Yesterday morning, after Vicki's excellent fresh baked scones for breakfast, we pulled our anchor and headed across Gardner Canal to look for the missing hot spring.
As we all know, if it is on the internet it must be true. Sure enough, The Google and Doug Peterson came through for us and we found the hot spring right where they said it was. The BC Parks Service even had a mooring ball there for visitors erroneously marked "private", so we picked it up and dinghied in.
Apparently Bubble's, Mikayla (little heart dotting the i), Goat, and Amanda had no problem finding the hot spring as evidenced by their scrawling on the frame of the enclosure covering the pool. We wondered why he was called Goat (why is he called Noodle?). Still in detective mode, the crew of Thankful concluded that Goat and Bubble's (note the possessive) may have been a couple.
Other than the location, the 2001 cruising guide's description of the spring was spot on. You could indeed cast a line out and fish from the pool. The hot spring turned out to be well worth the day we spent searching for it. The water in the large pool was a perfect hot tub temperature, the sky was clear, the air was warm. We had it all to ourselves until departing at 2PM.
Four hours and thirty miles later we arrived at our third hot spring on the tour at Bishop Bay. The whole journey was made during an ebb tide so we had a boost in speed the whole way. It was fun to pick a course through the twisting turning channels that made optimal use of the current.
Bishop Bay is also popular with humpback whales, and we had to dodge four of them as we approached the anchorage. It was glassy calm, and after the engine got shut down the only sound to be heard was that of whales breathing. One of them was breaching occasionally, and the smack as his body slapped the water echoed off of the walls of the fjord like solitary unwelcome applause in a church service.
As our cruising guides indicated, Bishop Bay is one of the most visited hot springs in the area, and there were five other boats there overnight. Having already soaked once for the day, Team Thankful decided to avoid the crowd and delay its visit to the pool until the next day.
Vicki decided to sleep in, so Matt and I dinghied in to the dock this morning and walked to the hot spring. The water was once again the perfect temperature. Scores of previous soakers had cleverly adorned the pool shelter building with mementos of their visits. Fishing buoys, lures, life rings, fenders, and even a pair of underwear was marked with the visitors' names and hung from the rafters. No sign of Goat, party of four, however.
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