After leaving Ketchikan, we sailed in the Hecate Strait into the Queen Charlotte Strait. We passed
Pine Island and entered the 274-mile Inside Passage that stretches from Prince Rupert
in northern British Columbia to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. Many places along British Columbia's
Central Coast are still only accessible by the BC Ferry system. We continued into the Johnstone
Strait located on the northern coast of Vancouver Island which consists of a number of sharp turns,
a combination of currents and rocky shores. Johnstone Strait is also well known for its killer
whale pods. We eventually approached the Seymour Narrows, a very narrow passage with tidal currents
up to 16 knots, which can only be navigated during 'slack' tides. In 1958, a huge dynamite blast
removed Ripple Rock, located in the middle of Seymour Narrows, which sank at least a vessel
a year before its removal.
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