27 May 23

We were both stacking Z’s by 21:30 last night. So, we both woke up about 6:45, more or less raring to go. The sun was already up and the solarium was nice and warm by the time we took breakfast and coffee up to enjoy it. We got the engine going and the anchor aweigh by 08:43, just after HW, so by the time we made it a couple of miles over to Perceval Narrows, we were about 1 hour after HW slack, so we had 1 kn of foul current for a half mile or so. After that, we were able to play the back eddies and keep the SOG above or equal to boat speed the whole way up. It was only 15 miles to Rescue Bay, our initial target, so we kept on going to Kynoch Inlet, where we anchored in 31.5 m of WD (a new record for us, which used every bit of our new anchor rode (I still have 240’ of the old rode in reserve, for really deep anchorages)) at 14:45. It took us 2 tries to get the anchor set at a location that kept us off the shoals at the head of the inlet. Naturally, the up inlet wind piped up to 12 knots as we were trying to get set, which complicated things a bit. This inlet is gorgeous, with multiple waterfalls to see on both sides running down from lakes and snow-fields at the higher elevations. As we were anchoring, we noticed a bear (we think it was a grizzly, although it could have been a big brown bear, grazing in the tidal flats at the head of inlet; our first bear sighting of the year). After we got settled, two more boats, both power - a 52-footer and a 28-foot Nordic Tug - came in and anchored near us, in much shallower water. About 18:00, the Nordic Tug pulled up his anchor and moved into Culpepper Lagoon, where it is a bit less windy. I rowed over into the lagoon after dinner, but could not see them, so they must have gone all the way to the south end of the lagoon. When I got back, I noticed movement on the beach; we got out the binoculars and it was two grizzlies on the beach copulating - you don’t see that every day! They carried on for nearly half an hour, then stood around together grazing in the grass afterward. They were too far away for us to get a good photo, so you will just have to take our word for it, but it really happened.

52-45.258’N, 127-53.208’W; Log = 38.8, Sum (2023) = 554.2 N-m; Eng. hrs. = 6.3, Sum = 3197.4