Desolation Sound – Grace Harbor July 19th -20th

We started towards Desolation Sound around noon and we traveled about 20 miles around Malaspina Peninsula to Grace Harbor. It is a wooded large cove surrounded on all sides and well protected from wind, current and weather. The only thing to watch out for is their tides, which are a 15 foot swing from high tide to low tide. You just need to be careful when you anchor. There are bald eagles, sea gulls, seals and of course we caught a red rock crab for an appetizer. We still have not been in an area where you can harvest shellfish and there was a red tide warning just cleared, so we will probably only have oysters in restaurants, if you can find anyone preparing the oysters raw.
We had bought 600 feet of polysteel stern line (so we don’t have to use our good/expensive drogue line) to wrap around trees. As we finished anchoring and using our new stern tie line, Sid rowed over in his dinghy. He was also anchored in the harbor and had been exploring and taking pictures of an old cabin on Gifford Island. Anyway it was warm enough that we went for a swim and Alexus tried to go down to see how the anchor was set. The water is not glacier run off, but it is not warm, and 10 feet lower Alexus said it was a dramatic change and very chilly and she decided it was just too cold just to see how the anchor performed. We had a great day that was very peaceful. The harbor does fill fast and there were about 22 boats on Saturday, and everyone respected the quiet. On Sunday the local folks headed for home and the harbor had about 12 boats for the day.