Local legend Billy Proctor says in native tongue, “Kwatsi” means “Pisspot”.  He and other fishermen back in the day would call out and say to “meet at ‘The Pot'”.  So I guess you can say we’re at The Pot.

Anyway, it’s a pretty remote spot.  Huge mountains going vertically 2000 feet right from the water, ring the little bay.  Surprisingly in a spot this remote, there is a little “marina”.  As with others, the concept of marina here means one very old and decrepit dock.  Watch where you step or you might fall in a gap.  To be fair, they are repairing the really bad boards with new ones and the people who run it are delightful.  So are the guests.  Everyone here is really nice.  It’s pot luck night tonight, so we’re looking forward to having a chat with the other boats.  With us here, the “marina” is close to full – with about 10 boats.

View of Kwatsi Marina from the trail to the waterfall.

Last night was “fun”.  We anchored around the other side of our little island at the Burdwell Group in order to avoid being on a lee shore with the increasing wind.  OK, the good news is we tucked in another tiny spot that just had room before dropping off to over 100 feet.  The not so good was that we had to tie off to a tree to keep from swinging into the very shallow water.  Some kayakers who showed up congratulated us and told us that the last time they saw a boat try to anchor there it spend two hours and then gave up and left.

Looking forward from Burdwood anchorage.

View out the "back door".

Tucked in tight.

Couldn't resist one more of our view in this lovely spot.

OK – fast forward to after dinner.  Ann decided we needed to go ashore and bring s’mores to the kayakers who had a fire going on the beach.  I brought rum and shot glasses for sipping.  Needless to say we were very well received and had a wonderful time talking with this crew from Vancouver.  What nice people!

Good times with the kayakers!

Time for bed.  It’s high tide, but I knew we were pretty close and when the wind went down we might not be pushed as far from the shallows as we had been sitting all day.  So, I left the depth sounder on and went to sleep assuming I’d have a look when I got up in the middle of the night.  Only problem, I didn’t wake up.  Fortunately Ann did and looked at the depth sounder.  12 feet.  She went to the head and came back – 10 feet.  She watched if a few minutes and saw 8 feet (we draw 6), that’s when she woke me up!  I stepped outside and shined a flashlight into the water on the shallow side and right under us I could see starfish.  Very clearly.  I could almost count the little barnacles too!  I heard Ann call “five point eight!”  Ooh, a little too close.  I think we might have even bumped very gently, while I was checking things out, but no matter, I took in about ten feet of chain, tightened the stern line a bit and voila we moved back out into a solid 12 feet.  It was only one more hour until max low tide, so we were good to go and went back to sleep.

Another day in the islands.