The Sailing Club, Inc.

Desolaton Sound Vancouver, BC September 10-21, 2005

Beautiful! The trip began at Sunsail's Vancouver, BC, docks where we boarded and checked out our boats. Sunsail is located right next to Stanley Park and the view across Vancouver Harbour is of mountains. A good start to our adventure. After two days of some sailing and more motoring we docked at the little town of Egmont, BC after struggling with about a 5 knot tidal flow at the float. Finally on Tuesday afternoon, September 13, we began to transit the Malibu Rapids into Princess Louisa Inlet. Currents there can get up to 9 knots so we had to wait for slack current. The Inlet is four miles long by maybe one and a half miles wide. We had tides of 2 and 12 feet to deal with. We had been told that Princess Louisa Inlet and Chatterbox Falls were one of the top ten cruising destinations in the world. Those who told us so were right. There were clouds among the peaks and ribbons of cloud along side the mountains reaching up 5,000 feet above us. Under our keels the water had averaged 1,000 feet deep. The next day, Wednesday, after we had moved the boats to capture the territory at the very end of the Government Dock, was spent in hiking, walking, photographing and going in the dinghies just to try to take in the magnificent place to which we had come. We were five boats on the dock. Carl and Marilyn McDanel had joined us in Egmont. We had intended to have a dock side raft up party Wednesday evening but a light rain canceled those plans. What we got instead was an awesome sight. We had gotten used to the part of the 5,000 foot Chatterbox Falls that we could see (about 1,600' in three segments). But we did not imagine that the rainstorm up in the mountains would, in about 15 minutes, produce five new falls from the rim of the fjord to the water. First one, the big one, started to flow down the cliff., then it expanded in size and length. By the time it was maybe two thirds of the way down the cliff another one started over to the right - then another and another. After a couple of hours the smaller ones started to recede but the big one was still there the next morning. This is lower Chatterbox Falls. After the new falls emptied into these falls they widened across all the rockface and were spilling several times more water than as seen in this picture. The next morning we motored back to Egmont, where we had all had dinner at the Pub the night before the push to Chatterbox Falls. Fresh oysters went well for many. Two of the boats had bought fresh salmon at the fish packing house before going to the Falls, this time all four boats bought fresh salmon for grilling. Our trip the next day to Grief Point was noted for the good sailing winds we had once we cleared the Jervis Inlet and entered the Strait of Georgia. The other thing Grief Point had was a huge mass of blackberry bushes loaded with ripe fruit. Berries on cereal, berries baked in various ways - just lots of blackberries. Then we went to Deep Bay on Jedediah Island and dropped anchor. After setting the anchors we had to attach long stern lines to rings set in the cliff wall which were provided with chains for us to tie to. Tides in this part of the world vary greatly both in height and duration. We had tides as high as 16 feet - 18 feet is not uncommon. Moving so much water causes strong currents in the smaller areas. As it did when we did our anchoring. Sunday was a lay day. Most of us went hiking across Jedediah Island to see the beauty of Home Bay and The Strait of Georgia. Monday we left Deep Bay to cross the Strait of Georgia and go to Snug Cove on Bowen Island for the night. Finally we got the wind. We got so much wind that only the larger two boats tried to sail. We all did a time and distance calculation and motored to the Union Steamship Marina. On Tuesday, September 20, we idled in the Marina and then sailed to the entrance to Vancouver, dropped the sails to go to the fuel dock and back to Sunsail in Vancouver. All the boats got home safe. It was a fun, safe trip - just what we like in the Sailing Club! Trip Leaders Steve Krakauer & Jon Stufflebeem Vancouver@TheSailingClub.org