Destination guides

Vancouver to the San Juans and on to Seattle

The border passage, done the way it is actually done: two ordinary days rather than one impossible one.

People ask for Vancouver to Seattle as a single passage and it is not one — about 125 miles, which is roughly eighteen hours at seven knots against fourteen hours of midsummer daylight, and in any case US customs must be cleared at your first landfall. Roche Harbor is the usual clearance and makes the first day about fifty-four miles. The first day carries two gates that do not share a slack: First Narrows in the first half hour and Active Pass thirty-odd miles later, so expect to compromise on one of them. The second day is Haro and then Admiralty Inlet, which is the one that wants the tide with it.

The Sunshine Coast to Princess Louisa

Up the mainland shore to a granite-walled inlet at the head of Jervis, through two of the more serious gates on the coast.

Two gates and neither of them forgives a rough estimate. Sechelt Rapids at Egmont runs past twenty knots at springs and is a slack transit only. Malibu, the entrance to Princess Louisa, publishes no current data at all, so its slack is derived from the Sailing Directions rule — about high water Point Atkinson plus twenty-five minutes — and the sensible plan arrives early and waits. Add a day over the minimum: the inlet deserves more than a night, and the two rapids will not both fall conveniently on the days you wanted.

Desolation Sound and the rapids above it

The warm water everyone comes for, and then the chain of tidal gates at the top of it.

Two different kinds of trip joined together. Inside Desolation there is nothing to time — the floods arriving around both ends of Vancouver Island meet here and largely cancel, which is why the water is warm and why the hour you leave barely matters. North of it the opposite applies: the Yucultas, Gillard and Dent are three separately gated rapids in about six miles, and although the first two share a station and turn within minutes of each other, a boat still needs the better part of an hour to get between them. Take the Yucultas about an hour before slack at Gillard so the building stream carries you through the set. Big Bay is where boats wait, and it sits east of Gillard, so stopping there leaves the two fastest gates ahead of you.

Seattle to the San Juans, the classic week

The trip most Puget Sound boats do first: up Admiralty Inlet, across to the islands, a loop of the good harbours, and home.

Two hard bits at opposite ends. Admiralty Inlet wants the ebb under you going north and the flood coming home, and Cattle Pass wants to be met somewhere near its turn — worst against a summer southerly. The middle of the trip is easy water and can be reshuffled freely around the weather. Port Townsend is the natural first night out of Shilshole and the natural bailout when the day will not reach the islands in daylight.

The inside route: Seattle to La Conner and the Swinomish

Every mile of it inside Whidbey. No Admiralty Inlet, no Rosario Strait, no Deception Pass — and the same water carries on to Anacortes when you want it to.

The sheltered way north, and the one to take when the Strait is up. The trade is not distance but a different constraint: the Swinomish Channel is a hundred feet wide, dredged to twelve feet at MLLW, and depth binds before current does. Give TidePush your draft. La Conner is worth a night in its own right, and Everett or Langley breaks the run for a slower boat.

San Juans into the Gulf Islands

Cross the border at Roche or Friday Harbor and work north through Trincomali to Nanaimo.

Dodd Narrows is the gate that shapes this trip, and it is not a place to arrive early: enter on or just after the turn in your favour and let the stream carry you out. Pirates Cove is the classic place to lie and wait for it. Clear customs before anything else — Bedwell Harbour on the way NORTH into Canada, and US customs at Roche or Friday Harbor on the way home.

Nanaimo to Desolation Sound

North up the Strait of Georgia to the warm water: the long trip, and the one most worth doing.

The Strait of Georgia is the whole problem. It is 24 to 40+ nm of exposed water with no shelter in the middle, so this is a sea-state decision rather than a current one — and TidePush gates it on wave height, period and the angle the sea meets your course. Cross early, cross on a forecast you have watched for two days, and be willing to sit. Whiskey Golf can close the direct line; check its status yourself, because the app does not yet route around it.

The South Sound circuit

Under the Narrows and round the bottom of Puget Sound — quiet water, short hops, and almost no crowds.

Two gates on one trip, and they do not line up: the Tacoma Narrows and then Dana Passage further south. That is the interesting planning problem here, and it is why the recommended cast-off for the Olympia leg is often earlier than it looks like it should be. Everything else is short and forgiving.

Everett to the islands

The north-end alternative to leaving from Seattle, with a choice of two ways through.

Everett gives you a choice Shilshole does not: Deception Pass or the Swinomish Channel, both inside Whidbey, and within a mile of each other in distance. What separates them is the CONSTRAINT: Deception carries the strictest current gate in the library, the Swinomish no tide gate at all but a depth limit instead. On a big tide, one of them will be shut and the other open — which is precisely why both are in the app.

Port Townsend to Victoria

Across the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca to a genuinely foreign harbour.

A short passage in exposed water, which is a different thing from a short passage. The eastern Strait is open to the Pacific, so swell reaches in whether or not there is local wind to explain it, and a westerly over an ebb builds fast. TidePush gates this crossing on sea state rather than current. Clear customs at the Inner Harbour on arrival.

A Tacoma weekend

Short hops from Commencement Bay for a boat that does not have a week.

None of these is long enough for the tide to cost you an hour. What the timing decides is whether you meet Dalco Passage civilly and how you cross the ferry tracks — which is a real question even when the clock is not.

Friday Harbor

The county seat of San Juan County and the busiest harbour in the islands, with the state ferry landing right in the middle of it. That combination makes Friday Harbor the least demanding arrival in the San Juans — a wide, well-marked entrance, a large marina, and a town you can walk off the dock into — and it is why most first visits to the islands start here.

It is also the customs port for the group, which shapes a lot of trips: boats returning from British Columbia clear here, and the timing of that has a way of deciding where the previous night was spent.

Passage planning: The approach from the south runs through Cattle Pass, which is a genuine gate: the ebb runs to about three knots and is at its worst against a summer southerly. From Puget Sound the whole trip is usually shaped by Admiralty Inlet first and Cattle Pass second.

Roche Harbor

A resort harbour on the north-west corner of San Juan Island, built around the remains of a lime works, and the second customs port in the group. The colours-down ceremony at sunset is either the charm of the place or the reason to anchor elsewhere, depending entirely on the boat you are on.

Its position matters more than its facilities: Roche sits at the top of Haro Strait, which makes it the natural last stop before crossing to the Gulf Islands and the natural first stop coming back.

Passage planning: Reached by Haro Strait or by Spieden Channel and Mosquito Pass. Haro carries real current and real traffic; the inside route past Spieden is shorter on the chart and fussier in practice.

Echo Bay, Sucia Island

A curving bay on the south side of Sucia Island, which is a state marine park with no road, no ferry and no facilities beyond mooring buoys and trails. The sandstone formations the island is made of are worn into shapes that make it worth the walk ashore.

It is the northernmost anchorage of the group, which gives it an odd double life: a quiet weekend destination for boats out of Bellingham and Anacortes, and the first or last American water for boats crossing to and from the Strait of Georgia.

Passage planning: There is no customs dock on Sucia, so a boat arriving from Canada must clear in somewhere else first — Roche Harbor or Friday Harbor for a boat coming down Haro. From Vancouver the passage is a single gate at First Narrows and then twenty-five miles of open Strait of Georgia, which is the part that decides whether the day is pleasant.

Deer Harbor, Orcas Island

A small, sheltered harbour on the south-west corner of Orcas, tucked behind Fawn and Double Islands. Much quieter than Friday Harbor, and a better base if what you came for is the islands rather than the town.

Orcas itself is the biggest of the group and the most vertical — Mount Constitution is the high point of the archipelago, and the view from it takes in most of the water this app plans.

Passage planning: Usually approached through Wasp Passage or round the top of Shaw. The passes between the islands run harder than their size suggests, and the ferries use them.

