Chatterbox Falls

As is now almost expected, it is another beautiful  sunny  day. We are so spoiled!!

Looking South to Vancouver Island from the South entrance to Agamemnon Channel

It was a beautiful scenic 45 mile trip up Agamemnon channel and Jervis inlet to Chatterbox Falls, no wind , cloudless skies, surrounded by towering mountains with snow capped peaks  Not too many boats around today, wilderness cruising at it's best !!

Fish farm in Agamemnon Channel

"The Admiral" surveying the territory

Left Pender Harbour at 12:40 pm so as to  reach Malibu rapids, at the entrance to Princess Louisa Inlet,  at 4:30 to 4:45pm which is the predicted time of “slack tide” at the rapids.


Entrance to Malibu Rapids lower foreground about 5 miles away



It is really important to transit these rapids at the correct time as flood or ebb tides can reach current rates of 9 to 10 knots and create standing waves 6 to 8 feet tall. It  a very dangerous place to be when that happens as the rapids are narrow and the channel zig zags so you don’t need the current pushing you around. The transit only takes 5 minutes but needs all of your attention even at slack.

Looking over Patrick Point to 5000+ feet  Mount Helena (5th daughter of Queen Victoria)

Making a big wake in Queen's Reach

We arrived at the Rapids at 4:40 , just after the turn to ebb tide and had an effortless passage, it is another ½ hour past the rapids to Chatterbox Falls at the head of Princess Louisa Inlet. This is a BC park and there is a Parks float at the end which is restricted to boats under 55 feet and to 72 hour maximum stay. We have stayed on the float during past visits but tonight it was already full up when we got there so we had to anchor.

15 to 20 seals met us at Malibu Rapids

The inlet is extremely deep, too deep to anchor, right up to very close to shore. Our preferred anchorage is right in front of the falls, you can nose your bow up close to the stream coming off the falls, drop your anchor close inshore and let the stream flow  push you back and hold the boat facing into the current.

 In any event , this prize spot was already taken so we had to settle for a deeper spot along the shoreline. We had trouble getting the anchor to set as the bottom drops from 35 feet close inshore to 200+ feet a couple of boat lengths back but eventually it seemed to hold and we settled in for the night.

Inbound Malibu Rapids just after HW slack, note water ripples as tide turns to ebb



Looking back out the rapids it is a blind turn to right to exit



Next morning when we went to hoist the anchor, it dragged up a piece of rusty steel cable, probably left over from logging here 50 or even 100 odd years ago. We were well hooked to the cable so our overnight worries of anchor dragging were unfounded. It was not too difficult to free the anchor from the cable as it was almost rusted through and ten minutes later we were on our way.

Low water slack tide was just after 10 AM and high water slack at 5:25 PM. With  a  4 hour trip  back to Pender Harbour , if we waited for afternoon slack at 5:25 we would be arriving at Pender in the dark so we decided to leave right away after breakfast and do some sightseeing on the way back.

Inbound rapids at HW slack, lodge kids at poolside

We checked out Harmony islands  in Hotham Sound, it is recommended as an anchorage in some guidebooks but we did not find it very inviting. Kipling Cove is nestled inside 3 little islands, two of which are private with at least one home and a dock and there was one boat already anchored. It was about a 30 footer but seemed to take up most of the cove with the private dock.

Outside between the islands and the mainland it is possible to anchor close in to shore but it was all in shadow and not at all appealing.


Deserted Bay
on Princess Royale Reach



Our idea of anchoring is to get some views and some  privacy and these close quarters  overlooked by a  home close by on shore would not provide that. We do notice that lots of the anchorages mentioned in the various guidebooks seem more suited to smaller boats than ours or for braver souls  than us that don’t mind getting up close and personal with the shore and the rocks.

Arrived back at Pender Harbour around 4:00PM and anchored in the large sheltered Garden bay where the shoreside homes and other boats are far enough away to give everyone their privacy.

:Captain Bob" on duty Sept 7th 2011



Click on location link below for a Google Earth view of where we are now.









Labour day sunshine

This weather is really fantastic, can’t believe how long it has held on without and rain or cold and the forecast looks good throughout Western Canada for the next week almost.

Had to wait till tuesday after the long weekend for Vivian’s medicine to arrive at the local drugstore, picked it up  Tuesday afternoon along with some last minute groceries and will be good to go tomorrow (Wednesday)

Could'nt resist taking more pictures of Pender Harbour sunsets!! Double click to enlarge pictures!

Laundry day at Pender Harbour

Another lovely day but quite a bit of dew in the mornings so it is starting to feel like Fall. Mind you , according to the TV weather report, it was frosty and  zero Celsius  in Cochrane last night  so I guess we are Ok here yet.

It really warms up nicely in the afternoons and is clear and sunny so we are not complaining .

Vivian fired up the washing machine this morning, we usually do that when we are at a marina with shore water and  50 Amp power but have not had that since we left Port Sidney so the laundry has been piling up. We have never tried the washer and dryer on the generator before but it seems to work fine and since we need to run the generator to recharge the batteries anyway we may as well make full use of the power.

Now that the water maker is finally working, we can also run that at the same time as the laundry does take a fair amount of water.

We need to be self sufficient for our trip to S.E. Alaska next year so it is good to get all the bugs ironed out now.

In the afternoon we took a dinghy ride to Madeira Park and a walk to the grocery store , drugstore and the local bookstore for a rake around. The drugstore was all out of Vivian’s medication so we will have to stay here till at least Tuesday till it arrives.

That is no hardship as we really like it here.

There was a live band playing in the parking lot today and lots of locals and tourists just sitting around enjoying it.   Pender Harbour is apparently a pretty musical town with several small music festivals throughout the summer and Fall. They have a Chamber Music Festival, a Blues festival and a big Jazz festival later this month.

Later we toured around the harbour area checking out the boats and cottages and stopped for an ice cream at John Henry’s General store. The sign at the entrance reminds you that it is a ‘general “ store so not to look for anything "specific" ?? Fisherman’s humour!!

Back to Pender Harbour again

Left Granville Island at 12:30 and arrived Pender Harbour entrance at 5:00PM.  En route was a mix of sun and cloud and even a few sprinkles of rain for a while.

As soon as we anchored at Pender Harbour, the sun came out in earnest and it turned into a beautiful evening, we even anchored in a different part of the bay so we could maximize our sunset viewing.

The cruise up was uneventful and pleasant. And NO DSM ALARMS!!! So maybe it is finally fixed and was, as suspected all along, an electrical supply problem. It was always getting about 13 volts but I suspect there was a fluctuation in the amperage supply which was just enough to screw up the DSM’s computer brain.

Happy to leave civilization (and repair shops ) behind for a little while so will stay here for 2 nights then head up to Princess Louisa Inlet and the lovely Chatterbox Falls for a few days. It should be much quieter now that September is here.