Pender Harbour – Aug 29, 2010

 Ferry ride on the Sunshine coast
One of the real gems of the sunshine coast is: you can't only drive a road… you once in a while have to use the ferry and today we left Saltery Bay via Ferry to Earls Cove. And what I think is one of the most amazing things: is the ferry ride through the islands, views on the mountains… around corners: you can only look and be astonished on how nice it is, you see new mountains, islands everywhere.

 Camping at Katherine Lake
First we have to find a campsite WO we decided to go to this lake and we found a nice spot and a sign warning us: careful turtles…. It was quit and we had a wonderful lake view…but we did not spend enough time here to enjoy the nice sandy beach… we were way to busy

 Up on the Pender Hill
So the first on the program is: having a nice view so we went to the Pender Hill and up the hill – it’s quite fast only 30 Min and we are 231 m above the sea level and have some amazing views down to the all the islands. What we already discovered there are a lot of Arbutus trees here on the sunshine coast – we really love those.

 Local Supper
And for birthday supper we decided to go local in the pub at Irvine’s Landing, which was quite cute, because first we had to check out the wonderful harbour and the sunset over the water.

Finding the way around the waterways of Pender Harbour
So the real special part here is: you turn in a road and you end up at the water: dead end… so you turn around and guess what you end up again at the water… it is nearly like a labyrinth through all the water ways

 What’s so special about Pender Harbour?

• It’s built around a jigsaw puzzle of coves, reefs and sloughs: which makes it difficult to find your way around
• Is known as the Venice of the north
• It was once a winter capital of the Sechelt Indians

 In a waterfront park
So we visited one of the parks here… sure it is waterfront – what else can you have here. We walked a little along the shoreline and I think we were at a sacred spot of the Indians: the only sacred for us was the nice view. And we saw a lot of

 View from the famous Mount Daniel
You ask someone what to do in Pender Harbour and they will tell you that you have to climb up Mount Daniel, this unique looking mountain was actually quite funky to go up: so it takes an hour in the forest until you reach the high elevation of 419 m. You have then a great view on Pender Harbour… but I do have to say: I liked the Pender Hill better – but it looks like Mount Daniel has more history:

the legend says

• That it was a lookout point of the Indians for any threats to the village by water or land
• Another legend says it was used by young women to celebrate their rite of passage at puberty at the ancient circles of the moonstones

 Egmont
So we arrived in this "small waterfront village" on the Sechelt Inlet. OK Village is maybe nearly too much to say even it has such a famous name it is named after the HMS Egmont which served under Admiral Sir John Jervis: but it has a campground and it is the start to our walk to the famous standing waves… so after soaking up some sun we started out

The Sechelt Inlet

• This inlet almost makes an island of the Sechelt peninsula
• It is famous for Its saltwater rapids
• The inlet has 2 side inlets and starts at the Jervis Inlet
• It is 23 km long
• At its entrance are the famous Skookunichk Narrows

Skookunichk Narrows PP
So we start out the hike at a huge old tree stump and after 5 km arrive at our destination – we already checked out the time table… that’s way we had to go in the late afternoon. We past the brown lake and arrived at the Roland point to see this famous standing wave:

• we saw some cool snow-capped mountains in the back ground
• we some cool rocks with barnacles along the “river”
• you think you are at a river and then you have the salt water
• we saw a little swirling – but not those huge height differences… guess today was not the perfect standing tidal wave

So after a little looking and enjoying us walked back to have a nice evening before heading to the ender end of this inlet in Sechelt

Some interesting facts

• At peak flow whitecaps and whirlpools form rapids even in calm weather
• Each day twice a day, tide forces 200 billion US gallons of water on a 3 m tide, the difference in water levels of 2 m in height, current speeds can exceed 16 knots (33 km/h)
• You can see this standing wave
• But it is not the fastest tidal rapids in the world: they are Norway’s Saltstraumen with 20 knots (37 km/h)
• Skookum is a Chinook word for strong and chuck means water