Coming in from Queen Charlotte Sound’s outer passage at twilight with fog and zero visibility, McEwan rock showed up on our radar. The rock is one mile off Miles Inlet—our intended anchorage for the night and about 10 miles from Cape Caution.
We were about 30 minutes short of time for reaching our destination before nightfall when McEwan showed up close to the inner ring of our radar—1/4 mile from the center blip—our boat.
From the cockpit I kept a steady eye on the radar down below, knowing too well we were on the razor edge of dire straits. We had no electronic charts for Canada, only paper. Russ was at the helm, driving the boat at top speed. Darkness was at hand.
McEwan’s blip is coming up on the inner circle of the radar range—one with Zulu’s position.
“What are you doing?!!!!” I yell. Russ keeps steady ahead.
“What are you doing?!!!!!! The rock is on us!” I scream as loud as I can, my eyes fixed on the radar. “Is this some kind of kamikaze stunt?”
“There it is!” Russ yells.
The huge bald biscuit-coloured rock comes out of the fog like a bullet in our face—white waves pounding. This was the beginning of a very close end.
In your mind’s eye imagine the section of inland and outer-passage waterways between Prince Rupert and Port Hardy, British Columbia. We left Khutze Inlet off Graham Reach two days ago in all its exquisite and extravagant beauty. The mists curled and funneled in undulating patterns through the tree lines and we motored out into channels: Tolmie and Finlayson, past Sarah Island (where my keepsake from Sarah as a little girl blew out of my journal) into Milbanke Sound. It is here that I feel the long swells from the ocean to the west under Zulu’s belly.
The mists at Khutze Inlet off Graham Reach
The motion brings on a feeling of sleepiness, a feeling of being far away from myself. It is here, too, that two options present themselves: (1) Turn east through Seaforth Channel and wind through the still, deep, green protected inland waterways to Fitz Hugh Sound, which comes out into the southeast end of Queen Charlotte Sound and into the north end of the strait, or (2) proceed through the outer passage.
“We’re going the outer passage and will anchor at St. Johns Harbor tonight.” Russ says.
Well the captain has spoken and the sun is shining on sparkling waters, so let it be.
The wind picked up to 20 knots and coming into unknown St. Johns after a long day was a bit of a nail biter with waves crashing on an extended reef. Neck hairs bristled as we made the markers out. Seeing about 10 small fishing skiffs bobbing close to shore was somewhat of a balm on waters and in we went to anchor in the protected harbor. Zulu, alone with Tzoomie River and an old BC ferry-come-fish camp. Sleep with the roll.
Friday dawned bright, but with an eerie mist on Queen Charlotte Sound. Zulu entered through the curtain of fog. A shape emerged on radar approaching our port beam. Russ grabbed the fog horn and gave it three loud blasts. The vessel emerged like a ghost and crossed our stern.
“Russ!!” I yelled.
He popped through the hatch from down below. Dolphins!!! About a dozen came at Zulu from the forward port quarter. Like torpedoes. They surrounded Zulu and began their synchronized swims. My breath was taken away with delight and, too, with question. So many dolphins? What are they up to? Here now—then gone all too soon, into the depths of the sound.
“Those bull kelp look like pythons in the water.” Russ said.
They send ominous goose bumps up my spine. The shiny ball on the end of the ‘tail’ of kelp bobbed above the water and the tail followed—in a snake-like fashion—winding.
We can see ahead and sunlight burst out revealing the red marker showing Vancouver rock. Well away from it, I took note of the white water and extending perilous rocks, happy I could see them. Happy for navigation markers. I could not imagine being in the grips of their maelstrom. I thought of the equation.
Time = Distance over Speed.
“Russ, if I calculate this equation, I get 12 hours before Miles Inlet!”
“Nooo, he says. 10 hours. He starts his Voice of America imitations of fundamentalist sermons. For all the years I’ve known him, salt water triggers benign sacrilege.
“Hmmmm.” I think. 12 hours is a loooonnnnng time. 10 hours is a loooonnnnng time at this point. We’re going to run out of time before nightfall.
We’re in fog now with zero visibility late in the day, but Zulu pushes through the waters of the sound. I make note of the broad blue elastic band holding the cover on the compass and remember thinking way up in Tracy Arm, Alaska that there is no way I could read that compass with the condensation on the inside of the glass. But always I relied on the Autopilot digital readout of the course. I was hooked on it—knowing, too, that the plastic cover had become scratched and deteriorated so that I had to get way close and could only read it at a certain angle in the daylight.
The fog now engulfs us with less than a ¼-mile visibility, and in no time we are closed in. It is 9:00 PM!