Reid Harbor, Stuart Island

A long, narrow, well-protected inlet on Stuart Island, entirely a state marine park, with mooring buoys and a dock and no ferry service of any kind. Stuart has no public road connection, which is exactly the point: the island is reached by boat or not at all.

The walk to Turn Point light on the western tip is the thing people remember — it looks straight down Haro Strait into Boundary Pass, and the shipping goes past close enough to read.

Passage planning: The last American harbour before the border. Boats bound for the Gulf Islands often use it to stage for Boundary Pass and the crossing to Bedwell.

Port Townsend

A Victorian seaport at the corner where Admiralty Inlet meets the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the centre of wooden-boat work in the Pacific Northwest. The Wooden Boat Festival each September is the largest of its kind in the country.

Geographically it is the hinge of this entire cruising area. Almost everything leaving Puget Sound for the islands passes it, and almost everything coming back does too — which is why TidePush uses it as the standard bailout when a day cannot reach further in daylight.

Passage planning: Point Wilson, immediately outside, is one of the more consequential corners in these waters: a westerly over an ebb stands up short and steep exactly where you turn. It is not a current gate — the passage is wide — but it is a serious wind-over-tide hazard, and TidePush treats those as separate things.

Blake Island

An entire island given over to a state marine park, with mooring buoys, a dock and a beach, and no permanent residents. It sits close enough to Seattle to be an easy first night out and far enough to feel like somewhere else.

The moorage fills early on a summer weekend, and the shoal running off the north spit catches people every year.

Passage planning: Ten miles from Shilshole with no gate on the way, so the tide cannot cost you much. The crossing of the shipping lanes is the thing worth timing well.

Poulsbo

A town at the head of Liberty Bay with a Norwegian-settler history it has leaned into thoroughly. Sheltered, shallow, and an easy overnight from Seattle.

The approach is the interesting part, and it is the reason this short trip is in the app at all.

Passage planning: Agate Passage is short, shallow, bridged, and runs to five knots. On a passage this short the timing question is not how much time the tide saves — it is whether the pass is open when you get there, which is a different question and the one TidePush answers.

Gig Harbor

A small, almost completely enclosed harbour on the west side of the Narrows, with a fishing-fleet history and an entrance narrow enough that first-time visitors often cannot see it until they are on it.

Once inside it is as protected as anywhere on the Sound.

Passage planning: The Tacoma Narrows and Dalco Passage both bear on the approach. Dalco sets across the track and the Tahlequah ferry crosses it every half hour, so the timing here is about meeting the traffic and the stream civilly rather than saving minutes.

Olympia

The state capital, at the head of Budd Inlet and the very bottom of Puget Sound. Getting there means threading the South Sound islands, and the reward is water that stays empty on weekends when the San Juans are full.

It is a long way from Seattle by boat and a short way by car, which is most of the reason it stays quiet.

Passage planning: Two gates that do not line up: the Tacoma Narrows and then Dana Passage. Satisfying both is the real planning problem on this route, and it often means an earlier cast-off than the distance suggests.

La Conner

A small waterfront town on the Swinomish Channel, midway along the cut that joins Skagit Bay to Padilla Bay. The Rainbow Bridge over the channel is the town’s landmark, and the tulip fields behind it are the reason the place is busy in April.

For a boat, La Conner is both a destination and the natural halfway point of the inside route to Anacortes.

Passage planning: The channel is the constraint, and it is a depth constraint rather than a current one: about a hundred feet of usable width, maintained to twelve feet at MLLW, and shoaling between dredgings. Give TidePush your draft. Dock against the current, and note that the buoyage reverses partway through the cut.

Anacortes

On the north-east corner of Fidalgo Island, with the San Juan ferry terminal, several large marinas and most of the marine trades in the area. It is the most practical place in the region to leave a boat, provision it, or have work done.

