Trip of a lifetime.

[slasmith1]

I have been around boats my entire life (dad was a commercial fisherman) I've done too many bar crossings to count (Columbia river) boated in all conditions but I have never done the inside passage trip.

Is there anyone on this forum that has done the trip from the central sound through the inside passage. I am starting planning for this trip which will hopefully take place June/July 2009.

The boat I will be using is a 2000 Monterey 322cr twin 5.7 vp gsi dp 5kw genset. raymarine c80 radar plotter sounder with rl70 as backup.

any advice from people who have completed this trip would be great.

 

[ondarvr]

Re: Trip of a lifetime.

I've been boating in those waters, but never made the whole trip. I've been through classes and seminars discussing it and they were very informative, they normally have seminars at the Seattle boat show covering it.

 

[slasmith1]

Re: Trip of a lifetime.

thanks i'll try to catch one of those next month.

 

[woosterken]

Re: Trip of a lifetime.

Slas,
check your PM box,sent you some info.
it sounds like what you want to do.

woosterken

 

[oregonboatnewb]

Re: Trip of a lifetime.

Anyone know a good site that tells/shows about the conditions of different waterways ? I just got my 1st boat, and would love to take the girl and bro's up the columbia to see the things we drive past all the time, but have noticed over the years how many sand bars and rocks there are all over, and would love to find out anything i can about oregon rivers that are easy to drive, and where/what to watch out for.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Trip of a lifetime.

safe boating course first, learn to read the navitation markers.

 

[dan t.]

Re: Trip of a lifetime.

the best investment you could make is a set of cruising guides. we use Exploring the north coast of british columbia by Don Douglas published by fine edge publications. Charlies Charts are good also. be aware that north of desolation sound , fuel stops can be few and far between and vhf reception can be spotty . the main thing is plan everything. wish you luck and have a great trip

 

[92MaxumSCR]

Re: Trip of a lifetime.

Our trip of a lifetime took place back in June of 2003. We had just bought a Maxum 2300SCR cruiser in Feb of 2003.

We went with 1 other boat which was a SeaRay 290 Cruiser. We had 2 couples on each boat. I had never been on the Ocean in a boat before so I was very nervous about taking my boat since we had only had it a few months.

We hauled our boats from the Charlotte, NC area down to Ft Lauderdale. After many hrs of driving and a couple of problems we finally made it to Ft Lauderdale. We had a flat tire on the SeaRay's trailer and then a roller busted off on our trailer and was threatening to punch a hole in the bottom of my boat!

Fortunately we were prepared with Jacks, wood blocks and tools. We were able to jack the boat up and put a wood block between the broken roller shaft and the boat and continued on our way. Of course we found new parts for the trailer in Ft. Lauderdale and replaced them.

The trailer that came with our 23Ft Maxum was only 23ft long itself so the boat was actually hanging off the back rollers bunks quite a bit. That made for one wild ride there and back as the trailer would sway terrible if we tried to go over 55mph. Thought we were going to jacknife a couple of times when the trailer started swaying really bad. Bought a brand new 27 ft trailer the next year which elimated any swaying and was the right size for the boat.

It was about 8pm when we got there. We had to put our boats in the water and a storm pooped up and just started pouring rain like crazy. Once we launched both boats we headed to our slips for the night at Pier 66 Marina.

Fuuny thing is that once we were in the water, a calm came over me and I was not nervous any more.

Well we were all up about 30hrs at that point and were very exhausted but hungry so we went to get some dinner.

We get back to the boats and go to bed for the night about 12pm. We had a plastic bread basket with Bread in it sitting on top of of the tempered glass cover over our electric stove. Well someone got up to use the bathroom and had leaned very hard on the glass. Apparently the glass touched the touch pad on ther stove and turned it on.

About 2pm one of our friends who were sleeping in the V-berth woke screaming saying something was burning him. We flipped on the lights and the cabin was filled with smoke and they had hot glass all over them.

What happened was that the burner got turned on and had heated the glass cover which started melting the platic bread basket which filled the cabin with toxic smoke. Then the glass got so hot it exploded al over our friends innthe v-berth. We threw open the door and opened all the windows to let the smoke out. The cabin was totally closed up due to the air conditioning being on.

We then sat outside the boat and after realizing that no one was really hurt other than a couple of minor burns, we started laughing about it even though we realized we could have died had the glass cover not blown up! I became a firm believer in smoke detectors after that close call!

Then the next morning when we got up, we noticed our friends SeaRay looked like it was listing to one side real bad. We woke up our friends on the SeaRay and said it looked like their boat had taken on water.

Sure enough the air conditioning system had sprung a leak and was pumping water into the bilge all night which almost sank their boat. The wtare had gone half way up the motor! This caused some other adventures later on which I won't go into as I will be typing all day.

The good thing is that we had calm Seas the whole trip never getting into nothing more than 2ft Seas. On the way back we ran 4hrs straight from Key Largo to Ft. Lauderdale and were out in the gulf stream where we did ride along with 5 -6 ft rolling waves but since they were rolling waves did not cause us any issues.

We saw a lot of memorable things on that trip, too many to list. But one of the most memorable was when we were 20 miles out, our friends where fishing while we just sat and floated in our boat. This 6 ft Sailfish came swimming up to about 4 ft behind our boat. It came up real slow and just looked at us and then turned and swam slowly away.

I had to get on the radio and our friends who were hoping to catch something and told them what just swam up to our boat! They could not believe it!

I'll tell you one thing, I was very nervous about being out on the Ocean in a 23ft boat especially 20 miles! I truly believe that God was with us on that trip and helped us get through it safely even after all the periles we went through.

The SeaRay almost caught fire in Key Largo which was the result of the Salt water getting into some places it shouldn't have and caused an electric arc in the alternator which started smoking and almost caught fire.

This was an adventure filled trip and was a great experience for all of us.

We have been told we should right a book about our adventures on that trip as pepole can't believe everything we went through.

We would like to do that trip again someday now that we have a bigger boat.

 

[lkbum]

Re: Trip of a lifetime.

92MaxumSCR,
Did you mistakenly name that boat "Lucky", "Lucky Charm" or something like that prior to the trip??? Wow, good read.....

 

[92MaxumSCR]

Re: Trip of a lifetime.

Glad you enjoyed my story! No the name of our boat was "StayNTheNight". The luck just happened to come with it I guess! It was a very good boat and now belongs to good friends of ours so it's still in the family so to speak!

 

[sportsmanphil]

Re: Trip of a lifetime.

Thats an awesome story.

This place needs a bio thread for big trips like this.

 

[92MaxumSCR]

Re: Trip of a lifetime.

Thats an awesome story.

This place needs a bio thread for big trips like this.

Yeah, I hear ya there. I could have made it much longer but my fingers get tired fast...LOL!!!!

We may be doing another Keys trip next year so stay tuned!!! LOL!!!

 

[slasmith1]

Re: Trip of a lifetime.

Sad update but my trip has been postponed for a year due to local politics. I went for my morning coffee at the local starbucks and was pulled aside by several local parents and talked into running for the school board. I guess this means I have a chance to double check all my plans over the next year so it will be an even more exciting adventure.

 

[redone4x4]

Re: Trip of a lifetime.

I took the pass when I was 15. trip of a lifetime, on a 41 ft. powerboat out of Orange county, CA all the way up to tracy arm and back. It was hair raising, crazy, beautiful, rough, fun, etc. all in one. We had all the research done on the tides n stuff. A trip ill never forget, thats for sure. hope u can make it in a year, very memorable.