Fist things first - the washing machine at the marina wasn’t in use early this morning (there’s only one machine and it’s usually busy), so Elaine did a load of laundry before we left. We had planned on a slightly delayed departure anyway so that we could hit the flood tide going into Grenville Channel, which meant the laundry thing worked out fine.
Catching the flood tide means an extra knot or two, and when we typically travel at 7 knots, that is a 15-20% boots in speed without any extra fuel burn. It worked out well with nice smooth sea surface for a while, although a southerly wind came up, against the tidal current, so the water was a bit choppy for a while. W passed a number of mountains with snow still on them. With the cloudy, windy conditions, it made you feel colder just looking at them.
Our destination for the day was East Inlet, where we had anchored on our way north. It was a beautiful, isolated and protected cove which we had to ourselves at that time. We had mentioned this inlet to Orca Star, and they were anchored to the outside of the cove when we came up. They decided to stay anchored there, but we went inside the cove where there was already a sailboat anchored. Ultimately, five boats anchored there, but there was plenty of room for all of us.
We went up to the head of the cove to anchor in shallower water, and this was near a grassy “beach” area next to a stream. As we were about to anchor, Elaine asked “What’s that black thing on the beach?” I was pretty involved in monitoring the depth, but after we anchored, we realized it was a black bear lounging around and eating the grass. We watched him for about an hour before he finally disappeared into the woods…
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