Dent Island Lodge

For years I’ve been intrigued by Dent Island Lodge, situated on the edge of the Dent Rapids. It gets a good writeup in the Waggoner Cruising Guide—one of the cruising bibles we use to find our way through the various harbors and passages. Privately owned but open to well-heeled boaters, it controls access by having various expensive moorage. It’s restaurant prices match the moorage, so we’ve always passed it by. But this year we decided to splurge and find out what was there.

It’s a lovely setting, as you can see from the picture of Phil and me at lunch on the deck with the marina in the background. While it is a small island removed from the actual Dent Rapids, the lodge has its own small set of rapids separating it from that small island, so it puts on a show throughout the day with boiling water in between the slack tides. The lodge has an outdoor bar (which wasn’t operating the day we were there) right alongside these rapids, and also an outdoor hot tub next to them. The hot tub WAS operating so we used it after dinner. Our dinners (at a fixed price of $90 for a four-course meal, sans wine) was disappointing. The clams in curry sauce appetizer was excellent, the entrée was overcooked (our medium rare steak was medium, the grilled prawns were mushy, and the ratatouille vegetables were both mushy and fairly tasteless. The dinner was nearly redeemed by two delicious desserts, but overall it was not what you’d expect given the price.

We enjoyed our splurge, but have now satisfied our curiousity and won’t repeat the visit.