Refuge and Melanie Coves, Mink Island

Will cover three places that we visited over a few days in Desolation Sound. All these places are copse – little more then a few hours apart. After leaving Grace Harbour, we made a quick stop at Refuge Cove which sports a store, small marina and fuel.

The store actually had a pretty good supply of items including fresh produce. Beyond that, not much to recommend it other then for a quick supply stop. The tides here run big here – 15 feet or more on spring tides and most docks are floating to compensate for that. You can get a sense of that by looking at how steep the ramp is – almost more a ladder then a ramp.

These folks had it pretty much covered. A motorised dock complete with drums to carry water, a picnic table and umbrella. Their big mistake was pulling out directly in front of Iron Lady – has we not stopped it would have been so much drift wood.

Next stop was Mink Island which has a charming little anchorage.

Steve and broke out the prawn trap in hopes of catching a bunch.

We have bit to learn. Prawns live in 150 to 500 feet of water. We put our trap down in 300 feet. The poly line we used got horribly tangled and took almost an hour to sort out. Not an auspicious start to our prawn career. We left the pot out overnight.

Heavy rains hit about 2 in the morning with thunder and lightning as well (why it is always 2 AM I don’t know but that always seems to be the case).

The next morning dawned bright and sunny with leftover clouds shrouding the mouantins.

Steve and I went to retrieve our pot which was completely empty. A lot of work hauling it up from 300 feet for nothing. Maybe next time.

We put the dink back aboard and headed to Melanie Bay – reputed to be one of th prettier spots in Desolation SOund. We agree.

The entrance to a maze of islands and bays is extremely narrow. You can get a sense of this by looking at the sailboat exiting the narrows.

Once inside, it is simply lovely.

There were only 2 other boats in the anchorage. We were told that in high season (July and August) that the place is wall to wall boats. We much prefer having it almost to ourselves.