08/19/2010, In the cockpit
I finally got to a spot where we have Wi-Fi so I am catching you all up on our trip north. There are several posts from the last few day. Hope you enjoy, we did!!
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08/19/2010, Wescott Bay
Wednesday morning finds us sitting a watch on our anchor as the winds have steadily picked up through the anchorage since early in the morning. With a steady 10 knots now (7:30 AM) and gusts up to 15 it really isn't too bad, but we are anchored in 20 feet of water and are about 120 feet from the rocky shore. We just have to get used to being on the hook, not at some marina, or rafted up to someone's boat. We left Reid Harbor at 2:00 PM and headed to Westcott Bay, just south of Roche Harbor. The wind was pretty steady at 12 knots, and so we had a very nice sail close hauled almost in a straight line to the entrance to Roche. We pulled into the narrow channel that takes you into either Westcott or garrison harbor, we were shocked at the number of crab pots!! I don't see how a single crab could have survived with that number of pots. Garrison Bay is the first bay to the right as you enter, and it is usually packed with boats, and today was no exception. We started to head to Westcott, but got a call on the VHF radio for Eagle. It was Euphoria, a 52' Tayanna Cutter whose owners we had met at the party. They called to let us know that there was room for us to anchor right off their stern. Very cool! We dropped anchor and settled in for the night. We have decided to get an early start tomorrow morning to catch those silly tides again to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The strait can be pretty nasty, so we wanted everything we can in our favor. The early start will have us riding a pretty big flood of water coming in, and there is a rumor of a brief northerly to help push us in the AM as well. The water gets pretty big when you have a big tide that is against a big wind going the opposite direction. Sure would like to avoid that if at all possible.
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08/19/2010, Reid Harbor
Last night's bon fire was great..nearly 70 people, a whole beach full of dinghy's, and Kevin off of Andante brought 24 whole Dungeness crabs, cooked and ready to eat. He announced that they were not going back to his boat so they had to be eaten. They were... We made a couple of new friends, James and Dena. We swapped boat stories on the beach, and then back at their boat over a glass of wine, which had rafted up to our group. They were on the other end of the 7 boats that were all tied together. To get to their boat we have to climb across the five boats in between. On our way back to our boats, we stopped along the way at Kevin's boat and were offered a glass of wine, which turned into several. I considered it a service, as Kevin was` going to go to Canada, and is limited on the amount of alcohol he can take into the country. He had too much so we had to help solve that problem. Just trying to help a friend you know.
We left Echo bay at Sucia Island at 1:30 and headed for Reid Harbor at Stuart Island. It was a very nice, 3 hour ride. We were not able to sail at all as there was no wind at all. We had to wait to that late in the day, in order to catch the tides going our way. We have found that the ides in the San Juan's are much stronger that what we are used to in the south sound. We dropped anchor in the back end of Reid harbor. There were several boats that had been at Sucia here as well, as well as some long time friends, Doug and Ruth on their 51 foot Formosa Angelique, and Scott and Angie on their 51 foot Formosa as well, Ghost. They are a pretty awesome sight, a pair of huge twin mast sail boats sitting side by side. Reid Harbor is beautiful, very protected, and quiet.
Our Frigo Boat refrigeration started acting funny on the way down here, shutting off and then running all the time and not shutting off. I guess a trip on the boat would not be complete without having to work on something. As of this evening it seems to be working fine, but going thru a bunch of duty cycles, which is a pretty big draw on our batteries.
We have not made any plans for tomorrow. We had a semi solid plan of going to Westcott bay, near Roche Harbor. But...as in all cruising plans...things just change. So, we will see what the weather and our energy levels bring tomorrow morning.
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08/19/2010, See above
Monday morning found me up early...don't know why. I guess I was ready to do some exploring of Sucia Island. So after a bacon and egg breakfast, we hopped in the dinghy and headed to the island with a backpack full of water snacks and both of our cameras. When we got to the shore, we looked down and there was` water in the bottom of the dinghy....yikes!! One of the water bottles broke open and soaked both of our Nikon cameras. So far it looks like mine is a complete loss, and some parts of Jeanne's still works, but not good! Crap Crap Crap... it might have been a thousand dollar visit to the beach!
