Misadventure in Gabriola Passage
Ah, Gabriola Passage — the current, she does run strong there. From the Nanaimo News Bulletin: Two rescued from waters off Gabriola.
A fishing expedition turned horribly wrong for a Cedar resident and his friend Wednesday morning when their boat capsized in the waters off Gabriola Island. (…)
The fishermen ran into trouble in the strong current that runs between Gabriola and Valdes Island [continue]
[Source: sorry, article no longer available.]
Filed in boating,Gabriola Island 6 Comments so far
6 Responses to “Misadventure in Gabriola Passage”
Michael Mehta on 08 Sep 2010 at 10:03 pm #
Gabriola Pass can be a dangerous and wonderful place at the same time. It has some of the best scuba diving in the world, and would be an excellent place also for a tidal turbine project. You can, however, get into serious trouble with an underpowered boat. Initially I had only a 6HP motor on my 12′ inflatable and going through the pass was downright dangerous. With my new 25HP motor on the same boat – not a problem. You do have to respect the conditions in the pass and not make any quick directional changes when it’s running fast and hard. Glad to hear that these boaters are alive and well.
nick on 09 Sep 2010 at 9:52 am #
One of the messages too is don’t rely on tide tables in newspapers for timing your passages unless you are good at mental arithmetic or have done it many times before. The slacks of the currents through Dodd, False, and Gabriola passages are not related to the times of high and low tide in any simple fashion.
cheryl on 09 Sep 2010 at 6:55 pm #
I would like to add that if you have nooo knowledge of the waters around Gabriola stay off the water. A hard lesson my husband and myself learned two summers ago. Before cannoning or kayaking even rowing your dingy around for fun say in the Drumbeg bay with your children find out if the water you plan to be on is safe. Do your homework!
We innocently took a row boat out from little Drumbeg with out knowing about the tidal currents and found ourselves in a very sticky situation that could have ended badly. We were lucky and I’m grateful for my husbands strength. We managed to make it safely to Degnan Bay near the Government docks. We now have a canoe and we take great care in were we paddle and have researched currents in and around the islands near Silva Bay. Be water wise my friends those two fisher men were verrry lucky.
Gabriolan on 10 Sep 2010 at 9:31 am #
Michael —
>You can, however, get into serious trouble with an underpowered boat.
How did boaters ever get through Gabriola Passage before the invention of boat motors, do you think? Did the Snuneymuxw just never go that way? Or do canny non-motorized boaters only go through Gabriola Passage at slack tide?
nick on 10 Sep 2010 at 9:40 pm #
Oh the Snuneymuxw definitely did go through the passage on their way to the Fraser River and they would certainly have known when it was safe to do so. The Spanish explorers in 1792, talking about rapids north of here, mentioned that the local Indians indicated to them where the sun would be in the sky when the current was slack. The Snuneymuxw had a story they told the children that if they made a noise they would offend a monster in the deeps who would tip them over, an obvious invention of anxious fathers not wishing to be distracted while paddling through.
Gabriolan on 10 Sep 2010 at 9:48 pm #
That’s a delightful detail, Nick! Thanks.