This race few will ever forget. Most boats left Campbell River around 6 am to make it to the start in Deepwater Bay at 8 am. This early start was necessary to get some favorable currents through Seymour Narrows.
Seymour Narrows is famous for the blasting of “Ripple Rock”. This rock cause so many shipwrecks, that it was finally decided to blow it up and remove a dangerous hazard to navigation.
A spectacular video of the blasting of Ripple Rock can be found on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVQOvKh3IWY
After a light start, there was some wind and current in our favour. Close to to the finish line at Eden point the wind reduced to a whisper and the currents became vicious. Dozens of boats were piled up against the rocks trying to inch towards the finish line.
Having no steerage at all we bumped into Night Runner. No harm done, thanks to fenders. A little while later as we are drifting south, Night Runner caught a back eddy and they came screaming at us and we hit again. We did a full circle on an eddy line while Night Runner took another run at us. The scene was the same all around us. Some boats anchored, other boats fended off the rocks: Carnage all around.
Everybody had a great laugh but after a few hours of bumper car racing the fun was over and we all headed for the fish farm where a gourmet salmon dinner waited for us.
Needless to say no one finished in our division.
Later that night we were invited by Ede & Gunnar Jonsson for a Margarita Party on their boat Havoc (SR 33). Somehow 32 people piled into Havocs cockpit. Amazing. Danny served the best Margaritas and I could not help thinking he was trying hard to get us drunk to have less competition the next day.
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