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| CLOSE CALL IN YUCULTA RAPIDS
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December 22, 2005. About halfway up the east side of Vancouver Island, the Inside Passage is nearly choked off by the mainland and a group of islands. The constriction creates a series of tidal rapids – Seymour Narrows and to a lesser extent Race Passage and Current Passage, Lower Rapids, Upper Rapids, Hole in the Wall, Beazley Passage, Yuculta (pronounced YEW-cla-ta) Rapids, Arran Rapids, Gillard Passage, Dent Rapids, Greene Point Rapids and Whirlpool Rapids, plus some other, smaller rapids.
Tidal water rises or falls faster on one side of the constriction than on other side. On an ebb tide, the water north of the constriction empties freely past the north tip of Vancouver Island, and the tidal rapids flow north. On a flood tide the water builds north of the constriction and the rapids flow south. The velocity begins low but increases until, on large tides, the water is filled with boils, overfalls, deep whirlpools and breaking waves. Then, as slack water approaches, the velocity slows. The boils and whirlpools disappear, and at slack the once dangerous rapids will appear calm and can be run in complete safety.
On a large tidal exchange the duration of slack water can be 5 minutes or less. Depending on a boat’s direction and boat speed, the window of safety before the current builds too high can be as little as 15 minutes on either side of slack water. With smaller tidal exchanges the window of safety can widen to an hour on each side of slack. On a very small exchange a given rapids might be run at any time – FOR THAT TIDE ONLY.
Lacking experience, none of these rapids is to be fooled with. All have sunk boats (sometimes ships), and all have taken lives. The slack water transit is the safe transit. Here’s a letter that describes what can happen at times other than slack water.
Dear Mr. Hale,
I just finished reading the letter from Mike Hirko regarding his trip through the Yuculta Rapids. I would like to relate the experience I had during the summer of 1968. To preface this with a little of my nautical background, I grew up on the shores of Puget Sound and had my own 10' power boat by the time I was 10 years old. I also was allowed the use of the family’s substantial, broad beamed, 20' open water boat. In addition, I spent every August on my friend's family’s 57' Chris Craft Connie. I spent most of the first 18 years of my life in, under or on the water. As skipper or passenger, I had experienced nearly every condition that you can run into. But none of this prepared me for an almost life ending experience in the Yuculta Rapids.
My friend and I were a couple of testosterone laden, know-it-all, "fearless" adventurers. In our youthful wisdom, we decided to take on the Yuculta Rapids at full flood in his new 19' Evinrude tri-hull with a 90hp Evinrude outboard on the back. Both of us had been through numerous other rapids throughout the San Juans, including Deception Pass. As we entered the rapids we noticed wide, dish-like whirlpools forming, none of which looked very forbidding. I'm not sure who had the bright idea, but we decided to move the boat into the center of one of the dishes to see what would happen. To our surprise and almost demise, the whirlpool deepened rapidly until the only thing that we could see was a wall of water and the sky!
Water was coming over the stern, and my friend gunned the engine to get us out of there. To our dismay, the big Evinrude began to cough and sputter and then . . . finally took hold, slowly bringing us out of the whirlpool. We must have looked like the submarines on the old show, "Run Silent Run Deep." Once out, we moved to the side, just in time to watch what Mike Hirko described as a "wannabe telephone pole" disappear into the middle of the whirlpool. We never did see where that pole resurfaced.
As we moved to the southern end of the rapids, we saw something neither of us had seen before. When the tide is coming at full flood, you can actually see the line where the tide is moving. It was like a waterfall between the two tide levels and was almost 2' in height.
I was 18 years old then. I am 57 today, and that experience in the Yucultas is the closest I have ever come to dying. The lesson? Yes, if all conditions are right you may be able to make it through, but you better have a whole lot of confidence in the engine that's pushing you. If that engine dies, you may die with it.
Thanks,
Fred Simpson
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