Blue Sky and Grey Clouds

They say a photo is worth a thousand words, and this one sure tells the story of our voyage to date. We sail from one atmospheric condition to the other. Blue to Grey and Grey to Blue. Between the two extremes, we have encountered great sailing winds. Thus, all has not been lost.








On June 12th, we head to a popular and much photographed spot called Chatterbox Falls. By coincidence, I had just started reading a book sent to me by veteran sailor and Telluride friend, Lou Fanning. “The Curve of Time” by M. Wylie Blanchet is a memoir of the summers she, alone with her five young children and sometimes a dog, spent cruising the waters of the Pacific Northwest in the 1930’s and 40’s. Their water home was a 25’ motor vessel with a beam of 6 1/2’. (Avante in comparison is 52’ with a beam of 14 1/2’, and we two are quite comfortable. Thank you.) They explored this coast at a time when little was known of it and much has changed since. They caught fish easily (fewer fish now) and cooked them over fires on the beach (prohibited in many places now). They would favor a spot and spend 2 weeks there with no other visiting vessel to intrude (impossible now). They each had one set of clothes and a bathing suit. How? Bathing suit? Global Warming? Isn’t happening here! However, aside from all comparisons past to present or maybe because of them, this book has had me enthralled and caught me in its magic from the first page. (Thank you, Lou!)

The coincidence of my starting the book as we sailed toward Chatterbox Falls is that that is the first adventure described in the book. I am sailing it with her and seeing it thru her much wiser eyes. Chatterbox Falls is at the end of a 3-mile inlet called Princess Louisa Inlet. To get there, one must go down a long fiord whose name changes with each of three bends. I learn from her that Vancouver gave this area these names in honor of his sovereigns. Placing himself among the mighty, he gave his name to a large bay we sailed by and that she and her children stopped in for lunch while she, in a moment’s time, caught three trout in the near-by steam. Was Vancouver so sure that he had finally found the inland passage thru these mountains to the east that he gave this fiord such esteemed names: Prince of Wales Reach, Princess Royal Reach and Queens Reach? He did not explore Princess Louisa Inlet mistaking the narrow entrance with swift running rapids for a creek. He, therefore, did not name Princess Louisa Inlet nor did he give the improbable name of Malibu Rapids to the narrow entrance whose waters can race at 10 – 12 knots over barely submerged rocks.

Setting off at 8:30 in the morning, we have about 45 miles to go to catch the slack tide at 3:00 over Malibu Rapids.



Bill starts the day with a satellite connection to the outside world and a board meeting.










After the call, The First Mate treats The Captain to a Birthday Brunch.






The guidebooks talk about winds that in-flow and out-flow in these fiords creating great sailing, but we had experienced no such winds in any of the many fiords we had sailed up and down on our Alaskan trip last year. Expecting no such great sailing, to our amazement, the winds did pick up to 7, 8, 9 and even 12 knots.

We raised our sails and made excellent time sailing down wind to our destination. An interesting phenomenon occurred each time we rounded a bend. We set the autopilot to follow a course based on wind angle. The wind turned the corner up the fiord, and Avante under the autopilot’s control did the same. It was fascinating to observe the slow change in angle as we rounded each corner.


The massive, granite walls of the fiord rise straight up above us as they emerge from their watery depths to heights of 6,000’ and more. If we had wanted to, we could have sailed right up to the walls and touched them. Depths in these fiords are as astounding as the heights above.

The cloud cover is low, blanketing the peaks above us. It is easy to imagine walls and clouds pressing in on us. For the first time, I am able to understand and empathize with Vancouver’s antipathy toward these towering heights. My advantage over Vancouver is that, with my charts and quidebooks, I know what lies ahead around each corner. Vancouver did not, and from his uncertain perspective, these monoliths would be foreboding.

We sailed down the fiord to Malibu Rapids, dropped sail, and dropped the shrimp trap. Guess who dropped the trap? If one remembers, I had a very difficult time coiling the rope as I pulled it in the first time. My poor job led to a coiled-up mess. Bill did his own tangle-tango up there getting ropes, weights, trap and float back in the water. The Captain is far from pleased with this whole endeavor, and The First Mate knows for sure she better come up with a workable system of rope management ASAP. Do Captains have the option of mutiny? Of course not -- but The First Mate could be made to walk the plank. Better get thinking.

