The passage between Kuiu and Kupreanof Islands is a narrow, shallow and winding route in protected waters that saves 6 extra hours of motoring around Kuiu Island on an exposed ocean route. The current speed in Rocky Pass determines when trawler speed boats can safely cruise through. This mornings high tide slack current (aka zero current) at Devil's Elbow in the center of the Pass happens just after 4AM. So we're up before then and get under way in the dark, predawn hour. Already we have a knot of current against us but soon able reach zero current just before entering the Elbow. All is well and we squirt out of the Pass with 2 knots pushing us towards Prince of Wales Island. We looked for a place to take a nap and found the cove in Shakan Bay on Prince of Wales Island northwest of Middle Island, just right, dropped the hook and went to bed at 10AM.
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| Pretty Shakan Bay with El Capitan in the distance. |
By 2 we left our nap bay heading towards the entrance to El Capitan Pass. This Pass runs along the western part of Prince of Wales Island. It is also narrow but clearly marked without major current challenges. We headed for Devilfish Bay to anchor then tomorrow we have scheduled a tour of the El Capitan Cave.
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| Remember to pay attention! |
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| El Capitan Pass: Stay between the red and green posts! |
Entering El Capitan Passage
Stay between the lines.
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