Cap Sante marina sits in Fidalgo Bay on the east side of town, which matters for the approach: coming from the Swinomish you arrive round March Point, and coming from Rosario you arrive through Guemes Channel.

Passage planning: Two ways in from the south, within a mile of each other in distance, and they fail differently. Deception Pass carries the strictest current gate in the library; the Swinomish Channel has no tide gate at all but a depth limit instead. On a big tide one of them will be shut.

Everett

One of the largest marinas on the west coast, at the mouth of the Snohomish River behind Jetty Island. For boats kept here the trip north starts twenty miles closer than it does from Seattle.

The river matters: after heavy rain the outflow is the stream that counts in the first mile, which no current table will tell you.

Passage planning: Leaving Everett you get a choice Seattle does not: the inside route up Saratoga Passage to either Deception Pass or the Swinomish Channel, or out via Possession Point and Admiralty Inlet. The stream turns over at Possession Point, which catches people going both ways.

Neah Bay

A Makah tribal harbour at the western end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, just inside Cape Flattery. It is the staging point for boats heading offshore or down the coast, and the place to wait for a weather window doing it.

A marina permit is required. Enter east of Waadah Island and inside the breakwater; the west entrance shoals.

Passage planning: Eighty miles from Port Townsend down a strait that funnels tide and is open to the Pacific at its far end. Ocean swell reaches a long way in on a westerly ebb, and this is a sea-state decision more than a current one.

Victoria

The provincial capital, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, with a working inner harbour surrounded by the city itself. Floatplanes land on the water and the customs dock is a short walk from the Parliament buildings.

It is a genuinely foreign port a day’s sail from Puget Sound, which is a rare thing.

Passage planning: The crossing from Port Townsend is short but exposed, in water open to the Pacific. A westerly over an ebb builds fast in the eastern Strait. Clear customs on arrival at the Inner Harbour.

Sidney

A small town on the Saanich Peninsula north of Victoria, with customs clearance and immediate access to the southern Gulf Islands. For boats bound for Trincomali or Ganges it is a more practical entry than Victoria.

The water east of it — Sidney Channel, and the islands beyond — is some of the most pleasant day-sailing in the region.

Passage planning: Reached from the San Juans across Haro Strait, which carries the traffic separation scheme and real current. Cross it square rather than crabbing along it.

Nanaimo

A city on the east coast of Vancouver Island, with Newcastle Island marine park directly opposite the harbour and everything a boat needs on the town side. It is the natural staging point for the Strait of Georgia and everything north of it.

Newcastle Island is worth the trip on its own: a whole island marine park a few hundred yards from a city centre.

Passage planning: Dodd Narrows, immediately south, is the gate that shapes every approach from the Gulf Islands. It runs to nine knots and is busy with tows that cannot give way; the practical strategy is to enter on or just after the turn in your favour. Pirates Cove is where people wait for it.

Pirates Cove, De Courcy Island

A snug anchorage on De Courcy Island, a marine park, and a favourite for stern-tying. The entrance is shallow and rock-strewn and needs to be taken seriously and on a rising tide.

Its real function on most trips is strategic: it is where boats lie to wait for Dodd Narrows to turn.

Passage planning: Fourteen miles from Nanaimo, and TidePush treats it as the staging harbour for the northbound Dodd transit rather than as a destination in its own right.

Hornby Island

Hornby sits off the east coast of Vancouver Island near Denman, and Tribune Bay is a wide crescent of genuine sand — unusual on this coast, where beaches are normally shingle or rock. It is a fair-weather anchorage, wide open to the south-east, and it empties fast when the wind goes round.

Helliwell Provincial Park on the headland has the best cliff walk in the northern Strait.

Passage planning: Thirty-five miles from Nanaimo up the Strait of Georgia, in exposed water. This is a sea-state passage: wave height, period and the angle the sea meets your course matter more than the current does.

Powell River

On the mainland side of the Strait of Georgia, historically built around its pulp mill, and now mostly useful to boats as a well-found stop on the way north. Westview harbour is the practical moorage.

