Waterfalls and Weather

As we travel through the rabbit’s warren of channels that comprise the Inside Passage, the navigational chart shows nearly sheer shorelines for the vast majority of our travels – mountains that plunge directly into the sea, with water depths commonly 1000′ or deeper.20140523 7594 grenville channel  RESIZE We’ve seen some bigger hills that have the word “cone” in their name.  I’ll have to look up more information about the geology of this region, but these formations certainly look like very old volcanic cones now covered in a thick layer of evergreen trees.  We’re cruising through a number of long, fairly straight channels, the PNW equivalent of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) in a way, but these channels are very deep where the ICW is very shallow.  There are very few anchorages in this area because it’s so deep right up to the steep shoreline, but there are waterfalls EVERYWHERE!  Tall ones, short ones, wide ones and narrow ones – all roaring today as we cruise on by.  It’s too rainy to get really good photos, but if we tried to photograph them all we’d do nothing but run from one side of the boat to the other.20140521 7584 grenville waterfall vertical  RESIZEAt this point we’re taking advantage of some rainy weather to just make miles – we plan to spend time in this part of BC later on, but right now we need to stay focused on getting to SE Alaska.  By the end of today we’ll be about 120 nautical miles south of Ketchikan, and the closer we get the more exciting it is.  It’s a “pilothouse” kind of day – where we’re warm and snug and comfortable in the boat despite the misty-rainy cool weather outside.  20140523 7587 pulling anchor in the rain  RESIZE

It’s not fun setting and retrieving the anchor in this kind of weather, but it doesn’t take very long and the rest of the time underway we can take turns running the boat and watching for logs and wildlife.  Once in a while we get a little surprise on the anchor chain – the sun starfish seem to like to clamp on, and they only let go when they get to the surface.  We’ve found these hitchhikers a few times now.20140519 7363 sunstar on anchor chain  RESIZEWe anchored in Lowe Inlet, halfway up the long and narrow Grenville Channel for the night and to wait out some ugly weather for a day.  There is a small but dramatic waterfall at one end of the anchorage, but the best holding is around the corner from the waterfall so we chose security over scenery and anchored well in 101′ of water – a big first for us!  We are growing accustomed to the deeper anchorages here in the PNW, but 101′ is quite deep and we’re glad we got a longer anchor chain last fall.  We had the anchorage all to ourselves, and we spent a rainy Thursday getting lashed by hard rain and gusty winds, even tucked as far back as we were.  We saw a peak gust of 37 knots, but the anchor held just fine and we got the chance to catch up on some trip planning.  We got a quick look at Verney Falls as we were pulling out of the anchorage – it was really roaring with all the rain.20140523 7590 verney falls  RESIZE

Tiny Towns and Entertaining Wildlife

Not far from Codville Lagoon are the twin towns of Bella Bella and Shearwater.  I’m not sure why there are two towns almost across from one another, but both sell fuel and that is the primary reason for us to stop.  We wanted to take on about 150 gallons of diesel to give us a larger reserve to get to Ketchikan, where we’ll fill all the tanks at lower U.S. prices.
We heard that the little store and restaurant/cafe at Bella Bella had been damaged in a fire, so we headed to the much smaller (but better equipped) Shearwater.  Unfortunately we forgot to look at the calendar – it was a Canadian holiday, Victoria Day, so most things were closed except (thank goodness!) the restaurant.  THE restaurant.  The whole town is about 200 yards long, on one gravel street.  There is a small boat yard with a 70 ton lift – the only lift available within a few hundred miles, a marine store, grocery, gift shop, laundromat, and a couple of small inns for people who come here to fish or go on eco-tours to see wildlife and whales.  20140519 7381 shearwater main street  RESIZEThere is a little ferry that runs between the two towns (the Shearwater SeaBus), and it carries the Shearwater children to school in Bella Bella as well as more typical ferry duties throughout the day.  At dinner we met the owner of the property, enjoying the stories about his grandfather coming from Norway to settle in the area.  The owner bought the place from his father at age 29 and has been running it ever since – he’s now in his 70s.  He has even created a small memorial to local residents lost in wars, as well as the site’s former life as a seaplane base in WWII.20140519 7380 shearwater commemorative totem  RESIZEWe lucked out and met some friendly cruisers on the dock in Shearwater to talk to.  We met one of the couples last summer in the Broughtons and they’re interesting – retired school principals; the wife has written several novels.  Her newest book is set in Petersburg, Alaska where we’ll be spending this coming winter, so we added her book to our e-readers for a bit of local flavor.  In general we haven’t encountered too many overtly friendly people along the way – the PNW culture seems to be more reserved so it often takes more time for people to warm up to conversation.  Since Jim and I spend 24 hours a day in close quarters together we’re always glad to have new humans to talk to and we’re grateful when we meet outgoing people.
20140520 7403 cruise ship volendam RESIZEHeading north out of Shearwater we are cruising through protected waters most of the time – hence the name “the Inside Passage”.  Compared to cruising through the Atlantic ICW the Inside Passage seems very lightly traveled – there are fishing boats, ferries, and the occasional cruise ship – though it’s often that we only see two or three other boats all day.

As we were cruising up the broad Finlayson Channel we saw a great deal of splashing ahead of us.  Jim and I ran to the bow and we saw over a dozen black and white Dall’s porpoises zooming around in our bow wake, much faster and more athletic than any of the many encounters we’ve had with dolphins on the east coast.  20140520 7521 dalls porpoise  RESIZEThe porpoises don’t jump out of the water like dolphins do, instead they slice the water’s surface, moving so quickly that they leave a big rooster-tail wave to mark their passage.  They entertained us for about 15 minutes, and then vanished.  It was a high-octane encounter that left us very excited – wow!


We made a brief stop in the First Nations town of Klemtu to see their Big House and its totems.  20140520_008 klemtu big house welcome totem RESIZE20140520_004 klemtu big house RESIZEOn occasion the town holds dancing and drumming shows in the Big House, and we were sad that our visit was too early in the season to experience one.  20140520 7535 klemtu totem wolf  RESIZEOur guide, George, was very nice and we enjoyed hearing about the close-knit community of 500 people, a combination of 4 regional tribes.  We stopped at the little grocery store in town and got the next to last package of lettuce and two small rocks disguised as tomatoes – the best luck with produce is right after the ferry comes in with supplies once or twice a week.  The little town has a salmon cannery, but it’s for the farm-raised Atlantic salmon produced by the very controversial aquaculture facilities in the area.  I find it odd to see the First Nations people, typically so spiritual and close to the fish and creatures that comprise their traditional foods, supporting aquaculture that threatens the health of the wild salmon that’s so important to this entire region.