Dynamite and Jokers

It was a short jog in calm seas and light wind into the Broughton Archipelago from Blunden Harbour today. The Broughtons are always beautiful and are one of my favorite places to visit. One no sooner enters the complex than they are met with strings of tiny wooded islets shrouded in mist and tendrils of fog.

The plan for tomorrow is to visit Bootleg Cove; so named for its use in the prohibition era. Or so it's reported in our guidebook. Color me skeptical. Where would a bootlegger go from there? More useful is the description of the cove as "one of the most sheltered spots on the British Columbia coast!" (emphasis theirs)

We tried using Bootleg Cove on our way north and found it occupied. We'll try again tomorrow. This is my fourth time in this neighborhood and it becomes more popular every time I visit. Maybe we'll get lucky.

We're in Claydon Bay tonight, a rather large, but quiet anchorage within easy reach of Queen Charlotte Strait.

We noticed a faint sound of heavy machinery emanating from the ridge above the cove when we arrived, but whatever was going on was out of sight. Then a couple hours later, a massive explosion disturbed the cove's quiet tranquility, probably dynamite blasting rock. I wasn't aware there are any roads in these islets/islands, so who knows what they're up to.

And the final item to report in todays post, appropriately at the bottom, is that I got to spend the afternoon repairing the toilet. The joker valve is an ingeniously shaped sphincter of rubber that allows effluent to be pumped out without allowing seawater to flow in the opposite direction. When the toilet bowl starts filling with sea water between uses, I know the joker valve is no longer able to impede the return flow of seawater. A crappy job, but it's behind me now.