Laredo Inlet extends deep into Princess Royal Island through two and three thousand-foot mountain ranges. The scenery, particularly on a clear day, is spectacular. After anchoring overnight in Weld Cove one summer, we cruised to the head the next morning to see what we could find. The morning started foggy, but lifted to a deep blue sky. The head was especially dramatic, with snow-dabbled mountains all around.

We wanted to anchor for breakfast at least, and perhaps a dinghy tour. But this was a typical inlet head, where the depths fell from 100 to 10 feet almost in a boat’s length. We eventually found temporary anchorage with reasonable holding. We couldn’t get very far up Buie Creek in the dinghy, but far enough to see a waterfall in the distance, so we landed to check it out. Princess Royal Island is famous for its bear population, particularly the rare white Kermode bear, and this felt like prime bear territory. While we would have loved to see a Kermode, we didn’t want to see one while walking ashore, so we put our bear avoidance techniques into full gear.

It turned out that there wasn’t just one waterfall—there were three. The one we could see from the boat was just the lower falls. As we neared, we could see another falls higher up behind, and a third one beside it. The higher two spilled perhaps 40 feet into a deep pool that emptied through the lower falls. What a find. While we never did see a bear while we were in Laredo Inlet, the falls almost made up for it.

Anchoring notes: We anchored northeast of Brew Island at 52°58.128’N/ 128°39.763’W in 100 feet, moderate holding.

The Pacific Northwest Trawler Fest will be held at Anacortes this year on May 7^th through 9^th. We’ll be presenting on Saturday the 9^th at 10:30am on Queen Charlotte Sound. This is our favorite cruising destination—if we could only visit one place year after year, this would be the place. The terrain is complex, the scenery is varied and impressive, and the anchorage choices are many. Most of the region is protected, with little signs of civilization, past or present. And the area is huge—600 square miles. This is 13 times the size of Broughton Archipelago Marine Park, and almost 20 times larger than Desolation Sound Marine Park. Even if every boater on the coast visited in one day, there’d still be plenty of empty anchorages.

One of the areas we’ll highlight is Kildidt Inlet. Kildidt Inlet runs northward from Kildidt Sound deep into Hunter Island. After about 3 miles, the inlet branches into two secluded lagoons connected by a narrow, islet-studded channel. The waterways are fun to explore, with good anchoring, but entry is blocked by the perilous Kildidt Narrows. A 12-knot tidal stream and several hazards require careful planning. An astonishing variety of colorful sea life grows among the reefs at the rapids. Visiting at low-water slack is like scuba diving, but without the tanks.

For many years, we’ve been planning to buy a world-capable trawler as our next boat. Dirona is ideal for extended cruising in the Pacific Northwest while we are working, and we expected to purchase the next boat when we retired and had time for longer-range cruising, perhaps in a decade or so. The plan was that this next boat would be our final boat, built solidly enough that it would outlive us.

We’ve been interested in a Nordhavn as that boat since way back in 2001, when we first requested in information packet from PAE. We eventually realized that if this boat were going to outlive us, it made more sense to get it sooner and enjoy it for an extra ten years, rather than wait until we retired. So last year we purchased Nordhavn 5263.

The Nordhavn 52 is an enhanced 47. Standard upgrades include a 5-foot cockpit extension, a 2-foot boat deck extension, a restyled flybridge and 200 gallons additional fuel capacity. The boat molded a few weeks ago, and we expect to take delivery this winter. We’ll post more details as the project progresses.

Anyone who’s written about Seymour and Belize Inlets says that Alison Sound, off Belize Inlet, is the most beautiful spot here. We agree. Several waterfalls gush from the north shore en route, and the entrance to the sound itself is striking. A massive slide has scoured a huge section of shoreline. Kilometer-high mountains soar above a waterway that narrows to a channel less than 100 meters wide.  Just before the narrows, a 150-meter sheer, black cliff rears along the north shore; scattered trees cling impossibly to fissures in the surface.  Beyond the narrows, a 500-meter cone juts skyward.

Two impressive pictographs are painted on north shore bluffs here, one just outside the entrance, and the other in a crevice directly west of Summers Bay. Provincial archaeologists believe that both may commemorate an 1868 Native attack on the trading vessel Thornton and a retaliatory British gunboat shelling of the settlement at Village Cove in Mereworth Sound.

We anchored at Alison Sound’s head, where the scenery rivaled Princess Louisa Inlet. Waterfalls spilled down 1000-meter slopes. The Waump Creek and another unnamed one empty into lush lowlands below towering black cliffs, with snow-capped peaks visible through the delta. The creeks were wonderful kayak territory. The flora and fauna were thick and healthy, and those big cliffs stood above us at every turn.

For more detail on Alison Sound, directions and anchoring advice, see Chapter Ten, Seymour Inlet, in Cruising the Secret Coast.