Princess Louisa Inlet

One of the truly spectacular areas on the west coast is Princess Louisa Inlet, located about 30 miles up Jervis Inlet, that cuts deep into the mainland halfway up the Sunshine Coast.  I sailed there about 10 years ago, and wanted to make it a part of this trip as well.  I had originally thought we would go in on our way back south, but given the stable weather, it seemed to be a good time to do it after Pender Harbour.

The little town of Egmont is the usual launching point for the trip in, so that became our destination for Friday.   There was little wind, so once again we motored.   Emily had come down sick overnight, so Sara and I alternated being down below with her, while the other stood watch.

Egmont Marina

We were able to grab the last 40' of open dock space in Egmont, and had a few hours to roam around, and take advantage of the marina's showers.

The entrance to Princess Louisa is through Malibu Rapids, which are described as being a fearsome river, other than a brief slack period when the tide turns.  As luck would have it, on the day we were going in, slack tide was around noon, which required us to get an early start for the 5 - 6 hour trip in.  Sara briefly got up with me to help me get safely away from the dock, and then went back to bed with Emily, while I enjoyed the sun rising as I motored up Jervis inlet into the mountains.

Approaching Malibu Rapids

According to plan, the rapids were beautifully calm when we entered the inlet.  

I have been trolling a fishing lure for much of the trip so far, with no interest shown yet from the fish. (although in my defense we have been going faster than recommended for trolling).  Today I had been pulling a lure with a large silver flasher several feet in front of it.  Not long after we had entered Princess Louisa inlet, I watched with horror as a beautiful bald eagle passed over my lure, and turned to dive towards it.  Fortunately I was close to my reel, and hit the release, letting out a bunch of slack, allowing the lures to sink quickly out of sight, before the eagle could strike. A pretty cool thing to witness, and fortunately it ended well for the eagle.  More fuel for Sara's jokes about my fishing however.

We were all on deck enjoying the amazing scenery as we motored to the back of the inlet, and the base of Chatterbox Falls.

We shared the dock with 2 other boats Saturday night, both of whom were gone by the time we got up.  We were looking forward to the tranquility of being alone in this beautiful place, when the buzzing of aircraft started.  There must have been 5 float planes come and go over the next few hours,  none staying for more than 30 minutes.  Kind of cool in small doses, but I was glad when rush hour was over.

We decided to spend a second night there, and had a generally lazy day on Sunday.  Emily was still not feeling well, so we spend a bunch of time (unsuccessfully) trying to get her to take a nap.  I finally broke away and went for a hike up to an old trappers cabin, through the beautiful old-growth rainforest.

We were joined by 3 other sailboats for the night, and we headed out first thing in the morning, to make it through the rapids for the first slack tide of the day.