Doubtful Sound

We were off early the next morning for Doubtful Sound.

Despite its name, Doubtful Sound is a Fiord surrounded by high mountains and is almost as visually imposing as its famous northern neighbor, Milford Sound. It received its name from Captain Cook in 1770 who named it Doubtful Harbor as he concluded that if he sailed in to it, he might never be able to get out again. The name was later changed to Doubtful Sound.

First, some more shots as we proceeded up the coast.

The following map shows the Doubtful Sound complex.

Our routing plan was to enter the sound and travel down to Deep Cove and then track back toward Thompson and Bradshaw Sounds to the Gaer Arm. We planned to spend the night at Precipice Cove – one of the few all weather anchorages in the complex. The soundings on the chart pretty clearly show the difficulty of finding protected and suitable anchorages. Water depths of 200 feet are common right up to the shore line (the numbers on the chart are in meters) and there are few protected coves.

Note the terrain elevations – particularly in the Marrington Peak area – over 1300 meters and they fell almost vertically into the sounds. More distant terrain was even higher – some of the peaks sporting hanging glaciers.

I can’t quite remember where each of the following pictures were taken, but they are sequenced to the route we traveled starting at the entrance to Doubtful.

The following is an interesting shot of the water near one of the ends of the arms.

It is common for a layer of fresh water 2 to 10 meters thick to lie on top of the salt water depending on how much rain has fallen. It had been quite dry so the layer was probably close to 3 meters thick based on our soundings. The bright yellow color is a result of tannins that are leached from the soil as the fresh water runs in to the sound (and yes – it was that bright).

Finally,pictures in the vicinity of Precipice Cove and our home for the night.

And Iron Lady beneath the obvious precipice that gave the cove its name.