Every year I have sailed in Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard has impressed me.
They are always very professional, yet don’t appear to be highly bureaucratic.
I am also impressed by Canada’s vast network of automated weather reporting
stations that is run by Environment Canada.
The Canadian Coast Guard Pacific Region (British Columbia) is divided into
four regions. Headquarters in the following locations services those regions:
Vancouver, Comox, Tofino and Prince Rupert. Vancouver region seems to cover
somewhere around the Strait of Georgia to the U.S. border. Comox region seems
to cover from the Straits of Georgia up to the top of Vancouver Island. Tofino
covers the west coast of Vancouver Island. Prince Rupert region seems to cover
from the top of Vancouver Island all the way to southeast Alaska (including the
Queen Charlotte Islands).
You can file a sail plan with the Canadian Coast Guard. Essentially you give them
a boatload of detailed information about you, your boat, crew and your intended
cruise. In addition, you give them detailed information about your estimated arrival
times. You can open and close the sail plan either by a call on the VHF or from a
telephone. The Canadian Coast Guard seems to be very serious about the sail
plans, which is comforting. I was asked the woman on the phone at Prince Rupert
Coast Guard about how serious they were about our estimated time and day of arrival:
“Very serious. Essentially tell me the latest time and date you expect
to arrive. If we don’t hear from you by then, we will send out the helicopters.”
This made me feel good and ensured I was serious about calling in to close the
plan. The Canadian Coast Guard Pacific Region (i.e. British Columbia) has a
homepage. From the Pacific Region
home page you can get to the sites for the various sub-regions. While the organization
of the pages is a little confusing, they have a ton of valuable information.
Related to the Canadian Coast Guard is the weather services Environment Canada
provides. While I am not terribly impressed with their weather forecasts, the automated
weather-reporting network is amazing. Essentially these automated stations give you
wind speed and direction, barometric pressure and sea height (if available) updated
usually every hour. This is very useful in trying to determine what the conditions are like outside of whatever cove or harbor you are holed up in. I usually find these reports more helpful than the forecasts. The automated weather reporting stations are usually listed after the forecasts on the on the VHF weather stations.
Environment Canada publishes a very useful brochure called “Mariner’s Guide—West
Coast Marine Weather Services”. Mine is dated 1996. This brochure outlines forecast
areas, automated weather reporting stations (land and buoys), transmitting
stations etc. Having this brochure makes it 1000% easier to understand the Canadian
weather broadcasts. I picked my brochure up at the Seattle Boat Show. I have not
been able to find a version online.
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Adventures in the Charlottes was written by Tim Whelan.
All pictures and text ©Tim Whelan 1998-1999.
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