CATEGORY: SAILING
PHOTOS: 1) HEAD OF PRINCESS LOUISA INLET
2) MALIBU

One of the fjords along the coastline of British Colombia is Jervis Inlet.  It dog-legs some fifty miles back into the mountains, ending in a northern reach.  Near its upper end is Princess Louisa Inlet, a tiny five mile long gouge in the landscape that is an eastern appendix off the main course.  It is one of the world’s spectacular places. 

Considering Bob’s avoidance of places with steep sides and no wind, I was surprised that he wanted to hazard his way up Jervis inlet.  I was all for it, having picked up a book that told of its beauties and the history of Princess Louisa which is usually the destination for anyone venturing up Jervis’ 40 mile length.  The end of Princess Louisa was once privately owned by a colorful man named “Mac” MacDonald who built his own private log lodge there and, after it burned, lived for the rest of his life in a house boat on the site, becoming the official greeter to all visitors.  He never considered himself the owner, but rather the care-taker.  When he died he willed the property to British Colombia for a park.  Perhaps Bob made his decision to go there, not only because he too wanted to see this magnificent place, but also because he had read the report that there was a wind that blew up Jervis inlet in the morning and down it in the evening.  He was, above all things, a sailor.

At the entrance into Princess Louisa there are resort buildings built on a rugged flattish lava-rock peninsula jutting into the inlet and almost closing its mouth.  There are rapids there, so boaters must tie up at an outside dock and wait for slack tide.  The procedure is to then go in and tie up to an inside dock: that is, unless one is in a hurry.  We were not in a hurry.

The resort was built by Thomas F. Hamilton, the man who invented the reversible prop propeller.  There is a totem pole there made by the Indians at the time of the resort’s construction.  At its top is Hamilton holding his propeller.  It was a sumptuous resort when it was new, and was named “Malibu” in order to give a misguided impression to movie stars and other wealthy Californians.  It is renowned as the place where Brenda Marshal and William Holden spent their honeymoon.  However the resort was not a financial success because it is smack dab in the middle of the frequently used path of the Weather Gods when they open the sluices and let all the water out of the clouds.  Any resemblance between it and Malibu in California is non-existent.  William and Brenda helped spread this information by announcing that it rained all the time they were there.

Today it is a Young Life resort.  Young Life is a Christian organization that manages outdoor activity camps for teenagers.  When we tied up at the inner dock, we were met by a Young Life representative.  She offered us a tour.  The sharp rock is not easy to walk across so all the outdoor walkways are made of wood.  She showed us into the buildings with their lovely pine interiors.  She showed us a heated swimming pool carved out of solid rock.  I asked her if the weather was not a problem for outdoor teen activities.  She said, “We keep these kids so busy that they don’t know if it is raining or shining.”  One of the activities was mountain climbing.  I remembered from reading the history of the inlet, that a group of climbers, starting out from Mac’s lodge had climbed the cliffs and gotten caught in a thick fog, almost causing a death.  I asked if any of the Young Life climbers had ever experienced a similar situation.  She said the paths were marked with chains so, if it was foggy, they could feel their way down.  I tried to imagine crawling over slick rock in the fog and possible deluge trying to find a chain once I’d lost the path.  I couldn’t force my mind to go there.

At the end of Princess Louisa, the inlet, which is only five miles long, curves to the left.  When our boat made this curve, we were thrilled by the full splendor of the view.  There were snow capped peaks in the distance.  We could look up along the sides of the inlet, see water coming off the glaciers a mile high, and watch its descent until it came over cliffs in narrow waterfalls.  Straight ahead was a large waterfall coming out of a high valley with its water falling straight toward us.  Someone in the far past had named it Chatterbox Falls.

We tied up at the dock and were told that the waterfalls coming from the sides were warm because the granite cliffs get heated by the summer sun, which in turn heats the water flowing over them in its long descent to the inlet.  I was eager to swim under these warm falls, so we took the dinghy and rowed to the nearest one.  The water was warm alright but only for the top few inches; below that it was icy cold.  It was a strange sensation, like swimming in a sandwich.

That evening, on the dock, we met a woman who told us that she had been coming here for vacations with her family ever since she was a child.  She said that she never rounded the last bend in the inlet without expecting to see Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy come riding down out of the hills singing “Ah Sweet Mystery of Life.”  I looked up expectantly.  Do you think the red I glimpsed was poison oak, or a red coat?