The trip to Princess Louisa Inlet
is considered one of the holy grails of cruising. We started early morning at
6:00AM from Backeddy Marina to make the 37 nautical mile trip to Malibu Rapids.
There are many areas in this section of cruising that have large dangerous
rapids and timing is everything. You have a small window of opportunity to pass
the rapid areas at slack tide. Slack tide is the time between high and low when
there is the least amount of current. Either side of that window and you are
literally taking your life into your hands. Timing calculations are important and
figuring when slack will be involves using a tide station that could be a
significant distance from where you will be. It is suggested that Point
Atkinson, which is near Vancouver be used and then add 36 minutes to the stated
slack after high tide and that should work. Now the trick is to pace your speed
to get there just at the right moment. GPS has made those calculations somewhat
easy. I set my destination waypoint at the center of the rapids. I initially
figured a speed of 6.5 knots running up 37 nautical miles. My GPS will then
tell me my anticipated arrival time based on my current speed. As you progress
winds and current change and this requires either slowing down or speeding up
so that you maintain your required arrival time. We left figuring the worst
case scenario and kept having to throttle back because mother nature was
helping us way too much. We even stopped and anchored for a half hour since we
were going so fast. We arrived at the entrance point and as one can suspect we
were not the only boat waiting for slack. And remember boats want to go in and
boats want to go out. It is a pretty orderly operation. You can see the Rapids
from the outside and everyone is looking down the small narrow channel to see
how it looks. No one wants to be the first in and usually the biggest boat
takes the plunge and then reports back. After that the chatter begins (maybe
that is why it is called Chatterbox Falls) and everyone announces their place
in line and waits for a clear spot to enter. Only one boat at a time can go
through since it is so narrow. Usually groups of three or four, one at a time, will
take turns entering the rapids or exiting from the falls side. “Security,
security, security, 27-foot Ranger Tug entering Malibu Rapids. Any vessel opposing
please respond immediately”. No response, good to go. Usually a few other boats
behind you will report accordingly and announce who they are behind. When there
is a break in the announcing by incoming, anyone on the other side will jump in
and announce their exiting. We all have about a 20-minute window on either side
of slack to make the passage. It works well and we all enter and exit in one
piece. As we get closer to the falls the canyon walls get higher and steeper,
raising vertically at points to 3,000 feet. Waterfalls run down in several
places and on this day clouds hung low is places creating a Jurassic Park
feeling as we progressed. We finally made it to the falls. It was now time to
find a spot to anchor. There is a dock, but it is usually full before you get
there. The people anchored out from the night before grab a spot as soon as
those who were there leave to exit.
We coincidentally met up with a
couple of other Ranger Tug folks that we met previously so three of us rafted
up for the night while the other group miraculously found a spot at the dock.
After rafting up it was time to go to shore and hike the numerous paths and see
the falls up close. Pretty magnificent. The trip was well worth it. After the
hiking Jeff brought over a bucket of clams he had dug up from his secret spot
the day before. Before you knew it we had an impromptu repeat of the Feeding of
Multitudes from the Bible. Ken and Sandy made spaghetti and clam sauce. I
cooked some clams in a tin foil bag I made and used garlic, butter, wine,
onions and basil and steamed them on the grill, Ron and Libby made garlic bread
and Jess made a salad. We all sat down on Sandy and Ken’s 29 foot Ranger and
brought our food, appetizers and wine and indulged in a feast. It was a great evening and we wished it wouldn’t
end, but for us and Ron and Libby it was early to bed early to rise. The rapids
went slack at 6:05 AM so it was a 5:30 AM departure to make it through.
Below are a few pictures of our
journey to the falls.
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| We are not in Kansas anymore Toto. |
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| Yes, a bit ominous looking. |
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| I think I saw a dinosaur |
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| The Falls are not as big as they are in early spring. I read that in the spring you should not anchor in front since boulders do come down at times. |
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| Some markings of water running down earlier in the season. |
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| I expected Gollum from Lord of the Rings to pop out at any time! |
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| So after they put up the sign no one else died? |
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| Gullum are you home? |
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| Typical forest foliage. |
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| More forest foliage |
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| Baby Chatterbox maybe? |
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| Forest gnomes! |
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| Ron, Jess and Libby going back to the boat. Not our boat behind them. Ron has a bad sense of direction. Explains why he always follows us. |
