Crossing Cape Caution

Cape Caution is THE Great Cape on the British Columbia Coast. It may not be quite as extreme as the Great Capes that dip into the southern ocean, but for anyone moving up and down the coast in the Pacific Northwest this double-header cape is something to take seriously.

Like the Cape of Good Hope at the bottom of the African continent, where Cape Agulhas is the actual cape but no one refers to it by that name, Cape Caution is the southern headland and Kelp Head, which is often more serious in my experience, is to the north. The whole 20ish miles of exposed coast is referred to as "Cape Caution." It is not like the Great Capes of the world because it is about 40 miles anchor up to anchor down and you can bail out into an amazing anchorage in between headlands, so if you get caught out in conditions you don't like you can take a time-out. For us, on a monohull sailboat in summer, we might leave at first light and get in to an anchorage on the other side by lunch.

We have crossed Cape Caution in our own sailboats 16 or so times. My husband has done it many more times in powerboats going to and from the Central Coast for work. He's usually on a boat called Low Rider (West Coast Sea Otter Water Taxi) operated  by our friend Archie. Archie takes folks all over the Central Coast and runs in out of Wuikinuxv, the village at the head of Rivers Inlet, several times a week. I doubt there is anyone ever who has run the Cape more times than Archie. The first time we went north we got our tips from Archie, and he's who we tell our Cape-crossing horror stories to when we need someone who REALLY understands. (Side note: for our land-lubber family we refer to the Cape as "Cape Goodtimes" to help them manage their anxiety, and we usually tell them we're crossing it only when we are actually on the other side).

The Basics: If you are planning on running the Cape in any type of vessel, then the basic guideline is to wait for a day with a low seastate (I'd say 2 meters or less) and go early to beat the afternoon winds.

Good luck if your dream is to sail the cape. We find that the Cape usually has either 20+ knots of wind and a gnarly seastate or no wind. Finding decent and fun sailing conditions is hard, so we use seastate as the main decision factor, followed by wind, and with a bit of weight given to tide and current, and we just expect to motor-sail.

The Cape is supposedly captured in the McInnis to Pine Environment Canada marine weather region, but the forecasts for Queen Charlotte Strait to the south, and Queen Charlotte Sound to the west also important. Check the West Sea Otter buoy for the wave height and near-offshore wind. Use the grib weather models with care (things like Windy and Predict Wind). We find that the grib services do not predict the local winds very well for both speed and direction.

Typical departure anchorages on the southern side are Allison Harbour on the mainland or Clam Cove on Nigei Island. On the north side Fury Cove or Goose Bay are good options to wait for the weather.

As for a route, we tend to stay further offshore than the smaller work boats. We go out about as far as the line on the chart for the ferry route (2 to 3 miles), and we go around the 20 meter deep shoal on Cape Caution. The fishing boats and crew boats like Low Rider often go a lot closer to shore. They talk about finding calmer spots in the backwash from the waves near the rocks and sometimes tuck in behind the small islands. I say that rocks sink boats and that sailboats should stay away from rocks and lee shores.

Staying further out does mean that you might have more traffic from either the ferry, commercial fishing boats, or tugs and barges. If you have AIS they are easy to see coming, but if it's foggy be sure to keep a good watch since you can't rely on radar to pick up boats in the rolly seas.

We've run the Cape when it's flat calm and when the forecast has said 4-6 meters. I would not recommend 4-6 meters. Because the shoreline is so complex, with all the rocks and reefs and currents, the waves bounce around and stack up in mysterious and unpleasant ways. 2 meters or less seems to be the happy place. 

After finding a window with a wave height of 2 meters or less, pick a day with a forecast that is ideally blowing in the direction you want to go (no one likes to slog into a headwind), and at a wind speed that you're comfortable with. We try to keep it around or under 15 knots (largely to keep the chop low), but we'd go at 20 knots if it was with us (keep in mind we have a 44ft bluewater sailboat that eats waves for breakfast).

With the seastate and wind factored in, take a look at the tide station on Egg Island. There isn't a current station on the Cape, but you can look at the current on the south side in Gordon Channel and otherwise generalize that a falling/ebb tide at Egg Island is emptying out the inlets, and a rising/flood tide is pushing water in and filling them up. This can be a bit hard to visualize if you aren't used to places with big tidal ranges. It's extra complicated because every inlet has different flow that is influenced by geography (like how wide or shallow the mouth of the inlet is) and how much fresh water is getting dumped into them (some inlets have huge river systems. After a big rainfall there can be a lot of freshwater moving out the inlet even when the tide is rising). Picturing flood as "filling" and ebb is "emptying" is not perfect, but no current model on the BC coast is perfect because the coastline is so complex.

If wind weren't a factor then catch the current out the side your leaving, hit the Cape at slack, and ride the current into the inlet you're going to. For example, if you're going north ride the falling tide out of Queen Charlotte Strait towards the Cape and catch the rising tide into Fitzhugh Sound or Rivers Inlet. But since wind is a factor, try and balance current in your favour with avoiding wind against tide (especially when you're close to the headlands on the Cape) because the seastate can get steep and miserable.  

The good news is that if you get it wrong, going north or south, you can pull into Smith Sound for a rest. It's worth exploring Smith Sound and it's many lovely anchorages, but Millbrook anchorage on the northside of the inlet is the go-to stop when crossing the cape and is pretty much bomb proof. The entrance requires some attention because of the 90' corner between the islands. We can go in and out on any tide with our boat that draws 2 meters (6ft). The anchorage is frequented by the commercial fishing fleets, who come and go at all hours, so be sure to have a good anchor light (a deck light doesn't hurt either).

And if this Cape means something to you, or if you want to tell stories to friends (harrowing or full of good choices) then check out my map of British Columbia that has Cape Caution right in the middle.