2010 Trip 3 - Pacific Grace

Morning again brought calm wind and sea to our anchorage today. Underway by 0900hrs and traveling down Bates Passage we were treated with an extra special ”good morning” as a lone humpback whale swam over  to take a look at the Grace and her crew as we motored by. We cut the engine power and just watched for a while as this leviathan lazily fed along the tide line. We anchored again just after lunch off of the mouth of Nahwitti river to make use of the calm day and build our sauna ashore. This is quite a process as the sauna is usually big enough to fit everyone in at a go. There was a wood and fire crew, a tent making crew and a rock gathering crew. Within an hour the first heating was ready. To heat the sauna many rocks are layered with wood on the large fire and after a period they are placed in tin buckets and brought to the tent. Usually the tent is built with one opening leading to the prime cooling off point which in this case was the very cool Nahwitti river. With buckets of hot rocks in place everyone enters the tent ”carefully,” the door is sealed and then fresh water is dribbled on the hot rocks until everyone is sufficiently ”poached”. We had three runs of the sauna today and each run was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Returning back to the boat we were greeted by another Humpback who swam over to check out all the commotion. Tests for junior and intermediate levels were written today and seniors had a chartwork lesson. All are well and lamenting the fact that there are only a few days left to go.