Lowe Inlet and the View

Photo: Verney Falls roars at low tide on a sunny day 

August 30-31

45-mile long Grenville Channel offers a sheltered, inside route south from Prince Rupert. It's a scenic run, well sprinkled with waterfalls and frequented by cruise ships, ferries, workboats and barges, fishing boats, sailboats and cruisers like us. the Grenville is an attractive highway, when fog or heavy rain don't obscure the scenery.

Photo: Verney Falls during a downpour

We ran to the south end of the channel, bypassing three other good anchorages to set the hook inside Lowe Inlet. Hooray, there were no other boats inside when we arrived so we could anchor directly in front of the falls. That was a first for Rhapsody. The view was terrific and the current kept us centered and steady for two days. Two other cruisers joined us later in the day, and we shared the view from the prime anchor site.

Having neighbors turned out to be a good thing, they provided an afternoon of entertainment. Not so much the several attempts to anchor their boats securely, but the human antics as they clambered over the rocks at the falls. Avid photographers, they rafted their equipment to the base of the falls and then stretched out to hang over the water and shoot the jumping fish. The videographer was wet but happy, definitely more cheerful than his buddies taking still shots.

We and the photographers focused on the falls at high tide each day when scores of salmon leapt skyward, fighting the torrents of water that thunder down the falls, working their way up to the stream and lake beyond. So few salmon appeared successful that it seemed there might be a secondary route upstream, a back channel with less velocity or more ledges and resting pools. We should hike the area and check it out... maybe next year.