Princess Louisa Inlet, the "Holy Grail"

All cruising books refer to the Princess Louisa Inlet as the "Holy Grail" of cruising. It is a must destination because it is so unique and spectacular. One must travel 50 miles up a blind fiord in waters over 2000 feet deep to get to it, and on entering it, you must pass through narrow rapids. This, of course, means waiting for slack tides which only occur 4 times per day. In a perfect world, you time the trip to arrive at exactly the right time.

But on the way up there, we stopped at Pender Harbor. Here is a picture of an Iris Christy saw and insisted that it was twice the size of normal.

And the harbor was truly a working harber, with crab, prawn, and fishing boats all around us.

Below is a boat that was just docking as we arrived.

The owner/operator is a kid who pulls up 300 crab-pots every day. They are clustered 50 to a line x 6 lines. His average haul is 1,000 pounds per day, and at times twice that amount. A broker buys his catch destined to be immediately frozen and shipped to Japan. He said he makes a good living and plans to do this forever. The market price of whole crabs is $9 per pound, so I can see his optimism. He was very engaging, intelligent, and spoke feely. The fishing industry has really died down in the past few years, and everyone has a different reason. Depending on who you talk to, it's either the Canadians, the Americans, the Japaneese, or the massive gill netting industry.
But then, on to Princess Louisa Inlet!! When we rounded the turn into "Malibu Rapids", which protect the final harbor, we saw waterfalls everywhere. They were on both sides and cannot be described.



















We launched the dingdy first thing, and cruised around the end of the fiord. There were about 8 boats already there tied up at a dock...






This is a view entering the "rapids" before seeing everything else.



There is a hike there called the "Trapper Cabin" hike. The elevation of the cabin is 2000 feet, so it takes about 2 hours to get up...this is the forest along the way...


But the most spectacular view is this one. The falls in the background are "Chatterbox Falls", as they can be heard from 4 miles away as you enter the inlet. The mist and spray keep those too close wet, but the docks are safe..



This is a view of the dock and the falls from the dinghy as we returned to the boat.






Here we are leaving the Inlet heading back to the main routes to once again, begin the trip to Alaska.


These are two hiking buddies for the climb to the cabin. Note the falls int he background.



And now it's off further north....