Photo: Mole Harbor. The mole is the thin brown line: a rock that serves as a breakwater.

We motored down Seymour Canal, rain lashing our faces. We abandoned our plans to go on to Gambier Bay or Cannery Cove and decided to settle for Mole Harbor, near the entrance to Seymour Canal and only 15 miles away. I wondered why it was called Mole Harbor. Surely there wouldn't be moles where the ground was mostly rock.

The chart showed few details but the Coast Pilot recommended entering between Rasp Ledge on the north and Beacon Rock on the south. Inside, the wind settled down but the waves still curved into our anchorage. As the tide fell, however, the waves diminished.

In the morning we woke up to a quiet anchorage. I looked out the port light and was amazed to see one long flat rock stretching across much of the entrance at low tide. Then I remembered that "mole" doesn't mean just a little furry creature. It's also means "breakwater."

Post script. August 4, 2013. In Ketchikan I learned that Mole Harbor was the home of the Bear Man of Admiralty Inlet. I bought the book. More to come later after I read it.