YUCULTA RAPIDS

It was a surprisingly quiet night last night. The wind died down around 10 PM so there were no ripples on the water to hit the side of the boat and make noise. We must be getting used to the sun rising at 5 AM, because we now ignore it and we actually slept in until almost 7!

After the Storm

Our plans for the day were to do a few chores on the boat, then head over to Squirrel Cove and anchor out. We left Melanie Cove about 10 AM and were in Squirrel Cove by 11:15. That was too early to call it a day, so we stopped by the store at Squirrel Cove, then kept on going. We calculated the slack tide for Yuculta Rapids (pronounced u-claw-ta—I know, not like it looks), and figured we could make the 4 PM slack ebb without any problem. We didn’t want to continue through Gillard and Dent Rapids (although we could have made it fine) because we would then be fighting a flood current in Cordero Channel. We took the option to duck out at Big Bay on Stuart Island just after Yuculta Rapids and we’ll take the slack flood through the other rapids early tomorrow morning, then ride an ebb tide down Cordero Channel.

Stuart Island is very interesting. The local economy is based on sportfishing, and there are a number of high-end, and very high-end resorts here catering to the wealthy. Accommodations start at $1000/night and the restaurants serve set-menu dinners starting at $120/plate. Helicopters are coming and going, dropping off clients, and there are a couple of large (100 ft +) yachts dropping off guests for a wedding scheduled for tomorrow.

We are at the public docks, had a beer on the veranda of the community co-op store and will have canned chili over rice for dinner. Slumming it! Nice, though…