Florence Cove - Hole in the Wall
It’s another beautiful day for cruising and we headed north up Lewis Channel. Destination is Hole in the Wall, a small passage between Lewis Channel and Okisollo Channel.
About half way up the channel, we encountered a humpback whale feeding. He was pretty impressive but a little to close for comfort. We slowly motored on to get out of his feeding ground. Eric and Sue lingered behind to watch and were treated to a great show.
Slack tide was early the following morning so we pulled into Florence Cove, to spend the night. We decide to anchor and stern tie our boat and have the other boat raft up. There was a well defined beach to stern tie on so we get set up. It was a very steep incline up to the beach so we dropped our anchor at about 75 feet on a hill and backed in. It’s a bit tricky and we had to do it twice to make sure we had enough anchor line out to keep us in place.
Keith rows to shore in the dingy with the rope, wraps it around a tree, and heads back. All is going as planned. He gets back to the big boat, jumps out of the dingy onto the big boat with both stern tie ropes in his hand. With lines now back at the boat, I’m in the back to help get it settled. As he gets out of the dingy, he forgot to grab the dingy rope and off it goes. I quickly peel off my outer clothes and jump in to rescue it. The water is much colder than expected and the dingy is floating away faster than I thought it would. I swam as hard as I could, got to the dingy, grabbed one of the stern tie ropes that was looped through a handle and Keith pulled me in. Brrr, that was a chilling experience. (No, I couldn’t lift myself into the dingy). But wait, it gets better….
Eric and Sue are hovering out in the bay waiting for us to get settled and Sue sees me go into the water. She tells Eric to head to shore in their dingy to help. There is plenty of water in the bay and Sue, just learning to drive their boat, decides to practice. I’m back at the helm lining our boat up to finish the stern tie and here comes Sue, barrelling into shore. Holy cow!!! I grab the radio and tell her to STOP. She does and then drifts until Eric gets back to their boat. Whew! She later said she was “practicing” and it cracked her up… she was the only one laughing.
All had settled down and Keith wanted to do some fishing in the channel. We fished for about an hour and I ended up catching a healthy sized Ling Cod. That wasn’t what we were hoping for but it was better than nothing. Keith was concerned we wouldn’t be able to keep it and didn’t have the regulations with us. We remembered talking with another fisherman early in the week and he had a ling so we kept it. When we got back to the boat, we learned it was legal to catch lings. Fish Tacos instantly became a menu item for the following night…. yum!
Before the sun went down, we made a little trip over to the rapids in the Trophy to get a lay of the land. It’s hard to see in the picture, but the water was moving pretty good with eddies and swirls. The Trophy had power enough to get through them and know we knew what to expect the following morning.
It was a peaceful night and an easy launch the next morning. The rapids were flat calm and all was well.
Route Refuge Cove north to Florence Cove in Hole in the Wall.
