Exploring at Eucott Bay

September 14th (Saturday)
After waking up on-and-off last night to the sound of the continuous pouring rain, we were surprised that it was quiet when we awoke in the morning. We were even more surprised to see some patches of blue sky. It was a beautiful morning as the sun rose above the mountains, and the morning light shone on the wet rock faces, making them shimmer. 

After doing some chores around the boat in the morning we headed up one of the streams in our kayaks. We paddled as far as we could and then pulled our kayaks up on the grassy shore and tied them off to a tree, as the tide was still coming in.

We scared a group of ducks out of the grasses as we landed ashore. We followed the stream and had to cross it several times as it weaved back and forth. We saw several groups of salmon in the stream, and it had all of the perfect characteristics of a salmon spawning area. 

Coming around a bend in the stream we found a curious area that appeared to be an old orchard. There were many old fruit trees all neatly spaced out in the open of the grass, while many more lined the tree edge. There were also large groupings of rosehip bushes. In the orchard-like area there were several oddly placed pools that were completely cut off from the rest of the stream. It was hard to tell if the pools were manmade, perhaps so as to prevent the flooding of the orchard, or if they were just coincidental. 

The old orchard, with strange ponds.

We followed an animal trail into the forest, and made our way between some very large old trees. It was a beautiful forest with many open areas, and lots of mushrooms growing on the ground. We came to an area filled with skunk cabbage, and then to the edge of a very old clear-cut. After making our way into the old clear-cut area we eventually decided to turn back as the going was quite bad. Old fallen trees crisscrossed each other, and were partially rotten and overgrown in a dense thicket of closely spaced trees and thick under brush. When we made our way back to the grassy stream area, we had to cut back up into the forest because the tide had risen enough that we could no longer walk through the area we had come up along. We circled around and came out to our kayaks where they were now only a few steps from the waters edge.

After getting back home we changed and went for a soak in the hot springs. Looking out at our boat, alone in the anchorage, surrounded by beautiful majestic mountains, while soaking in a steaming pool of fresh hot water, it seems like paradise. 

By the time we headed home we were so fully warmed to the core that it felt like a summers evening, and we decided to go for a drive. Since it was glassy calm in the anchorage we headed out in Kiki to check out Nascall Bay, a few miles further up the inlet.

There was another hot spring there, however it was privately owned, and the bay turned out to be very shallow, as was shown on the nautical chart, and it was not very well protected. Eucott Bay was definitely the better anchorage. 

Unfortunately we were not able to explore very far because it quickly got too shallow for our tender. Nascall Lake runs out into Nascall Bay, and makes the whole bay very silty. It was surprising how much current was flowing out of the bay due to the falling tide combined with the run off from the river. 

The private property around the bay was quite interesting. They had a very fancy dock with a fully covered ramp and walkway, and the two boats tied up were the fanciest rigid-hull inflatable fishing boats I have ever seen. One was about 40' long, and the other about 30'. The accommodation structures on shore fit the style you might expect to see in West Vancouver, and there were at least five of them. It would be interesting to know if it is strictly a private place, or whether it is more like a resort.
On our drive home the weather changed due to a passing cell. The wind picked up the chop, and it started to rain. By the time we got home all of our stored heat had dissipated, and we were quite happy to get a fire going. We heated up some leftover chowder, which helped to warm us from the inside out.