Wet Jacket Arm

Date: 4/3/2015 Time: 1930 Position: Stick Cove, Entrance to Wet Jacket Arm

We experienced a few days of heavy, unforgiving rain in Third Cove and these were spent down below reading, working on projects and listening to the rain. The mountain slopes around our anchorage put on a great display with many stunning waterfalls, once the cloud roof lifted enough to see them. At one stage we felt like we were in a river rather than a cove as there was so much current flowing past us from all the waterfalls and creeks that were flowing into the cove.

Yesterday we toured Vancouver Arm named after George Vancouver who sailed with Cook then returned with his own command to further explore this complex of Fjords. He is also credited with exploring parts of Canada's West Coast. We enjoyed our motor up to the head of the arm. On the way back we witnessed a rock fall which sounded like it started about 500 metres higher up the cliff as we could hear the rocks hitting the cliff as they fell and pelted into the water about a 100 metres away. The next arm we entered was called Broughton Arm, we picked up a light tail wind and were able to sail most of the way to the head of the arm. We decided to call it a day and dropped anchor for the night in 29 metres of water. Our private anchorage was surrounded by a ring of high peaks with their tops hiding in the cloud. Both these arms are very steep sided with towering peaks not far from the water. It's pretty spectacular.

Today we got an early start and motored downstream to the junction of Broughton and Vancouver Arms with low cloud barely above the top of the mast. Once in the main fjord we were able to use the Code O sail in the light tailwind. We were visited several times today by pairs of bottlenose dolphins that played in our bow waves. We were having as much fun watching the dolphins as they were having swimming in our bow. We could hear their squeaking noises quite similar in sound to a whistle. So we responded by whistling back and they in turn whistled back to us. They each had their own distinct markings and scratches and would swim on their sides and peer curiously up at us. Seeing dolphins up close like this is a very uplifting experience. After awhile they would head off but we could still spot them along the shore from the vapour left behind from their breath. It turned out to be a gloriously sunny day although a little cool and we kept the Code O up as we sailed down Acheron Passage to the all weather anchorage of Stick Cove at the entrance to Wet Jacket Arm. We are tucked in between two islands with two stern lines out ready for the 50 knot winds expected tonight. There is a storm warning out for this area with very strong winds expected over the next few days as quite an intense low passes.

All is content on board. Kathy and Wayne

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com