Nanaimo to Campbell River

 The first seaplane takes off at 7AM exactly followed by several more then the island ferry starts up so not much chance of sleeping late around Nanaimo harbour.

Nanaimo seaplanes awaiting the commuters

Anyway, it is a beautiful sunny morning, not much wind in the bay  and the forecast and current weather enroute looks fairly  good to the north so it’s time to go.

Later in the evening. We had a super trip today, left Nanaimo at 8:30 and arrived here at Discovery Marina in Campbell River at 3:30.  Total distance 75 miles.

Hudson Rocks Beacon just outside Nanaimo harbour

The Environment Canada forecast had a “Strong wind advisory” for the route we took and forecasted winds of 15 to 20 Knots in the afternoon but we figured that if we left early enough we would miss the worst of it. Anyway,as it turned out,  the ocean was flat calm all the way, not a ripple on the water all in all a beautiful day to be sailing.

Barge en route from Seattle to Ketchikan

This is the tow boat

Tug and tow

We overtook this tug and barge at Sisters Islets just off Lasquetti Island. These rigs run 24/7 at a slow 5 to 7 knots and are the main supply route for SE Alaska. Note the boats, cars and travel trailer on top.

BC Ferries Discovery Passage

There are numerous BC ferries running between the various islands and between Vancouver Island and the mainland. The ferries run on the same routes, sometimes hourly, and the routes are clearly marked on the nautical charts. On today's run we crossed 2 separate ferry tracks and , as always seems to be the case, the ferry and ourselves always want to meet at the same spot on the map and we end up slowing or stopping till they cross.
This happened on both crossings today, what are the chances??

View of Campbell River approaching from the South

Click on location tab below to see where we are at time of writing.