Even knowing this we managed to get on the water before noon. The tide pulled away from us as we were packing up and we had to drag our kayaks out across a quickly widening mud flat in front of the cabin. After we launched we split up into several groups. John Somers and Ruth Cooper went south to Cascade Creek to hike up a trail there. The rest of us went north to a bay called Scenic Cove that we read about in the logbook in the cabin. This took us close to the Baird Glacier, but this glacier does not make it all the way to the water. You have to land you kayak and hike up to it, and we did not have auspicious tides for doing this. The tide can either come in and carry your kayak away, or go out and abandon you high and dry with a long haul to get back to the water. We decided to forgo either pleasure.
Scenic Cove was not really any more scenic than most places we had already seen. But it did have something we had been missing: A snow-melt creek of clear water! We jumped out of our kayaks and filtered water like people dying of thirst! The water was so pure we probably didn't have to filter it, I made 12 liters of water with Kate's pump without having to clean the filter once! Another thing that the cove had was a small sailboat anchored in it. We paddled quietly past this to avoid disturbing the occupants. Then after we landed they saw us, got in their own kayak and paddled up to visit. They turned out to be a young couple who had done something that is on my list of fantasy vacations. They came from the San Francisco Bay area like many of us. I have heard rumors that people who own sailboats are discovering that the mooring or storage fees for these is becoming extremely expensive in the Bay Area. These boats do not have much resale value and there are supposed to be some incredible bargains. This couple found a 25 foot sailboat for only $1000.00 dollars, had it shipped to Bellingham, (which may have cost more than the purchase price,) and have been sailing up the Inland Passage ever since!
We headed south out of Scenic Cove and after a while crossed over to Ruth Island. Here we found a beautiful little cove to land on for a break. After lunch we split up again into two more groups. Kate, Jesse and Lisa continued directly down Thomas Bay to Wood Point to relax at camp and get a head start on cooking dinner at a reasonable hour. Don Fleming, Joe Petolino and I set out to circumnavigate Ruth Island. This turned out to be a mostly uneventful trip but for the discovery of a "transfer facility" on the mainland. This turned out to be a cluster of buildings, a half a dozen trucks and several huge barges docked in the water. Our maps called out this facility and showed a few roads, but they didn't seem to go anywhere. Back home with higher resolution maps I finally noticed a "mine" symbol so I guess what they are transferring here is ore from the mine.
Everyone eventually met at Wood Point again to camp for the evening. It was a relief to set up camp before sunset in a known location where we knew there was enough room for us! As the birthday girl, Lisa got to choose what to have for dinner from the remaining selections. Our arrangement was that each person had to plan, bring and cook one dinner to feed the whole group. Lisa chose spaghetti, so Kate got to cook the rest of the meal that she had not the time to cook three nights ago. Although we had lots of water from Scenic Creek, we had become cautious about using it all up. There was one of those little tannin creeks next to the campground, but it did not have much current and we knew the tide went way upstream. I crashed through the Forest Primeval to get above the high tide and found enough brown scummy water for the spaghetti pot. It died the pasta brown but after boiling we figured it was OK. Jesse had brought birthday cake and pudding for the birthday girl, so there was plenty of food.