August 8 - Surf Inlet

Waterfall up Surf Inlet

Mergansers on the run

Dave & Penny in front of the Dam

Remains of the Mine Powerhouse

100 year old Dam still Standing

We left with the high tide in the morning to make the 25 mile trip down from Ethelda to Surf Inlet. In my mind, this inlet has been the biggest let down in so far as what we had expected to see. Friends had gone in here years ago and told us how beautiful it was and that the name of the inlet was everything you should expect......So from "Surf Inlet" what would you expect??? It turned out to be a 17 mile long yawner. The cruising books talk about an old ore mine that we could hike to at the end of the inlet, but turns out that it was a 14 mile hike in and 14 mile hike out...so we did not bother. The power plant that was built at the end of the inlet is barely standing, but the dam is pretty nifty (still intact after 100 years) The inlet was rough but no surf or white sandy beaches, no wildlife and only one bay that would suffice in a big blow. Penn Harbour (the bay we anchored in)was also blowing when we anchored, and we felt that in a true big wind, it would not be a safe place. The only surprising thing we found was the old logging road by the dam and power plant that had about 6 trailers and 2 boats on the lake and more rope and netting that you could shake a stick at....we thought this might have been a shingle operation at one point, but no one has been here at least two years (we found an old calender that the mice didn't eat)
Two thumbs down for Surf Inlet, we would have been better to go into one of the many other bays that we passed on the way here.