Sincerely, Denise

 Sunday, July 13, 2025

Groundhog Day – it’s raining again. Pouring. Supposed to let up by tomorrow and we are “supposed” to get sunny weather the rest of the week! The bad news is that high winds are predicted this week as well, to the tune of 40mph gusts by tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow our original plan was to move to Pruth Bay for two nights which I was so looking forward to so we could do hikes and beachcombing on the beautiful beaches. However, we are not confident in the holding in Pruth Bay during a wind event, so that’s off the table. Bummed. We considered our options, which were 1) staying here in Goose Bay a few more days, which isn’t very exciting in terms of places to explore but the holding is good, so there’s that; 2) Heading back around Cape Caution today before the wind hits and hiding out tied to a dock in Port McNeill till things settle down, but a phone call to the one marina that takes reservations revealed they had no moorage available. The Port of Port McNeill is a first come first served marina so we wouldn’t know if we could get space on the dock until we got there, about 8 hours from now. Didn’t want to take that chance; and 3) finding another suitable cove to anchor in close by, and there are a few. We seem to have settled on Geetla Cove and have never been but it’s a tight little cove that is almost completely surrounded. Reports from past visitors on Active Captain suggest it’s very well protected. So that is where we will go when we get a break in the rain, supposedly around noon today.

 

The Weather Channel Radar has been surprisingly accurate when it comes viewing when the rain will begin and end, but the other features of weather channel not so much. Our break indeed came at noon and we motored over to Geetla Cove about 8 miles away, so just a quick trip across River’s Inlet. We arrived and thankfully no other boats in here. The entrance is very shallow, just 20’ under the boat, and the navigation charts were unreliable! See below where it shows an opening (that doesn’t exist). When we arrived John sent me in on the tender to investigate and confirm it was safe for the big boat. I passed this entrance twice and could not figure out what I was missing since my chart showed it was there! Felt like the twilight zone. I then went to the north entrance which shows shallow water with a rock in the middle. The rock is also not located where it’s shown on the chart, but luckily it is a large rock sticking out of the water that you can’t miss. Anyway, we are safely snugged down inside this cute little cove and will be hiding out here for a couple days assuming the wind predictions are accurate. Notes on Active Captain also state that it is good crabbing in here, and from what we can see on the “chart” which probably isn’t accurate, there is some great exploring other coves and bays surrounding us.  Hunkered down for the night, signing off.

Blown up view of the entrance to Geetla Inlet, the entrance I circled in red shown on the chart as open water does NOT exist! We entered through the north entrance as shown by dotted line. 

Misty in here now but will clear up tomorrow hopefully!

Just a map showing where we were at the bottom (Goose Bay) and where we are anchored now.