Day 10 ~ Hartley Bay, B.C. to Kumealon Inlet, B.C

After two days of being tied to the same dock, both of us were ready to move along. It was time for another adventure and if we were lucky we would find a bear. Just outside of Hartley Bay was the entrance to Grenville Channel. Our float plan estimated that it would take us 4 ½ hours to reach our destination all while traveling up the same channel. The water was calm and it was a bit cloudy. We were told that the channel filled from both sides so the goal was to ride the flood in and the ebb out and be in the middle as it changed. I had been told that the water simultaneously drains in opposite directions from a specific point within the Channel, Dad threw the challenge flag blaming my imagination, gullibility and blonde hair saying that was pretty far fetched, later we learned that I was right and that Lowes Inlet worked as a water reservoir.

The trip to Kumealon Inlet was rather uneventful; we did make water along the way. We found that making water while we moved was the best plan to ensure we always had fresh water. In the whole 4 ½ hour trip we saw 2 power boats, a ferry, a coast guard vessel, a sail boat and a sea plane. The trees looked much healthier and the mountains were much taller and closer together.

The inlet where we were anchored had an inner harbor that was protected by a small Island. We anchored in 65 feet of water and we were about 100 ft from shore. I was backing the boat up while setting the anchor and from the bridge and it looked like I was almost on the rock. It is really deceiving when you are up top so Dad had to play mountain goat to get the stern line tied. We were so excited when we landed to learn that we had internet that we both jumped on our computers and instantly began working. Funny thing our phones didn’t work.

About 2 hours after our arrival, our new friends on the Celtic Song pulled into the harbor and suggested we have dinner together. They brought a wonderful marinated chicken and we added a salad and vegetable. After dinner, we decided to take a dinghy ride to explore the lagoon that we could see on the chart that was adjacent to our inlet, in hopes of finding a bear. After a bit of exploring we found the entrance to the lagoon but decided that it was too dangerous to go through the rapids to continue our investigation.

We toured the inlet, cruising around all the little islets crowed with trees, which give a new meaning to the term “turf wars”. The trees are so tenacious that they grow on anything and everything.  Then as they get bigger and bigger they start pushing each other until finally either a huge storm comes through and knocks them all over or they simply get pushed over into the water, which explains the huge trees that we’ve seen floating along. As the evening got darker, the water got calmer which created the most beautiful reflections of the topography in the water. Small puffs of ground fog appeared giving me some wonderful photo opportunities.

After we got back on the boat, we got out our Inside Passage Cruise Tour Guide that we had been using to keep an overview of our journey and realized that we had just crossed over the center fold of the map. Our next stop was Prince Rupert which was our last stop in Canada. Before we went to bed it started raining and our hatch was leaking worse than ever before.