TOO HOT today!

We have now gone for over two weeks without rain, and today, the mercury rose into the 80’s in the area in which we are presently traveling! Some showers are predicted for Thursday might and the following days, but we have finally had some summer weather, and with no wind this evening at the bottom of the huge granite “bowl” that is Bishop Bay, where we are spending tonight and tomorrow. We have lowered the shades, opened the hatches, and turned on the fans in Braesail’s cabins, and consumed chilled water from the fridge. We have been uncomfortably hot for a big change after five months of mostly cool, overcast, even cold, weather–amazing!

We left large, tranquil, forested Coghlan this morning (Wednesday, August 24) and motored to the nearby Indigenous community of Hartley Bay, but we were unable to find sufficient space at the dock or in the small marina for Braesail, and so we traveled on.

 The wind rose, and so did our sails, and we took advantage of free wind power for about a half-hour. Soon the wind died away, and we exercised Braesail’s diesel engine for the remainder of the 25-mile trip to Bishop Bay, where there is a hot spring pool open to the public at the end of a short boardwalk trail.

The journey through Verney Passage around Gribbel Island was breathtaking, with giant granite cliffs and peaks soaring skyward to glacier-sculpted basins, down from which the winding silver-white trails of steams and waterfalls can be traced. It was like being in Misty Fjords in Alaska, but without the mist!

The water here in Bishop Bay is very deep very close to shore, which makes anchoring conditions less than ideal, and so with some struggle, Walt managed to hook the lone mooring buoy in the bay and attach the boat to it with a dock line. We are thus settled in for the time being, and I will let you know whether or not we decided to poach ourselves in a hot spring pool on a hot evening after a hot day!