Airship | Kent Inlet, Alexander Inlet, Mary Cove

Airship | Kent Inlet, Alexander Inlet, Mary Cove © Laura Domela

Yesterday's destination was Kent Inlet. Kent Inlet is part of the Kitasoo Spirit Bear Conservanc on Princess Royal Island, which sounded pretty great. Potential for a spirit bear sighting, plus the added bonus of tidal rapids to navigate (or at least time for slack, which we did).

The highest concentration of Kermode bears are found in the Kitasoo Spirit Bear Conservancy. From Wikipedia: "The Kermode bear, sometimes called the spirit bear, is a subspecies of the American black bear and lives in the Central and North Coast regions of British Columbia, Canada. It is the official provincial mammal of British Columbia and symbol of Terrace, British Columbia. While most Kermode bears are black, between 100 and 500 fully white individuals exist. The white variant is known as spirit bear, and is most common on three islands in British Columbia (Gribbell, Princess Royal, and Roderick), where they make up 10-20% of the Kermode population. Spirit bears hold a prominent place in the oral traditions of the indigenous peoples of the area."

We arrived at Philip Narrows about 30 minutes before slack (a 7.5 foot low tide) and went through with no current at all. The narrows is certainly narrow, and we stuck to the north side to avoid a charted shallow area that shows green on the chart (which means it covers and uncovers depending on the tide), but when we went back out with the dinghy an hour and a half later, the shallowest we could find over there was 9 feet. Sticking to the north wall is still a good idea.

To read more please go to the original article.