Princess Louisa Inlet has long been a favored destination for many boaters in the PacNW. In the 1930s, many decades before it was a marine park, Muriel Wylie Blanchet visited frequently with her dog and 5 kids on her 25-foot motor boat*. According to some people Princess Louisa remains the holy grail of the world’s cruising grounds. I cannot ignore such high recommendations. My life in the PacNW just would not be complete until I saw it for myself – and I first set foot on a sailboat here in 1997, so I was late. To get there now, we had to get the Fox from Garden Bay in Pender Harbour, and move it 45 miles (or so) north through Agamemnon Channel, 
continuing north and east and back again through Prince of Wales Reach, turning right into Princess Royal Reach, then left up along Queen’s Reach, and finally turning right into Princess Louisa itself.
These reaches, each 5 to 10 miles long, were all cut by glaciers. The canyons are steep granite walls with thin forests holding on for dear life. Snowmelt cascades thousands of feet to the salt water below. Except for tiny gravelly shelves at the mouths of streams, there is essentially no shoreline in these reaches for the recreational boater; i.e., us, i.e., not much opportunity to stop for any reason unless it is an emergency. Occasionally, if you know the shape to look for on the canyon face, you can see landslides, old and new. You can also see the last winter’s blowdowns. The canyons continue to drop steeply under the sea, and they go deep. There’s a portion of Prince of Wales Reach that is 658 meters deep. Wonder what’s down there.
One other thing complicates boat travel in glacial fjords, aside from the lack of a good place to stop and the potential landslide that can sink a boat, at anchor or afloat. Sometimes these fjords were originally hanging glaciers, that now being flooded with sea water have very…shallow…and complicated…entrances. 
Difficulty: the entrance to Princess Louisa is such a place, called Malibu Rapids. Let’s hear what the Sailing Directions have to say:
"Malibu Rapids flows through a narrow gorge. It is suitable for small vessels and should be negotiated at or near slack water. Malibu Islet and several small islets lie in the south entrance….Tidal streams in Malibu Rapids attain 9kn on the flood and ebb on large tides…."
Let’s review: Narrow. With currents exceeding the Fox’s engine capacity. And rocky. With currents potentially forcing the Fox onto the rocks. Other guides describe Malibu Rapids as so narrow and winding that the Fox has to execute an S-shaped turn to stay mid-channel, and it’s a blind one, so the Fox best hail any possible oncoming traffic on VHF 16 before starting in. Did I mention there are also spectators? Oh, yeah – there are some buildings in the middle of the S-turn that the guides say are now part of a Christian youth camp**, and any boat transiting Malibu has to deal with one or more people holding coffee cups, watching the show***.
Problem: I’ve never shot rapids before in the Fox. Anywhere. Ever. Plus, I’m an amateur cruiser. And the unknown makes me fret. And I have all my eggs in this 40-foot fiberglass basket, so I want to keep it intact. Rapids: Do Not Want.
Well. My desire to see Louisa outweighed my trepidation about shooting rapids. But by damn the Fox was gonna be there before slack the day we left. I studied the charts and the tide tables, and saw when one of the boats anchored with us in Garden Bay left for Louisa the day before. By all my calculations, to get to afternoon slack at Malibu the Fox had to leave Garden Bay at 0630, 7.25 hours before slack.
We left at 0625 with frost on the deck. There was barely light to see, and the navigator was already tense.
So tense, that I had plotted time markers on the charts for every 6 miles. Just to be sure. OK, so I’m Adrian Monk. And Gary suffers. Sue me.
We made every one of my time markers with several minutes to spare. 
GB never complained. By the time we reached Malibu Rapids we were 30 minutes before slack. Sweet. A 42-foot power boat, "Pegasus,’ had been making steady gains on us all day up the reaches from the Garden Bay anchorage, caught up to us timely, and kindly offered to guide us through Malibu Rapids, having been through many times before. However, once in the S-turn, just a half hour before slack, Pegasus told us the current was still running 3 knots against us, so with our much-deeper keel and rudder we demurred. (Thank you, Stu.) We killed time by sightseeing a bit further up Queen’s Reach. We then hit Malibu precisely at slack, and successfully negotiated it, although the onshore spectator believed we were waaaayyy too far to the right of center channel and totally thought we were going to irresversibly crash. He hadn’t factored in the Fox’s innate Shoal Sense. Which overcomes the effects of Cruiser Noob.
I had just successfully shot my first set of rapids. Life is good.
Another five miles in extremely calm air and water, and we reached the goal: the head of Princess Louisa Inlet and the dock at the foot of Chatterbox Falls. 
We were the third of only three boats in there this early-season time of year: the others being the motor boat Pegasus, and the 1980 Pearson 424 ketch Talisman. Good people, good boat dog, good times. If in your travels you ever encounter either of these boats, please do introduce yourself and bring them a bottle of wine. You will not be disappointed with the company.
Princess Louisa, like all these glacial fjords, fools the eye. It feels very much like somehow being able to drive your boat into a pristine mountain lake. But, your perspective is skewed; all you see is "mountain" and "lake." Let’s compare a few pictures to retain perspective. Here’s a typical cheesy pic of snow-capped-mountains-and-water:
Next up, here’s a pic with the 42-foot Pegasus shown offf Patrick Point, where Princess Royal Reach makes the turn into Queen’s Reach. Look for the little white dot to just the left of the point of land on the right of the pic. 
That’s Pegasus, a 3-story motor palace that regularly travels between Anacortes and Alaska. Stu and Pat have a wet bar in there, for God’s sake. This is not an insignificant craft.
Finally, here’s a pic of the dock below Chatterbox Falls. See that little sailboat on the outside of the dock? That’s the Fox with its 54-foot mast. Chatterbox Falls is 120 feet high. The canyon rim rises 5000 to 8000 feet above the water, and the deepest below-water point is 179 meters below the water’s surface.
In this place, there is no Internet. Radio does not work. Satellite cannot compete with the narrow sky view. The urbanized creature can start to feelin’ lonely real fast.
One could get awestruck if one pondered this overmuch.
– m
* …and wrote about it in "The Curve of Time." You’d be delighted to read it.
** We believe it got the name "Malibu" Rapids, because way back in the day Princess Louisa was quite the getaway for Hollywood A-listers like John Wayne and maybe Richard Boone.
*** I’d rather have John Wayne and Richard Boone watch me shoot the rapids while holding martinis.
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