Big "Bayliner" Bay

I'm not sure why we decided to stay overnight at Big Bay Resort. Maybe it was because we didn't feel like busting through two sets of closely spaced rapids. Maybe because it was supposed to have a good restaurant. Well it sounded good in theory.

The day started innocently enough. We got up bright and early so that we could hit Yuculta rapids at slack. Yuculta rapid is one of the big ones, with currents that day running at 5.5 kts. The slack was at 2 PM so we got a nice early start so that we could stop by Teakerne arm and check out the waterfall. Not to much wind today, so we motored up to base of Cassell falls. Normally you would stern tie to anchor hear, but the weather was blowing into the Arm and I was feeling lazy. I dropped the hook in about 60 feet of water and let the stern drift towards the shore. Since I had hiked up to the lake last year, I let the girls go and check out the waterfall and the lake, while I watched the boat and snoozed a bit. An hours later, they came back and we pulled anchor and headed back north towards Big Bay.

The rest of the morning was pretty uneventful as we slowly motored north. The scenery up the channels is just incredible with bald eagles poking their heads above the pines everywhere. We arrived at Yuculta just before slack with a half a dozen or so other boars. Since everyone is waiting for the slack, it always seems like a mad rush to hit the rapids exactly at slack. On the north side of the rapids lies Big Bay. This resort is sandwiched on the north and south by two big set of rapids, so everyone tends to leave the marina at exactly the same time. That probably isn't that big of a deal, but the corollary is that everyone arrives at one time. Even though everyone has reservations, there are only a couple of dockhands dolling out the available dockspace. Two dockhands, 6 big ass boats, 10 minutes to dock a boat. You do the math. The problem was that many of the Big-Ass Bayliners couldn't do the math and they would push there way in front of the other boats (read that - me!) and generally yell at everyone on the radio. We finally did waved in for a spot. The dock space pretty much sucked though. They had us back into a little finger that was about 20' long. Our cockpit was face to face with a big cigarette smoking Bayliner. These resorts do not understand sailboats and inability to backup and move sideways (look ma, no thrusters!). Did I mention out of 40 boats, there was only 1 other sailboat. As an added bonus, they had run out of water the day before because tow Big-Ass Bayliners had sucked up 1000 gallons of water apiece. Friends of ours were begging for 25 gallons. They actually used the water to DRINK. Imagine that!?

Since we got there pretty early, we decided to go for a hike and check out the rapids. We hike towards the southern edge of Big Bay where someone is creating a planned development. Kind of strange considering that we were in the middle of nowhere. On the hike back, Tracy and I checked out the swimming hole, but decided to skip it since it looked to slimy. That night we decided to try out their restaurant (supposed to be good). Well it wasn't. The salmon was dry and overcooked, the steak was rough chewy and just plain gross. Highly expensive and highly gross. Skip it by all means.