“What time does the sun set?” Russ had asked earlier that afternoon. I had taken my Nikon camera out and looked at the picture I’d taken of the fishing boat at anchor in St. Johns Harbor, with its anchor lights reflected in the dark waters. The photo details indicated it was 10:10 PM. That was pitch dark. We had about ½ an hour of ‘light’ ahead with no visibility.
Fishing boat at St. John’s Harbor at 10:10 PM PDT.
McEwan rock is on our port stern quarter in the 2nd range ring of the radar, indicating ½ mile away. We are 1 mile from Miles inlet. That should take about 20 minutes. But we’d get there at dark, and with no electronic charts it would be iffy going in.
I fix my eyes on the radar seeing Russ pointing straight for McEwan. What the devil? Is he totally crazy? The radar shows the rock is on us!!! In retrospect, he thought if he could get a bearing off McEwan, he could then use GPS to find Miles inlet. He found out later that that was an impossibility bobbing around in the quiet swells of the great Queen’s waters. Also, that that decision was a reaaaaallllly big mistake. One that could have taken our boat and our lives.
McEwan is in our face as quick as lightening! The white waves surge and crash onto the rock. It is 9:10 PM. We are in the white foam of the crashing waves. The light on the compass is not working. The light on the Autopilot digital readout is not working.
Russ turns the wheel hard to starboard. In a panic he starts ripping the compass cover off so that he can see it with a flashlight. But in doing so he rips the whole compass out. It is 9:15 PM. We are locked into a life-threatening 10 minutes. Zulu swirls directionless.
“I see more rocks!! Extending from McEwan!!!!Turn the wheel the other way!!!!!” I yell. White foam is all around us. We are like a slow-motion whirling dervish on the edge of oblivion.
He turns the wheel then hears the screeching birdcalls from McEwan, as if to warn us off.
“No, the birds!!” I hear him say.
Again we are going into McEwan’s jaws, into it’s dangerous grips.
“No turn that way!” I call out. He turns the wheel again. I somehow lapse into a desperate calm. Night is on us at 9:25 PM.
“The wind is from the northwest! Go into the wind!” I yell again knowing that would give us reliable direction. I watch the radar and see—in the darkness of night and fog—McEwan edging away toward the outer ring of the first ¼-mile range, away from Zulus center. We are clear!!!!
I take the helm and by the light of the Navman wind indicator and by the wind in my face—I steer Zulu northwest into the deep with no compass bearing. Russ in the meantime uncovers another compass from the navigation desk; a compass from his Dad’s or our old boat 30 years ago. It works!! He places it on the pinnical.
All night we float to save fuel and to stay within a small area of circumference, starting the motor only to head northwest as we drift southeast down toward Pine or Stormy islands or other figments of imagination.
Russ stays in the cockpit. I make hot tea and coffee and soup and plot our position intermittently. I nap under the down feathers trying to disguise the terrifying experience. I hear the engine start up and the motor putter through the long hours.
I take watch before dawn and hear the distant sound of tugboats pulling barges close by, knowing sound travels far over water—gluing my eyes to the radar at the slow-moving blips. Thankfully we now drift northwest and out of danger.
Russ wakes at dawn.
“Set a course of 85 degrees.” He says. I plot our position.
"No way!! 110 degrees. ” I retort.
We pass McEwan in the fog at a comfortable distance seeing it’s harsh and ominous outline through the fog. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Hardly 15 minutes goes by, when still in virtual zero visibility we’re just short of land.
“Marilyn get up here!" I need your eyes!” Russ yells.
A lot of yelling had gone on. I am still plotting positions, the last one putting us in the mouth of the inlet! I look at the radar to see if we will ‘shoot the gap,’ then pop out into the cockpit and peel my eyes. We slip through the fog, land now slowly emerging on both sides of Zulu as if out of a steaming cauldrun, the inlet narrowing to 75 ft, and at the T we turn the rudder and anchor alone in the south arm. Old growth cedars with silver snags—on which moss and bull kelp and other unidentifiable organic material hang— stand guard. I can feel their silent presence. Rooted precariously in the rocks and earth.
I shed my seaboots and clothes, and dive under my feathers to find warmth and to get a sense of womb-like safety. I breathe deeply as my chest pains and pounds. I hold my breath. Slowly let it out. Feel the weight lift. Feel Russ slip in beside me. Know the bad night at McEwan rock is past. Know that we are somehow still alive.
Slowly I let go of the list of ‘should have hads’ and ‘should have dones’. I let go of the ghost vessel in the fog, the rush of dolphins, the bull kelp pythons, the lack of compass lights, the rock, the breaking waves, the white foam, the screeching bird calls, the night, the northwest wind, and drift into deep sleep.
Time = Distance over Speed is the last image that slips away. I sleep a long, long time in still waters safe in the arms of the inlet, in the care of the cedars.
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