Pacific Northwest

The Inside Passage is a 1,600-kilometre sheltered waterway running from Seattle up through British Columbia and into the Alaska Panhandle as far as Skagway, mostly out of sight of the open Pacific. It is the longest stretch of sheltered cruising water in North America, and a Pacific Northwest charter is essentially a chosen length of it.

The southern half is the easier and more developed end, around Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands, an archipelago of around 170 islands between Washington State and Vancouver Island. Orcas, the headline marine mammal, hunt the salmon runs through Haro Strait between San Juan and Vancouver Island in summer, and a yacht with a quiet captain has the best chance of finding them. North of there, Desolation Sound on the Canadian side is the next-favourite charter water, with the warmest summer sea temperatures north of California (around 22°C in August) and an unusually high concentration of empty anchorages. Further still, the Broughton Archipelago and Princess Louisa Inlet take you into the wild end of the cruising ground, where bears come down to the water and the waterfalls run all summer.

The season is short and tight, late June to early September, when the weather opens up and the rain holds off. Most charters pick up in Seattle, Vancouver or Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. A week handles the San Juans and Desolation Sound; ten days lets you reach the Broughtons; a full Inside Passage to Alaska is a four-to-six week trip and most clients do it once.