FORD’S
TERROR AT ANCHOR
Saturday,
June 13th
Lucky
me, I woke up to the sound of waterfalls, incredibly peaceful. Last night after
I did all the remaining dishes by hand, and John headed for bed, I felt like I
couldn’t let go of this place just yet. I went to the back deck and sat there
for another half hour just soaking in all the beauty and expressing my
gratitude again. I knew that today would not be the same with the rain expected
to move in. Luckily the visibility is not clouded over this morning but it is
beginning to sprinkle. By tomorrow we are supposed to be in heavier rain which
is unfortunate but what a gift we had yesterday. Might get the shrimp pots out
today and see what we can get.
So
the name Ford’s Terror invites caution by its very name. The story behind the
name goes back to 1889, when H.L. Ford, a US Navy crewman who was the
Master-at-Arms on a surveying party, rowed a small boat through the narrow
entrance of the inlet. The tide changed while he was inside, and he was trapped
in the roaring, turbulent tidal currents for six "terrifying" hours
before he could safely escape!
When the rain
subsided, we set some shrimp pots as I had read that shrimping is good in here.
Leslie, Connie, and I set out around noon to go put down the pots and do some
exploring as well. After successful deployment of the pots we made our way into
the other arm of Ford’s Terror, where they don’t recommend bringing large boats
because of an uncharted rocky bar that stretches across the channel at one
point. It was indeed shallow being high tide and only 14’ of water when we
passed over. Back in the other inlet there were snowfields and ice sheets that
came all the way down to the water with waterfalls flowing in tunnels underneath,
very cool. We ventured to the very head of the inlet and saw another bear! It
was too shallow for us to get very close to shore, but Greg and Bill (who were
in another boat) were able to venture closer to shore and get some pictures.
Soon the bear got anxious and bounded away into the trees, the show was over,
so we made our way back along the shoreline admiring the waterfalls and ice
sheets along the way. At one point I dialed up the engine and we were zipping
across the bay where we kept hearing hard slaps that sounded like a sharp wave
hitting the boat but more than that. We slowed down and looked closely at the
water to find little tiny ice cube size ice chunks, barely noticeable to the
naked eye, so yes we were surfing among the ice bits – I am sure the bottom
paint will suffer a bit from that. The rain set in eventually which cut our
exploration short, the last 10 minutes back to the boat being pelted by steady
rain. Seemed like a good afternoon for a movie so I invited the ladies over for
a chick flick, Office Romance, with Jennifer Lopez. It was mildly entertaining,
but we ate up 2 hours of down time and had a cozy afternoon. We all had a “night
off” from socializing which was much needed, John and I had leftovers for
dinner and watched a couple episodes of Marshalls.
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| Girls Trip! Adventuring |
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