JULY 7, 2022 – BOTTLENECK TO KYNOCH INLET

Words from the Supertramp song “It’s raining again” – and we have no cell service to access any weather report that has to do with actual weather, just the marine radio that talks about wind and seas. Sometimes they talk about the weather too, will have to try to connect today. I have talked John into a detour that takes us east into “Fiordland” (which is a Canadian spelling) Recreation Area, which maybe means a national park? I don’t know, and don’t have internet at this moment so can’t look it up. Anyway, the descriptions of the area in our coastal explorer/active captain were intriguing, and even Waggoner Guide talks about it as spectacular. Today is a shorter run, all inside water (e.g. calm) so very pleasant, lots of twists and turns as we wind our way east. Upon the final turn into Kynoch Inlet, we were greeted by a powerful waterfall from an elevated lake on one side, rivaling the ferocity (just not the height) of Snoqualmie Falls. As we ventured farther into the inlet, we found ourselves cruising between impossibly tall sheer vertical shiny black rock walls, and snowy peaks behind them. How’s that for stacking the adjectives. Healthy fir and deciduous trees clung to the sheer rocky faces which is astounding given there is no soil whatsoever; the trees must be securing their roots into cracks and crevices to attain stability. Glistening with moisture, the walls displayed vertical striations from the ancient glaciers scraping them, which we have to look into once we have service again. Most of the evidence of glacial movement we have seen on this trip has been horizontal lines etched into the rock walls. Waterfalls are everywhere in this inlet, and one’s head needs to be on a swivel to take in the beauty 360 degrees. We anchored in the NW Corner of the head of the bay and John had me do a sweep around in the whaler just to make sure our charts were accurately displaying the shoaling shoreline. NOT. Once again, with the boat hovering in 90 feet I scouted the perimeter and just 20 feet from the boat it was only 4’ (not shown on charts) so we moved the boat farther away from shore before throwing down the anchor. It rained off and on throughout the afternoon, and during the “off” period, John and I took the whaler into “Culpepper Lagoon” which is a brackish lagoon complete with rapids at the entry, nothing serious but still whirlpools and currents during certain times. Culpepper Lagoon was beautiful and the head of the bay was surprisingly similar vista as where we were anchored. It is really stunning here and (for fellow boaters) if you have the time to go off the beaten path, you really feel like you are tucked away in a cove in Alaska. The scenery back here reminds me a lot of Glacier Bay. Back at the boat I set up shop at the gas burner in the cockpit to cook up the crabcakes I had made earlier today, so as to not stink up the boat. It was another nice evening, with rain showers here and there but nothing too serious, and we got to see a beautiful rainbow across the back of the bay. Dinner tonight was a bounty of the sea, prawns with cocktail sauce, crabcakes, and Caesar salad. YUM.