Cell phone signals inside passage to Alaska

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by Johnknutson

Thanks for the link. I have been following those kids (Ran Sailing) for a while. Very inspiring. Ran Sailing gave me a lot of great ideas for anchorages. We plan to maintain a video log and a web blog about our sailing adventures. Thanks for your interest. We ain't what you call photogenic, but it should be fun. We are heading to Alaska in April, then will turn around in August and travel south to So. Cal or Mexico, then maybe Hawaii next spring.

Pretty ambitious! . . .

[MJH]

Originally Posted by Johnknutson

Hello, preparing for a mid-April sail of the inside passage from Vancouver, BC to Seward, AK. I wanted to get thoughts on cell service along the route. Also, if anyone has experience with signal boosting antennas. Do they work in this environment? Thanks

We sailed up to Ketchikan last year and found that some of the best coverage came out of the Indian villages such as Bella Bella and Klemtu. Be organized as to what you want to do communication wise and get it done quickly when coverage is available.

We found that getting weather reports via cell, when available, was much quicker than listening to the VHF broadcast.

Good Luck. Enjoy.

~ ~ _/) ~ ~ MJH

[Smokeys Kitchen]

Originally Posted by Scorpius

I've done the BC portion of the trip many times - including up to Rupert then out to the Charlottes last summer. As many have said, cell service is generally non-existant except near SOME communities. ...

This was pretty much our experience also when we went up the Passage to Alaska and stayed in Petersburg for the winter. As Scorpius says it is especially true once you are north of Vancouver Island. Sometimes you'd get a signal unexpectedly out of the blue that might then disappear as you got closer to a settlement. Overall even with gaps, you're usually not out of communication range for very long; maybe a day or two (bliss!).

[Johnknutson]

Originally Posted by Cadman

I had fairly good luck using InReach. All text of course.
Slow, but efficient. Excellent backup for emergencies.

Thanks, we are going to have an in-reach as well. Which model do you use, Explorer or SE? I'm not sure how the SE compares. Any thoughts? Thanks!

[Johnknutson]

Originally Posted by MJH

We sailed up to Ketchikan last year and found that some of the best coverage came out of the Indian villages such as Bella Bella and Klemtu. Be organized as to what you want to do communication wise and get it done quickly when coverage is available.

We found that getting weather reports via cell, when available, was much quicker than listening to the VHF broadcast.

Good Luck. Enjoy.

~ ~ _/) ~ ~ MJH

Thanks a bunch! What percentage of the trip did you sail? I have been working on fuel estimates and hoping to sail 30% of the distance. Not sure if this is realistic.

[GWilly]

Check out the folks on slowboat.com. They run flotillas up from Puget sound to AK every summer. They have a YouTube channel with a ton of great videos on every aspect of that route, including communication. They’re a great resource. They’re on all the usual social media sites too.

[Johnknutson]

Originally Posted by Scorpius

Pretty ambitious! . . .

Yeah, what's that saying... Until you try, you don’t know what you can’t do. Thanks for commenting.

[Johnknutson]

Originally Posted by GWilly

Check out the folks on slowboat.com. They run flotillas up from Puget sound to AK every summer. They have a YouTube channel with a ton of great videos on every aspect of that route, including communication. They’re a great resource. They’re on all the usual social media sites too.

I will, thanks!

[northwestsailor]

As others have said up and down the BC coast cell service is spotty. One thing we did notice is that simple texting works best. It may take a few tries but somehow the messages get through. Don’t try anything fancy with photos iMessage etc. Just simple SMS messaging is the best even on the west coast of Vancouver.

[stormalong]

Originally Posted by Johnknutson

Thanks a bunch! What percentage of the trip did you sail? I have been working on fuel estimates and hoping to sail 30% of the distance. Not sure if this is realistic.

I did the full trip four years a go and go partway up the inside passage nearly every year. You are going up narrow channels with high bluffs. You would be lucky if you could sail 10% of the time. The tidal currents are strong and in many places you will be going through rapids so planning and timing are important. Sailing when on a schedule is very very difficult.

[rbk]

Originally Posted by Johnknutson

Thanks a bunch! What percentage of the trip did you sail? I have been working on fuel estimates and hoping to sail 30% of the distance. Not sure if this is realistic.

Could be 50% could be 0% but plan on motoring sailing when it works. You regularly get outflows out of different channels. You’ll be dead calm one min, pass an inlet with a 30knt out flow and 3 miles later back to dead calm. If you’re lucky you’ll get a good southerly that can carry you a long ways. If it’s blowing at sun up it’ll probably blow hard all day. If it’s calm you may or may not see wind around lunch building til evening. If weather permits (this is touchy in the spring) you can hop outside for more consistent winds but be careful as you can end up stuck in an anchorage weeks, where if you were inside you’d be moving along nicely. Lots of hideouts on the outside but watch the tides as big rips occurs at mouths if you’re trying to take shelter. Plan your tides and currents. Sometimes leaving/stopping at an inconvenient hours can gain you 1/3 more mileage.

[Kelkara]

Originally Posted by Johnknutson

Thanks a bunch! What percentage of the trip did you sail? I have been working on fuel estimates and hoping to sail 30% of the distance. Not sure if this is realistic.

In 2017, from Victoria to Glacier Bay and back I logged 711 hours underway, and 550 hours of engine use. Assuming that the rest of the time was under sail, that's just 23% of my TIME under sail.



Although the engine use includes pottering around anchorages etc at slow speed, but when sailing I also kept the sails up until my speed dropped below 2kts when I would fire up the engine ... it was certainly a rare day that I was as fast or faster under sail than I would have been under power. So I expect that noticeably less than 23% of my distance was under sail.


If you want to maximise time/distance under sail, stay out of the inside channels, and sail the outside coast.

[Kelkara]

Originally Posted by rbk

If weather permits (this is touchy in the spring) you can hop outside for more consistent winds but be careful as you can end up stuck in an anchorage weeks, where if you were inside you’d be moving along nicely.

This is true, it took me almost a whole month to get up the west coast of Vancouver Island last May waiting for weather windows ... would not have been an issue on the inside.

[tanglewood]

As others have said, from port McNeill/port hard (northern end of Vancouver island) up to prince Rupert you should could in zero cell service. There might be one or two minor exceptions, but not much. Expect zero.

Once in AK we found ATT to be much, much better than Verizon. In the big towns it doesn’t matter, but everywhere else it does.

Coverage in SE AK is better than northern BC, but it doesn’t take much to be better than nothing. We still went for weeks at a time with no cell service.

[Johnknutson]

Originally Posted by tanglewood

As others have said, from port McNeill/port hard (northern end of Vancouver island) up to prince Rupert you should could in zero cell service. There might be one or two minor exceptions, but not much. Expect zero.

Once in AK we found ATT to be much, much better than Verizon. In the big towns it doesn’t matter, but everywhere else it does.

Coverage in SE AK is better than northern BC, but it doesn’t take much to be better than nothing. We still went for weeks at a time with no cell service.

Thanks for your reply. Very helpful!