Friday, June 15, 2018

June 15 – Princess Louisa Inlet Boat Tour

Today we drove up to Egmont and took a 5 hour boat tour with Sunshine Coast Tours up Jarvis Inlet to Princess Louisa Inlet and at its end, Chatterbox Falls.

Jarvis Inlet is pretty scenic on its own, with high steep mountains on each side but Princess Louisa Inlet is narrow as well so they seem that much taller.

This is a long post. We took almost 800 shots. There were lots of duplicates to discard because I never know which one is going to look the best.

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The drive to Egmont is only 60 km but takes an hour because of the twisty road and low speed limits.

It was a bit cool today with partly cloudy skies. I wore a fleece and a windbreaker and was comfortable but I did need them because the boat moved along at a good clip.

The boat has a capacity for 12 but there were only 8 of us today. There is enough room for everyone inside the cabin but all except 2 of us were on the open back. We actually stood almost all the way.

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We made a few short stops on the way out. First was a small rocky island with some sea lions hiding from the orcas.

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There were long thin ribbon waterfalls everywhere. Up close you only see the bottom.

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Lots of colourful rocks along the shoreline.

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The other day at the Sechelt waterfront I had wondered what was in the barges. It was gravel. There must be something special about the area because there are three large gravel pits. One was here along the shore.

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I love these shots of tiny boats in front of large mountains.

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Here is a shot with the another boat closer to us. The mountains in the back don’t seem nearly as big.

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Another waterfall.

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This stop was to look at a single small petroglyph on the cliff.

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It is in the white upside down triangle just left of center in the picture below.

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Another fast tour boat raced by.

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When we caught up with it at the falls, it only had one passenger.

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A wider view

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A few more petroglyphs on this cliff.

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Hidden in the dark spot over the man’s head.

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A nice arbutus tree.

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The entrance to Princess Louisa Inlet is at the center, below. There is a large resort nearby.

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The current is quite strong as it flows through the narrow opening.

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Right at the opening is a place called The Malibu Club. From what I can figure out, it is a luxury Christian summer camp for teenagers run by an organization called Young Life. Our captain says they have 100 staff so who knows how many kids there are.

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On the point there was a swimming pool and volley balls courts. We saw a zip line and at the docks they were taking out paddleboards and going water skiing with two ski boats. It’s a tough life.

Heading in to the inlet.

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It is a popular spot for people cruising in the yachts and sailboats.

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The end is just round the corner. You can just barley see the docked boats at the bottom right.

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At the end is a wall of mountains. Chatterbox Falls is the little white splotch about 1/3 in from the right on the shoreline.

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After docking we had about 1.5 hours to have our lunch and explore the falls. Our boat is the second one out.

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Our lunch spot below the falls.

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And a slightly higher viewpoint.

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The photosphere from here.

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It was very wet if we went much closer to the front. There was a small viewpoint where you could peak in from the side.

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There were lots of water drop speckled plants.

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We walked out a short way on the delta, where the river flowed into the inlet. An artist was at work.

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Another photosphere.

Off we go.

A photosphere from the boat with some very chopped up people, who moved while I was doing it.

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Back at the entrance, it is one at a time so we had to wait for this guy.

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When we left the falls it was almost completely cloudy but the blue skies returned.

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It was also a bit rougher on the way back. This big a splash was unusual though.

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On the way in the jagged peak had been covered in clouds so we didn’t know that is was there.

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Almost back.

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With no hiking we still got our workout just trying to stay standing in the back (our choice) so we were rather tired at the end.

A really good day.

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