We continued exploring the island, as we decided that no matter how upset we were, it was not going to ruin our vacation. We loaded up the dinghy again, with some snacks, more water, a book for Jeanne and the fishing gear for me. We explored Shallow Bay, Fossil Bay, and the cliffs along the Strait of Georgia. We saw lots of Bald Eagles, Common Muirs, Sea Lions and Harbor seals. I did manage to catch a couple of nice Ling Cod. We headed back to the boat to get ready for dinner, some fresh crab and a bon fire on the beach with all the boats that had traveled with us to Sucia. We plan on taking off tomorrow morning so this will be the last we will see of most of them for a long time.
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08/19/2010, Sucia Island
We got the boat ready to head north at a leisurely pace, as we need to be off the dock by noon. This means putting away all the decorations, and getting Eagle all secured to be ready to sail. It sounds like the trip to Sucia will be around five hours, depending on the tides and wind. As of right now we have a very nice 8-10 knot northerly, as usual coming from right where we want to go!!
Depending on internet connections the next few posting will have to be catch as can, but I will down load as soon as I can. I am writing all my posts in Microsoft Word, and then dropping them into the Blog format.
We got to raise the sails almost as soon as we left the marina. We decided on taking a little bit more northerly route, and have that same 10 knot wind. It allowed us to sail rather than motor but with the tacking back and forth will take us a little bit longer. The cool thing is that all of this new territory we are seeing is for the very first time, as Eagle and her crew have never gotten to sail this far north yet. We sailed out into Bellingham bay, and then turned up into the Strait of Georgia for the last leg of this part of the trip. The wind held very nicely past Vendovi Island and we stayed close hauled until we got along side Lummi Island, where we ran into a monster tide! With 8-10 knots of wind the tide was actually pushing us backwards so we furled the head sail and motor sailed that rest of the past Matis Island into Echo Bay on Sucia Island. We can certainly understand why our all of our friends love this area. It is beautiful!! We rafted up alongside Pam and Timber on Savarna.
Just as were getting the fenders and lines out, I looked up and there was a really nice looking Freeport islander. So we pealed of and had to go take a look. It was Bob and Darcy off of Pied A mer. They were at the Freeport Islander Rendezvous, but did not get to bring their boat. We made plans to dinghy back over later for a glass of wine. Their boat is in just beautiful shape, and you can see that they have worked very hard on her! After a great visit, we came back to the boat, grabbed a couple of pillow and a blanket and when up on deck to watch the last of the meteor showers. Not much to watch but it was a great end to an awesome day.
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08/19/2010, Cap Sante Marina
ARGH....the fog is back....but only in my head!! Rum, Rum and more Rum. Let's just say I am off to a slow start today. More boats are arriving, lots of people, the crew from the Latts and Atts crew are here so it is now official, the party has started. There will be lots of events for adults and kids as well. The kids will have a piñata to bust open, and there will be Pirate training for the kids "How to load and shoot the cannon" - (this version only shoots marshmallows), a pot luck, more beer, and a blind folded dinghy race. It was great to see Jeanne's Mom and Dad come up along with her brother Carl, his wife Laura and the three little ones, Mason, Logan and 13 month old Hayden. Jeanne had sewed some pretty cool pirate vests for the boys and an amazing little pirate dress for Hayden. She was the hit of the party, and I am sure will be featured in the magazine as well as on the Latts and Atts TV show.
For the first time in four years the Saturday night "after" party was moved to another boat. What a relief!! Andy ended up hosting on his really nice Cal 246 called Twisted Journey, and by day break, his boat was covered with beer, wine, rum, mud etc etc. Since we actually got to go to bed at a decent hour, given the circumstances (1:30) we did not see the end of the party but heard it was` around 4:00AM
We will head out tomorrow to Sucia Island north of here.
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