Cross it off the list

There are a few things that have been on my “bucket list” for more years than I care to admit. Almost all of my list has to do with the great outdoors. I love mother nature and she loves me. About 18 years ago, right after I bought my first sailboat, I read a little article in a sailing magazine that described the Princess Louisa Inlet. I knew that I had to see this place and it has been sitting patiently on my list since then. Well, I finally made it and it is spectacular!

It took us about 8 hours completely out of our way to get to Princess Luisa Inlet from Pender Harbour, which means that we are out in the middle of nowhere. What do we do when we are sitting at home for about 8 hours on a lazy Sunday morning? Probably the same thing as you...coffee, breakfast, laundry, putter around the house...only for us, while we are doing our laundry, we just so happen to be meandering past some of the most beautiful scenery on earth...and we catch a fish for dinner.

This place is exactly what I was looking for when we decided to go north for the summer. Pure, raw, unadulterated wilderness. There is no evidence of man on these shores (other than the 8 boats that are lucky enough to be here as well). No cell phones...no internet...no stores...no roads...it's perfect.

Princess Louisa Inlet is at the end of a long and deep fjord which was spectacular to see all by itself, but once you get through Malibu Rapids and enter the Inlet is when you are truly awestruck. Sheer rock walls climb thousands of feet toward the sky, water falls surround you and cascade thousands of feet into the sea, and at the head of the bay is the grand daddy water fall of them all...Chatterbox Falls. This place is off the hook. Literally insane. My mind has been blown. We have taken about 1,000 pictures hoping to capture the grandeur of our surroundings but none of them even come close to showing what this place is about. Take my word for it. It is utterly amazing.

While paddle boarding around the Inlet, we saw our first bear of the trip. We were about 30 feet from shore when a bear decided to come through the trees to look for some food at the waters edge. I instantly had an overwhelming urge to hug this teddy-bear so I started paddling closer to shore until Brenda quickly reminded me that this was no teddy-bear and that bears are good swimmers, so reluctantly I paddled out from shore a little and hung out to watch the bear for a bit. I still wish we could have taken him home and kept him. I would have hugged him, squeezed him, fed him, and named him George.

We have been hermits since we left Seattle and have mostly spent time with ourselves but while we were in Princess Louisa Inlet we met some really great people. We were lucky enough to be invited over for dinner on an amazing power boat with a super fun couple from Tacoma of all places (not all power boaters are evil), another couple from San Antonio, Texas who have been cruising the inside passage for 4 years now, and we met another great couple with their boatload of kids (4 of the little rascals) that had told us about a beautiful group of islands in Hotham Sound with great fishing and really warm water called the Harmony Islands. Sounds perfect to me.

It is a strange thing to meet people who on different circumstances would be lifelong friends. If we were in Seattle and met these people, they would have been entered into our cell phones, called and visited on a regular basis, been invited over for dinner, and we would have expected Christmas presents from them. But here, we have a great day or night visiting and then say “see ya”. Its sort of a sad in a way. I am going to have to get used to that.

Anyway, we ended up staying at Princess Louisa Inlet for a couple of days, mostly because this place is a pretty big deal for me (most people don't get to cross something off of their bucket list very often so I was in no rush to move on), but also because it is spectacular. After I had my fill, we left for the Harmony Islands where we ran into our new friends with their boat load of kids and had a great night visiting with them and getting a little bit of Canadian History (it was Canada Day after all). We have realized on this trip that we know almost nothing about Canadian history and are a little bit embarrassed about it. Unfortunately in the States, we don't really focus on any history but our own, which gives us a pretty limited view of the world. It was really a treat for me to be able to share Canada Day with some real-live-Canadians who just happened to be a really great family and lots of fun. We got some swimming in (the water is 80 degrees here), some more paddle boarding, another fish for dinner, and way too much sun. It's been a great handful of days!

We are currently in Powell River where we have pulled in to get fuel and groceries. We only had to walk about 1 mile to the grocery store, but that one mile does involve walking up “cardiac hill”. We will be heading out tomorrow morning with an unknown destination in mind.

On a side note...I love to fish. Brenda sort of likes to fish. Since we have been in Canadian waters, we have fished for a combined total of 3 minutes. Both times we have made attempts to catch a fish, Brenda has caught a fish before my lure has hit the water. Score...Brenda 2 – Jeff 0. The fishing poles are off limits to Brenda until the score is even...........