Lowe Inlet - Nettle Basin

We left Kumealon quite early in the morning. Jim quickly to Jenny to shore, we set the skiff up to tow and we left before 8 am. 

Grenville Channel was flat calm - like a lake.  The sky was high cloud - no rain. Sun peaking out every so often. It was a lovely site. 

I thought this was a cool shot with the reflection in the still water of Grenville Channel. 

The only down side was we were bucking a strong flood tide and once we entered the narrow section of Grenville we were doing 5 knots or less. It took an hour longer than expected to get the 28 miles to Lowe inlet.  But because we left early we arrived nice and early. 

We wanted to get into Lowe inlet early and look around and see what it looked like and see if there were any bears around. 

In Nettle Basin at the head of Lowe Inlet there is a lovely waterfall - Verney Falls - and that is where the bears were said to hang out when the salmon are trying to jump up the falls and into the river.  But apparently the bears are only there for a short period of time. As soon as salmon start to get past the falls the bears follow the salmon up the river to where they are easier to catch. 

We were not sure what it would be like for anchoring as there were mixed comments about where to anchor and what the holding was like in front of the falls. So if the holding was poor we would just stay for a few hours and have lunch and then go further south to anchor somewhere else. 

Once we arrived at Nettle Basin we were thrilled. It was beautiful. We were the only boat there. We anchored in 35 ft right in front of the falls and then the current from the falls pushed the boat back and set the anchor. And we never moved. The boat didn't even swing around on the anchor. It was a wonderful spot. We decided to stay - of course!  

The view of the falls at high tide from the bow of the boat. 

We took Jenny out on the dingy and explored the site a bit. Took the dingy right into the basin of the falls and watched the salmon jump all around us. Sockeye - says Jim, they were everywhere. No bears though. 

A view of Phoenix Hunter at anchor from our walk along the south shore. 

We spent the night right in front of the Verny waterfalls. Beautiful. 

As the tide goes out the height of the falls increases and the salmon have a harder time jumping up the fall. 

By late afternoon a sailboat and a motor yacht - a big Seline came in and dropped their anchor behind us. 

And then in the early evening seven fishing boats came in and rafted together for the night on two anchors!  

Lucky for us we were the first to arrive and got the best spot!  

We went for an evening walk with Jenny along the north shore where there was an ancient rockfish weir. 

That was quite interesting to see.  This was a pretty low tide and it was easy to see the circle of rocks there on the shore. 

We really liked this spot and will make sure we come back here again. 

A view of the anchorage from the North shore during our evening walk with Jenny.  It's hard to believe there is a waterfall not that far from the front of the boats, just out of the view of this photo.