PNW log hazards

[Bilgewater]

Just thought I would share some photos of what it's been like up here for the last month or so. We had a little bit of weather a month or so ago and this is what's left behind. Usually this stuff washes ashore after a couple of weeks but it's been hanging around this year. I haven't been cruising at night for some time now and even cruising during daylight hours is a real challenge. For the most part this has been an exceptionally mild winter here with one day of snow but mostly warm weather.

[SVPrairieRose]

I passed red to red of one of the Celebration class ferries two nights ago coming out of active pass. BC ferries have those damn things light up like the Griswalds house. They of course put curtains in their bow and stern windows so as not to bother their own pilots with glare, but clearly do not care about the "other" boat. It left me night blind and I struck a massive log. It hit my rigid bobstay and rolled along the entire underside of my hull keel and rudder, and then popped up 20 feet behind me under my skiff. I dove the boat today, no real damage that I could see, but I have a haul out next week. I have other things to do, but I might just send B.C. Ferries the bill for this one. Please for the love of god, dim the lights.

[nightowle]

Stop sending those logs down here to Seattle!!! They drive me crazzzzzzzy!

[kaluvic]

Thats an amazing Navigational Hazard...I'm kind of surprised its allowed to get that bad.

[SecondWindNC]

Holy crap! I guess nobody's out there speed testing their Fountains and Bajas!

We had quite a bit of junk come downstream after a storm and high water we had a week or two ago here in N.C., but "quite a bit" for us is maybe a dozen logs, stumps and tree trunks like what's pictured, not a whole waterway full of 'em.

[Faster]

Coupled with the occasionally heavy rains and mild temps we've had extreme tides as well, which tends to refloat a lot of previously beached debris, and moves it farther as well. The larger rivers also add to the mess in heavy runoffs - we've seen literal "islands" of uprooted trees floating in Howe Sound after some of our classic subtropical-fed spring storms.

Things can definitely go "bump in the night"....

[Boasun]

Only licensed salvagers are allowed to collect those logs. And they only take the good stuff and leave the dregs to float about until those bits are either washed ashore or out to sea. The only problem with washed ashore is that spring tides or seasonal runoffs will refloat them again.
And a single screw vessel is better in this case because the propeller is better protected then that of a twin screwed vessel. I have curled the edges of a few propeller blades on that stuffed when I worked in that area. Propeller repair shops are busy up there.

[Faster]

There is a "Fraser River Debris Trap" near Chilliwack, I believe, that tries to collect debris floating down the Fraser (a very large river) before it can get out to Georgia Strait. It's been funded by a collection of government and corporate money and each year the funding is threatened to be cut off.

If that ever happens we'll be much worse off.

Another source of these keel/prop/rudder killers is when log booms are towed in marginal weather.. booms occasionally break up or lose a section.. leaving full sized logs drifting about, in clusters until they become separated by wind and current. They are difficult to spot in chop, or poor weather. On days like that I can't imagine driving a SeaRay

[jrd22]

There has been more wood in the water this winter than normal, every tide line is an obstacle course to weave through. For some reason a lot of the logs aren't washing up on the beaches like normal. We see the same 2' diameter logs and hundreds of smaller bits move through the pass we live on every day with the currents. You've really got to be alert as many of them are waterlogged and barely floating above the surface. Good pics Steve, not quite as bad as that here.

[Livia]

We sailed from Sidney to Victoria BC last weekend and there were logs everywhere but it seemed to clear out by the Strait of JDF.