Joe Cove to Viner Sound, Gilford Island - 2¾ hours, 12 miles

We are traveling in the Broughtons now. These passages are narrow and beautiful. We hear the birds chirping but no sign of bears. As we passed the marina of Pierre’s at Echo Bay, we picked up some weak wifi. We were able to do a quick check of our email as we passed heading for Viner Sound. Viner is a lovely fjord. The little nooks along the passage are too rocky for anchoring. There are two coves ahead, one on the right and one on the left. There are two mooring buoys on each side. All four are occupied. Shoot! We have never anchored in here but Douglass’ book says we can at the head of the sound. We have to careful because of the huge boulders underwater and shoaling close to the head. We picked one spot but as the boat slightly drifted on the anchor we found ourselves in 10 feet of water at high tide. Not good. We pulled up the anchor and moved to a spot right between the two coves with buoys. The anchor caught well and we are settled. We took the dinghy out and wandered looking for bears (none found). One of the boats on a buoy looked just like our so we went over to say hi. Al Mirati has a 34’ CHB, Lady Sea, which looks just like ours (almost). He is single handing the boat and we invited him over to see Lady Sea’s big sister. He says that Lady Sea only has one cabin and everything is on a much smaller scale than ours. The crab pot got put down for the first time this season. We have had good luck in the past.