Prince Rupert to Khutze Inlet

It was 10 a.m. before we left Prince Rupert. We had forgotten to pay the Yacht Club the night before and they don’t open until 9 a.m. Then we needed to fuel since we had to check into customs before we could do that. By the time we finished it was late. We again had to go into the exposed water of Chatham Sound but the weather reports indicated it was okay to go. The good news of our timing meant that we would be riding the tail end of a flood tide into Grenville Channel and then the tide would change in the middle and we would ride an ebb tide out the other side. This is the channel where we were beat up pretty bad going north so we were relieved to have such favorable conditions. When we were almost out of the channel, the water became rough; however, we were going with the current so we were fine.

Because we were racing the clock to get back to Bellingham we decided to try to go as far as possible. We stopped at Hartley Bay to fuel and then off we went again. This area of the Inside Passage is incredibly beautiful with long deep channels with cliffs on either side. There are several inlets along the way, but many of them are too deep to anchor in, so as we traveled I researched possible anchorages depending on how far we got. We really loved Bottleneck Inlet on the way up and wanted stay there again if possible. Unfortunately that wasn’t possible so we stopped in Khutze Inlet. Our choice was this inlet or Horsefly Cove. Can you guess why it is called that? I am finally healing from all the horsefly bites I got on the way up so we decided on this inlet instead. Five miles in at the very end of the inlet it is possible to anchor at the mouth of the river and the bottom of a waterfall. It was a very beautiful and peaceful anchorage. We made excellent time traveling 118 miles in 9 hours.