Aug 25 – Day 115 Blunden Harbor back north inside Nakawkto rapids
Woke up to heavy fog. This is the next changeover day. It is time for Steve and Michelle to head south to meet up with their kids in the San Juans on the 29th. We have had a great summer with them, are sad to see them go, and will miss them being with us for the next month of travels.
The Magic and Sea Life crews waved good-bye to them at about 8:30 and they disappeared into the fogbank that had enveloped the bay this morning. We talked to them an hour later and they were still in the fog.
Our remaining pair of boats headed out about 10:30 under grayish sky (fog was lifting) and good water. Our plan was to go back a bit north and investigate the inlets behind Tremble Island and Nakawkto rapids for a few days. The first target to arrive at the Nakwakto Rapids during the 12:30 slack water to pass through without encountering the standing waves. Perfect timing, we passed by Tremble Island with ease and headed for Belize Inlet.
We turned into Mereworth Sound and anchored in Strachan Bay. Willard, Diane, and Glen headed out to place the shrimp pots at the opening and do a little exploring. There are two logging operation areas in the outer bay and they stopped by one to ask about the access to the Kent Lagoon. They were told it wasn’t accessible except at the highest tide and generally not even then. OH NO, don’t ever give Glen a challenge.
They then headed over and found the inlet and by bouncing off a few rocks made it to the rapids which were flowing out to them but with rocks showing could go no further. But the challenge was set!
The plan was to wait for a bit higher tide. Played some cribbage. At 5:00 the decision was made to go check the lagoon, and pots. There were several float houses with boats near the entrance to the inlet to the lagoon. It even looked like they had a hot tub on the dock; all the comforts of home. Likely people associated with the two logging operations in the area.
We saw one smallish black bear walking on the logs near the shoreline as we headed for the lagoon. It saw us and scooted for the woods. It stopped briefly to take a look at us.
This time the current was flowing inward and Glen decided we could get through. It turned out to still be a little shallow but again bouncing off a couple rocks we made it. It felt like we were going downhill.
Just inside were a couple old diesel donkey winches on log floats from earlier logging events. In the past we have seen similar units except they were steam powered. We explored the whole lagoon about 6 miles long but found no more equipment or general signs of people except logging clearings on the hill sides which are all done now by truck.
The lake was over 200 feet deep in places. There were several places where the trees and other vegetation had slid off their rock base and ended up in the water. We’ve seen a lot of slide areas this summer; a sign of lots of rain. It is very pretty in there, but really just more rock, water, and trees.
After zipping all over the lake from one end to the other and exploring both sides we headed for the now ‘outlet’. It did not look doable to me.
We made it back to the opening and slowly tested the water depth but on both sides hit rocks, the middle wasn’t any better. The opening is not very wide, and the locals ‘loggers’ have a line with handle above it so at low water they can ‘walk across’ to the other side. We crunched the boat against the rocks several times and were spun around and shoved back into the lake. Thankfully it is an aluminum boat with a jet engine.
I thought we’d have to wait longer or put some of us out on the shore to lighten the load. But Glen wouldn’t have that. He went back out into the lake a fair distance, made a big circle, and said, ‘EVERYONE SIT DOWN AND HOLD ON TIGHT HERE WE GO!’. To which I said, ‘This is stupid, someone is going to get hurt’. He then hit the throttle, got the boat going about 30 MPH and ‘whoosh’ went right up and over the rocks and shot out of the rapids, only skimming one rock. We were then in 3 feet of water. We all started cheering and laughing as it was a hoot. Not exactly safe but a hoot anyway. We could not believe we made it in one piece. Oh wait, Glen’s expression was normal as if this was no big deal. No, I don’t want to do it again but we did it and lived to laugh about it. We only wish we had been able to have the movie camera running, as no one will believe it. Crazy Glen took the challenge and won. Thank goodness for the jet instead of a propeller.
Checked the prawn pots on the way back which had been down for a couple hours. Whoopee, we have shrimp and prawns, several dozen not large ones but big enough to eat. Put the pots back down for an overnight soak. Zero crab caught. It started raining about the time we got back to the big boats.
Willard’s prawn pot. Diane’s has eyelashes.
Had a yummy fish dinner and then at Diane’s request had a slide show of some of our summer adventures. My photos are not sorted, edited, or bad ones deleted yet, so this was a bit premature in my mind but it was still fun. We only went through a sampling of the photos. In the process I discovered that I had close to 14,000 photos from this summer, clearly many need to be deleted. Not looking forward to that job. 😉
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