Our original plan was to go to Otter Island this morning. However, last night, during our evening talk, Rod offered up another cove he knew about. It’s a bit further away, but it’s more secure and, with a wind warning coming, that sounded like a good idea.
There wasn’t much about the trip to write about – it was relatively short at about 2 1/2 hours long, and rather uneventful except for the arrival. Melanie Cove is nestled in behind some islands, which offers a few ways in. Using the Canadian Hydrographic charts, I picked one route. However, as we approached, Navionics said that a section was not passable. I still think that it would have been OK – we were at the top of a 14 foot high tide, but prudence dictated that we be cautious. We elected to turn around and use a different entrance that both Canadian Hydrographic and Navionics agreed was navigable. It required that we thread our way through a narrow opening, thence through a bay, through another entrance that was wider than the first (and that we would have had to thread even had we gone along our original path), ending up in Melanie Cove.
Inside Melanie Cove we had another experience at stern tying, though this time it had nothing to do with procedures on Opus. There are chains that have been anchored into the rock wall shore though which the stern tie line must be passed and, apparently, this did not go smoothly for some reason.
In the afternoon, crew went ashore for a hike and/or nature walk while I stayed aboard to, yes, do some more boat chores. After dinner we dinghied over to Quijote for a little more socialization before turning in.