From here Desolation Sound is within a comfortable day.

Passage planning: The crossing of the Strait of Georgia is the decision, not the arrival. It is 24 to 40+ nm of open water with no shelter in the middle, so cross on a forecast you have watched rather than one you have just read.

Lund

A tiny harbour at the northern end of Highway 101 — the same road that runs to the bottom of Chile — and the last provisioning stop before Desolation Sound. Savary Island, with more of that improbable sand, lies just offshore.

Beyond Lund the water changes character entirely: Desolation Sound is where the tides from the north and south ends of Vancouver Island meet, so the water barely flushes and warms up enough to swim in, which is why people come.

Passage planning: Sixty-two miles from Nanaimo outside Texada, which is a long day in exposed water and a passage to pick your weather for rather than your tide.

Coal Harbour, Vancouver

The inner basin of Vancouver harbour, ringed by downtown on one side and Stanley Park on the other, and about as urban as cruising gets in this part of the world — the marinas are a short walk from the middle of a major city, which is the whole appeal.

It is also a working harbour. Deep-sea ships load grain and containers on both shores and swing at anchor in the middle of the fairway, and Coal Harbour itself is an active water aerodrome with float planes landing along the north side of the basin all day. Neither is a hazard so much as a reason to keep your head up and stay out of the way.

Passage planning: Everything from Coal Harbour goes through First Narrows under the Lions Gate bridge, which runs to about seven knots at springs and is the gate that fixes your departure. Outbound you meet the flood on the nose; the ebb stands up against a westerly out in English Bay.

False Creek, Vancouver

The inlet that cuts into Vancouver behind Granville Island, with public docks and a good deal of city within walking distance of them. As a place it is a near neighbour of Coal Harbour — barely two miles apart by water.

As a passage it is a different proposition entirely, and that is the interesting thing about it. False Creek sits OUTSIDE First Narrows, so a boat leaving here never transits the gate that every Coal Harbour departure has to time.

Passage planning: No tidal gate on the way out. Past Kits Point you are already in English Bay and the hour you leave changes the passage by minutes rather than hours — which makes it the better Vancouver base for a boat that wants to leave when it suits.

Snug Cove, Bowen Island

A small harbour on the east side of Bowen Island at the mouth of Howe Sound, with the Horseshoe Bay ferry running into it and a village around the head of the cove. Under twelve miles from downtown Vancouver, which makes it the standard first night out and a genuine after-work destination for a fast boat.

Howe Sound opens up immediately beyond it, and the wind in there has a character of its own — a summer inflow that builds through the afternoon and dies off in the evening.

Passage planning: From Coal Harbour the only real constraint is First Narrows; once past Point Atkinson the water is unremarkable. From False Creek there is no constraint at all.

Pender Harbour

Not one harbour but a group of connected bays and coves on the mainland shore, with enough shelter in one arm or another for almost any wind, and enough services to make it the natural staging point for the run north.

It sits at about the halfway mark of the Sunshine Coast, which is what it is mostly used for: the night before Egmont and the Skookumchuck, or the night after coming back out.

Passage planning: Forty-seven miles from Coal Harbour, so First Narrows and daylight are the two things that shape the day. The Strait of Georgia crossing in the middle is the part to watch the forecast for.

Egmont and the Skookumchuck

A small settlement at the entrance to Sechelt Inlet, and the jumping-off point for two very different things: the Skookumchuck Narrows a short way in, and Princess Louisa Inlet a day further up Jervis.

The Skookumchuck is the reason most people come. It is among the fastest tidal rapids in North America, and the standing waves it throws at full flood are a spectacle people walk in to watch from shore. It is not a place to be in a boat at anything other than slack.

Passage planning: Sechelt Rapids runs past twenty knots at springs, which is not a number a boat negotiates — it is a slack-water transit and nothing else. If your plan does not put you there within the window, the plan is wrong.

