Cell Service west coast of British Columbia

[colbysmith]

During May and June, I will be cruising with two other boats along the west coast of British Columbia. (Not on the ocean side of Vancouver Island.) Plan to launch in Blaine, and then possibly go as far as Prince Rupert, and visiting some of the many inlets in between. I hate to get Starlink for just two months of use, but how is Verizon Cell Service along this area? I expect it will be limited, but are there many areas that service might exist? TIA.

 

[jkidd]

Starlink in suspended mode for $5 per month will let you text and make voice calls. Mini is on sell right now for $199 in some areas.

 

[Gulfcoast John]

Hi Colby,

When we took a scouting cruise on the David B in Sept 2022, south of the Ketchikan start point there was Verizon coverage every third stop (each stop is listed in that trip report below, and each was lovely for a C-Dory). From the top of the Inside Passage at Vancouver Island, there was good coverage at each nightly stop, except at the Shearwater Native fishing marina. Verizon will automatically detect when you have an Unlimited Data device turned on in Canada and charge $5 per device per 24 hours. We have two phones and a tablet, each with max 15 gig Hotspot use per billing cycle. So keep only one device turned on at a time, and turn it off if you don’t need it. The Hotspot was fine for uploading pics. Five years later there are likely more, not less, Verizon towers in that area.

StarLink is even better and inexpensive compared to wine or gas by the liter in Canada. None of my Prepper friends would be without one when the cyberattacks begin. YMMV.

The correct address to the Blogger trip report is here, not the one first cited in the C-Brats forum:

https://highsmith2.blogspot.com/2022/09 ... bc-on.html

Now I use FindPenquins.com (credit to Betty on Molly Brown for that find).

The Sept 2022 C-Brats link is here:

G

Thread 'BC Inside Passage on the David B Adventure'

Sep 23, 2022

Here's our blog on doing the BC Inside Passage on the David B. We hope to utilize what we learned by trailering Cat O' Mine cross country to the San Juans area maybe in the summer of 2024. Hope this is helpful in your own planning if the PNW is something you have never experienced in person.

Safe Travels!

John

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/ ... 4862437187

• Gulfcoast John
• Replies: 15
• Forum: Grand Adventures

In September, we’ll be flying out for another Inside Passage cruise, this time on American Cruise Lines. I wish we’d trailered the boat out there 15 years ago. It would have been cheaper to pay a guy to tow our boat and trailer out there, but now we’ve grown to like the private balcony and leave the driving to a pro. We’ll be following your blog, Safe travels!
John

 

[colbysmith]

Hi John,
Our Verizon plan includes both Mexico and Canada, so no additional charges in those countries. I would assume that your nightly stops on your cruise was at cities that would have cell service. Still you only had it every third stop, and I'm assuming you stopped every day. I think a lot of our cruising starting the end of April, will be in the back waters where there is more scenery and few cities. I would expect to have coverage around the communities, but most likely not, when we are any distance from them. It'll be interesting to see what cell service I end up with. I decided to bite the bullet and ordered the Starlink Mini. I had a hard time justifying it for the two months, but the internet is almost a necessity now days with online banking and billing. Other things like email, weather, and even my blogging, are a lot easier with daily or nightly access to the internet. I do have my Inreach, which allows for messaging with home, and for emergencies, and can even download weather. But even that is limited.

 

[thataway]

Colby, My experience is very dated by now, but we explored several of systems on the mainland of BC going in thru passes which only had one opening for our Cal 46 and a trawler we were sailing with, each day. These fjords are extensive and fun to explore--don't expect to see any other boats up these or get an telephone service. The Starlink is something I would have just for the convience if I was still able to cruise in our C Dory. We came upon a loging camp. It was days off for the crew, but the cook was still holding fort there. We tied up to the log raft and went ashore. The cook treated us to lunch, and then took us in one of the company crew cab trucks inland to view the area of selective logging. We had left our large boats anchored a few miles up into the fjord system, and were running our RIB inflatables 30 to 40 miles up in the arms, at 20 knots to explore these areas. If you get up this far, don't miss Ocean Falls--it has been changing, but is a complete logging camp which was just abandoned. They left everything there, and walked away. Some of the houses were kept in good shape (relatively) and sold to folks if they would inhabit and keep them up. So now there is a town there. They used to even have cable TV at the docks.