August 4 - Khutze Inlet

The view looking down the bay at Khutze Inlet

The waterfall at the head of Khutze Inlet

We left Lowe Inlet in beautiful sunshine again to complete Grenville Channel and clear into Princess Royal Channel to Kuhtze Inlet where our BYC friends had seen 5 bears earlier in June.

We arrived in Khutze Inlet in the afternoon and found a beautiful high waterfall looking like a New Zealand fiord.

The anchoring around the waterfall is a bit tricky due to a very long drying shoal which comes out from the head of the bay and really deep water in the center portion of the bay. We looked all around for the bears seen earlier in June but they seemed to have been elsewhere. People have told us in our travels that Khutze is the dumping ground in northern BC for problem bears. Those who don't play nicely with their friends are relocated to Khutze and this is why many were sighted earlier. At any rate we didn't see any and had to be content with the fantastic scenery and the impressive waterfall.

Lot's of chain rattle during the night kept me awake for a while as I tried to see whether we were moving anchor or just chain. My depth readings were also really haywire showing anywhere from 1 foot to 80 feet. What I eventually figured out was happening was that a bunch of kelp etc was floating by our anchorage and affecting my depth sounders. I finally dropped a fishing weight over the side to determine our actual depth. Thankfully it was the 80 feet not the 1 and the grumbling and rattling was just our full 250 feet of chain out there moving to the other side as the tide flushed the bay. So I finally returned to bed to get what remaining sleep was there.