Princess Louisa Inlet and Chatterbox Falls

A narrow inlet at the head of Jervis Inlet, walled by granite thousands of feet high with waterfalls coming off them, and Chatterbox Falls at the far end. It has a reputation as the finest anchorage on the coast and it is not an exaggerated one.

Getting in is the whole story. The only entrance is Malibu Rapids, a dog-leg so narrow that boats call before entering and transit one direction at a time.

Passage planning: Malibu publishes no current predictions at all, so the timing comes from the Sailing Directions rule instead — slack at about high water Point Atkinson plus twenty-five minutes. TidePush uses that rule and says that is what it is doing. Plan to arrive early and wait rather than to arrive on the nose.

Refuge Cove

A small settlement on West Redonda Island with a store, fuel and a dock, and effectively the supply point for Desolation Sound. Almost every boat cruising the area calls in at some stage, which makes it a good deal more sociable than its surroundings.

Its position is what earns it a place here: it sits at the junction of the routes into Desolation proper and the routes north toward the rapids, so it is the hinge that most itineraries in this area turn on.

Passage planning: Nothing to time getting here. The water inside Desolation Sound barely moves — the tides meeting from both ends of Vancouver Island cancel — which is why it warms up and why the hour you leave hardly matters.

Prideaux Haven

A group of connected anchorages behind Eveleigh Island on the mainland shore, and the best known in Desolation Sound. In August there will be a great many other boats there, which is the price of it being as good as it is.

The water here is the warmest on the coast by a wide margin — genuinely swimmable — for the same reason the currents are negligible: this is where the flood arriving around the north end of Vancouver Island meets the one arriving around the south, and the two largely cancel.

Passage planning: No gate and no meaningful stream. The passage-planning question in Desolation is daylight and distance, not tide.

Squirrel Cove

A deep bay on the east side of Cortes Island with room for a lot of boats and good shelter in most conditions, opposite Refuge Cove across Lewis Channel. A reversing tidal lagoon behind the anchorage empties and fills through a narrow gut, which is worth watching and worth staying out of in anything but a dinghy at slack.

Passage planning: An easy hop from Refuge Cove or Lund with nothing to time. The lagoon entrance is the only fast water and it is not on anyone’s route.

Big Bay, Stuart Island

A small community on Stuart Island in the middle of the rapids, and the traditional waiting place for the chain of three: the Yucultas, Gillard Passage and Dent Rapids. Boats gather here for the turn and leave in a group.

One thing about its position catches people out. Big Bay is EAST of Gillard, so stopping here leaves the two fastest gates of the three still ahead of you rather than behind.

Passage planning: The three rapids do not turn together, and the practice is to take the Yucultas about an hour before slack at Gillard so the building stream carries you through the set rather than stranding you between two of them.

Octopus Islands

A cluster of islets and pools at the north end of Quadra Island, protected as a marine park, and one of the more secluded anchorages in the area. That seclusion is entirely a function of the door: everything that reaches it comes through a rapid.

From the south that means Surge Narrows; from the north, Hole in the Wall. Either way the arrival has to be timed, which keeps the numbers down.

Passage planning: Both approaches are slack-water transits. Coming from Big Bay the passage takes Hole in the Wall and the Yucultas in one day, which is two gates that do not share a slack — a case where one departure cannot serve both and something has to give.

Dent Island

A small resort island immediately above Dent Rapids, at the northern end of the Yuculta–Gillard–Dent sequence. For most boats cruising Desolation it marks the turn-around point; for boats carrying on toward the Broughtons it is the last comfortable stop before the run north.

Devil’s Hole, the whirlpool below Dent on a big ebb, is the feature people remember and the reason the timing here is not negotiable.

Passage planning: Three separately gated rapids in about six miles, and the first two share a current station, so their slacks are within minutes of each other. That does not make them one decision: a boat needs the better part of an hour to get from one to the next, so they still cannot all be met at slack.