Photo: Tugs with log boom waiting for the current in Seymour Narrows.

I always knew Seymour Narrows can be dangerous. Sixteen knots at max current, whirlpools and commercial traffic are nothing to sneeze at. But so far all of our six trips north through of it had been uneventful.

We left Comox on a sunny warm morning, motoring in flat calm. Off Cape Mudge, we picked up the ebb current and fairly flew north through Discovery Passage, arriving at the Narrows half an hour before the ebb turned to flood. Perfectly timed -- we would have just enough time to get through the Narrows and out of the strong current areas before the tide turned against us.

On our chart plotter, our AIS receiver showed a ship around the corner, coming towards us through the Narrows. A smallish powerboat was just ahead of us. Thinking they might not have AIS so wouldn’t know about the approaching ship, Steve radioed them and told them about it. They didn’t have AIS and said they were glad for the information. A few minutes later we saw the ship coming around the corner; it was a tug with a very large barge. Not something a small boat would want to get in the way of. Then the power boat called us: two tugs and a log boom were just around the bend, stopped. We gave the corner a wider berth than usual as currents swirled around us. Sure enough, there was the log boom and two tugs, just waiting for the current to turn. They were not something we would want to come upon without warning. Thanks to the warning, we passed without incident.

It had been a more exciting passage than normal, but thanks to modern communication and cooperation, it had been safe.