. They can be 4 feet tall and have a wing span of 7.5 feet! You can read more about Sandhill Cranes here.

Back to our journey for the day…to get into Baker Inlet you have to go through Watts Narrows. With it being a FULL moon today, that means we should traverse during slack waters which will coincide with high and low water at Prince Rupert. With boating you are continually checking on tide levels (up and down movement/height of the water) and currents (in –flood and out–ebb movement of water). Especially in narrow passages, the current can play a big factor with when it is safe to proceed.

With research, we knew that we should be at Watts Narrows around 2:30pm (1430) to go through without an issue. Too much current and you lose control of your steering…the water just takes the boat where it wants to. So, with that knowledge and the fact that 22.7NM to the narrows would take us a minimum of 3.5 hours, we planned to leave no later than 11:00am (1100).

After weighing anchor at 10:45am (1045) we were off. Grenville Channel was decent, but the wind continued to pick up from behind us which created some following fetch. The good news was that we were able to ride the current up the channel. Normally “Blue” cruises at 6.5kts. We got up to 10.2kts. That made the trip quicker than expected. So, we waited at the entrance to Watts Narrows and got our shrimp pots ready. (On Navionics, which is one of our chart plotting programs we use, there is mention of good shrimping in Baker Inlet.)

We went ahead and started transited Watts Narrows at 2:00pm (1400) and it was fine. We found what we hope are two great spots to leave the shrimp pots overnight. In the San Juans we only soak our shrimp pots for an hour because of the larger currents at play. Up here in B.C., people leave their pots overnight, so we are going to give that a try.

We anchored in a nice location, took a nap, and made salmon-crab alfredo for dinner. Not a super exciting day, but perfect in its own way. Wish we could see the splendor around us, but gray and drizzly has its own kind of beauty.