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| Eucott Bay Hot Spring Pool |
Another lazy start as it was such a nice morning and we had a short day planned. Anchor up at 1:10. The iPad/Navionics we use as one of our two chart plotters could not get a fix - again. Something we experienced 1/2 dozen times in this general area - I assume due to the high surrounding mountains. We could not get any VHF weather in the area either, something I read about elsewhere. Wind was 20 knots inflow against the current in Dean Channel making for very choppy waters. We back-tracked a few miles to look at the pictographs. A reference from Waggoner:
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| Ref http://waggonerguide.com/ |
We would not have found the pictographs without the GPS coordinates!
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| Amazing if these are hundreds of years old (ref quote above) |
Turning back past Mackenzie rock we looked at the inscription from the water side. Knowing where to look and what to look for it was easy to see from the water when passing. Interesting that charts show 1550' feet of water under 1/2 mile off the shore - that is a steep / deep dropoff!
Eucott Bay is a large and shallow bay with no concerns about the anchor dragging off a ledge and LOTS of swinging room. We dropped anchor at 3:30 in only 15' of water. Temperature was 80F - a far cry from the 52F at Hakai a few days earlier. I checked out the hot springs in the dinghy and was chased back to the boat by the Horse Flies. They really come out in the heat! Back on the boat others noticed I had blood trickling down my calf from a particularly vicious bite.
As previous days, waiting until a bit later was the key to avoiding the flies. We packed up champage and beer (true yin and yang) and headed to the hot springs for a soak.
It really is fantastic and combined with the excellent anchorage a recommended spot. The water from the hot springs is extremely hot - hot enough to burn (don't ask how we know this :)). The tub has been built out of the rocks and even included a bench. A pipe feeds hot water into the tub, and when we were there a conveniently sized stick allowed one to control the flow. Too cold when we arrived we opened the pipe for a few hours. The resultant hot water layer on top was then far too hot - darn! Some generous mixing of the tub had it sorted. We enjoyed a great soak, complete with drinks, occasional dips in the ocean to cool off, and amazing surroundings. Magic.
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| Hot Spring pool looking out to the anchorage |
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| The bench. Hot spring water pipe on the right. |
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| From the water. Better than a swim-up bar. |
Click to follow route on Google Maps
Note that the whole route is not there (from the anchorage out to Dean Channel) as the iPad could not get a fix.