Khutze Inlet, August 16th

The sun decided to greet us as we left Lowe Inlet and headed down the rest of Grenville Channel. 

On the way to our next anchorage we stopped for a few minutes so Pete could fish. While doing so a whale came up right next to the boat. Just then Pete got a fish on the line and started to reel it up. It was very exciting and as this was the first time my Dad was with us while we fished he said he didn't know which way to look while it was happening. Unfortunately no photos of the whale as we were busy reeling in dinner.

Someone had recommended Khutze Inlet to us - said it was magical. The only issue was the anchorage was a bit difficult - I'll let Pete fill you in on that...

A typical "moderately difficult" anchorage here. Many of these inlets are very deep, ending at a tidal flat or river delta at the head. The depths will go from a few hundred feet to 6 feet or less very quickly. We arent set up to anchor securely for the night in more than a hundred feet. Anchors don't set well on a steep sloping bottom, so the trick is to find a bit of shelf that is shallow enough to anchor on, but where you wont end up aground if/when you swing around into the shallows. We found decent holding here in about 85 feet, but were still very close to the mudflats (about 6 feet at low tide). It worked out fine, but not much margin for error in these kind of inlets, especially with the tide level changes ranging up to 15 ft. -PB

Spent much of the afternoon/evening sitting out watching the wildlife and scenery. We were lucky to have the sun out so we could see the distant mountains with snow still on them. The sound of the nearby waterfall made it all the more perfect.

Dinner from our morning catch, along with a meager prawn catch:

As I lay in bed that night with the port hole open so i could hear the waterfall and breathe the beautiful fresh air, I suddenly heard a howl. It was loud and wailing and absolutely beautiful. I then remembered the person who recommended the place say you could sometimes see wolves there. Though it was too dark by then to see the wolf, I did hear him as he howled for a few minutes in the vast landscape. It was a memorable moment.

We also hit the jackpot when it came to crabs. Three big dungeness crawled into our pot - the most we've caught in one haul. Lots of crab for dinner the next night: