Grace Harbour

After spending a restful night at Galley Bay we pulled up anchor and headed for Grace Harbour, only about 6 miles around the corner.  It was a good motor up the Malaspina Inlet.  As we headed up the inlet, we had to negotiate around several small islets and rocks before entering the harbor.  We were expecting to be the only boat, but to our surprise, there were already about 5 boats at anchor.  We selected a spot on the opposite side, away from the other boats to drop anchor and stern tie.

We are getting better with our stern ties, although doing it at low tide presents a few challenges.  In this case, the shore line drops off quickly to deeper water leaving what is essentially a cliff and rocks covered with slippery moss.  It seems to be best to tie your stern line around a rock or log at or around the high water mark.  In so doing, it necessitates tying off the dinghy and climbing the slippery, moss covered cliff.  A delicate proposition, but we managed to get it done.  We will perfect this technique as time goes by. (crew suggested that arriving at high water would perhaps be a good strategy…)

We rowed over to shore later on and hiked the ½ mile trail to a lake.  The lake was very peaceful and we had the sense that we were the only people around.  The trail followed the creek, but due to all of the wet weather we were walking in mud and water most of the way.  The vegetation had nearly overgrown the trail and in a few places it was hard to even tell that there was a trail.

We spent the sunny warm afternoon hanging out on the boat.  Paul hauled a cushion from down below up to the cockpit and took a nap.  Janet worked on her crochet while the cats lounged in the sun on deck.  A thunder storm and rain came around dinner time.  It was a perfect time to get out the “Mad Men” videos and watch a few episodes.  Tomorrow we are off to Tenedos Bay.

Stern tie at low water - very challenging to negotiate the
rocks.

Paul on trail to lake.

The trail was very overgrown and at times difficult
to tell which way to go.