The tide is now slack, though we are running late because of the shrimp trap launch. We rush toward the barely discernable entrance to the pass. I wish I had been able to take pictures of this relatively short and potentially lethal little pass, but there was not a moment when full attention was not needed at the helm to hold the course. In our favor was the fact that the middle of the pass was well deep enough for Avante, and, of course, we are at slack tide so we will not be tossed about by the 12-knot currents created by the tide racing in or running out. Against us, however, was a narrow, “S”-shaped passage running thru a minefield of rocks and sand bars. The passage itself cannot be seen until you are directly in front of it giving you no time to contemplate what lies ahead. Only the charts tell you. Upon entering, you are confronted with a spit of rock-covered land that juts out into your path, but you cannot turn away from it. You are in a channel cutting thru rocks on both the starboard and port sides. Finally, the rocks to starboard bend to the right allowing you to gratefully turn away from the fast approaching spit -- only to be confronted by a massive wall of granite. Again there is a line of rocks on the starboard side and this impenetrable granite wall ahead. It looks clear to port, and that’s where you instinctively want to turn, but according to the charts in which you must have faith, there is a continuing line of rocks coming off that spit at varying depths below surface. Most boats could have made their turn then, heading away from the wall, but Avante’s deep keel prevents that. Anxiously you wait and hold course staying in the deepest part of the passage. At what feels like the last possible moment, the Navigator (also known as The Captain) commands a 30 degree left turn. You execute the turn, but in no way is it enough. The wall still looms ahead. Impatiently and with unflagging confidence coupled with a strong desire to bolt, you wait until the command is given to turn a further 50 degrees, and you and Avante have gotten thru Malibu Rapids. Princess Louisa Inlet is clear ahead looking more like a river with the enclosing rock walls.

Day is waning as we reach the end of the inlet which has opened into a large bowl. There are boats securely tied to a dock, but Avante is too big to fit and that is not The Captain’s way of doing things anyway. He has read that it is possible to anchor just below the falls in about 90’ of water. Though the wind coming up the inlet would normally blow us into land, the current from the water out-flowing from the falls is supposed to keep the boat facing into land and off the land. Will that really work? We drop anchor, but it takes a long time for an anchor to feed down 90’. The wind catches hold of Avante and turns her around. The anchor finally hits bottom. Bill puts out more chain, and we sit on Avante waiting for this current to take effect. Slowly, ever so slowly, Avante turns back to the falls and pulls out on the chain. We set the anchor, and we are secure with the sound of the waterfalls raging in our ears. (For The First Mate, this is another one of those matters of faith things, but it works. In the morning, we are right where we anchored with a light wind at our backs and the current holding us off land.)








Steep granite walls rising into the clouds loom above us anchored as we are so close to land.















Our plans were to hike up to an old trapper’s cabin the next morning, but it rained so hard the night before that a hike in the mud no longer riveted our imagination. Instead in the surreal morning light, we pull anchor and head back up Princess Louisa Inlet to catch the morning slack tide in Malibu Rapids.






We look back at the falls and its heights lost in the morning mist.

The morning light creates fantastic reflections in this shadowy world of blue and grey as were head out the inlet.

After navigating thru Malibu Rapids, we head directly across the fiord to the wall where depths are a mere 250’ or so and pick up our shrimp trap. The First Mate, after much thought regarding the coiling tendencies of rope, has come up with a “rope management system”. While The Captain hauls the trap up from the depths, The First Mate is right there with a large orange bucket into which she is coiling the rope. It’s brilliant! It works! The rope coils in obediently. The Captain is skeptical about how well it is going to uncoil, but he is duly ignored. What’s in the trap? Not exactly shrimp, but we do have a critter from the deep. While The First Mate is thinking that this is kind of fun seeing what shows up from the depths below, The Captain is muttering something about his experience from Navy Survival School. “If the energy exerted to obtain nourishment exceeds the amount of energy derived from that nourishment than the energy exerted is wasted effort and not very well suited to survival”, and he’s not sure how much longer he’s going to continue with this wasted effort. He continues to be duly ignored while The First Mate enthuses about her system of rope management. It worked. The rope is coiled and contained. Who says she doesn’t understand physics?

Note the critter. Note The First Mate’s delight. Note the orange bucket with rope coiled and neatly contained. Lastly, note the basil plant which against The Captain’s wishes is up and out for its morning airing.


We begin to head on out the fiord in glassy seas and no wind. The morning in-flow fiord wind gradually picks up after we round the first bend, and we are soon able to raise sail. In fact, the wind rises to over 20 knots, and a reef has to be put in. We tack from one side of the fiord to the other sailing right up to the granite walls. The Captain returns to a much better frame of mind, and we continue on in this wonderful, beautiful, magical world of blue and grey.