Stats for August 11, 2018

Origin: Benjamin Islands Anchorage

Destination: Beardrop Harbor Anchorage

Distance:  23.8 miles

Speed:  8.3 mph

Time on the Move:  2 hours and 52 minutes

It is time to move west and we’ve heard about an anchorage called Beardrop Harbor from a few different people, so we decided to check it out.  It was set to be a pretty good ride with light winds and small chop coming right at our bow. That’s pretty much what we got the whole time. The winds picked up a bit along our way, but we cut through a channel into more protected waters for a smoother ride.

Pulling in to Beardrop we noticed some hidden rocks that were marked in person with floating plastic milk jugs, but they were not marked on our charts. That made us a little uneasy moving forward, but there were about 6 other boats in a relatively large space, so plenty of room to maneuver around and anchor. After we were set, we hunkered down and enjoyed some quiet reading/relaxing time.

The wind died down after dinner so we went dinghy exploring across the channel in John Harbor. This was another anchorage that was recommended to us and it was equally beautiful. By now the water was calm like glass and the sun was low in the sky. It was a gorgeous night to go out for a ride. We enjoyed looking for animals and found some beavers that escaped long before we could get close. There was even more room in this harbor and we enjoyed the beautiful trees and reflections on the water.

On the way back into Beardrop we decided to take the back entrance into the anchorage. This path is charted at about 10 feet deep, but we hit a rock about 18″ down. Hayley was sitting in the front and she said “BIG ROCK! BIG ROCK!” As soon as I saw it I told Mike “Quick, move your guy!” What I meant was for Mike to unlock the motor so that it would instantly raise if we hit anything. I’m not sure if it was my cryptic, panicked directions for what he should do, or the fact that it took about 3 seconds total from sighting of rock to hitting of rock, but we didn’t get the “guy” up fast enough and we had a little scrape. We were going slow enough that there wasn’t any danger and no damage, except to our feelings of preparedness and confidence in our reaction times. The bottom here was mostly mucky and it kind of looked like a shallow swamp. Who knows where in the world that giant rock came from?! So, Mike let the kids row a bit through the swampy areas. They loved competing to see who could make their oars go faster and we really just turned in circles. I was creeped out that we were sitting ducks for some hungry bear or millions of mosquitoes. Eventually the rowing got old and we started the motor up again to head to INNTW.  Always an adventure around here!!

The next day it was a great day for exploring, so we headed out on the paddleboards and kayaks. Mike and Toby went looking for beavers again. The big kids and I found some giant rocks to climb around on. It is fun watching them chart a path to get us to the top of the mountain. The views from way up there were amazing and the water was so calm. We saw several other kayaks and dinghys out exploring and the kids pretended they were pirates trying to fend off invaders, but overall, this anchorage was much more quiet and peaceful than the Benjamins. We swam in the water right off of the boat before we packed up the toys again. Hayley is interested in learning to dive, so I showed her some tricks to try to get her comfortable putting her head in first but that didn’t work out.  She sure jumps in like a champ, though! Toby also jumped in and swam around several times. Mike swam and got the toys tucked away so we could get started to our next destination. We weren’t exactly sure where we were headed for the day, but we wanted to take advantage of good weather to keep moving west. Exploring Beardrop Harbor was fun, but it was time to leave.

Thanks for following along!!