A recap of our travels …

August 12 – 17, 2012: Time to move onto Roche Harbor for some downtime. It’s hard to say “downtime” when this resort area turns into looney tunes with all the tourists. We anchored as far away as we could to minimize the racing dinghies and float planes arriving several times a day.

Back on the 10th I celebrated my 30th anniversary of my 29th birthday. My indulging treat was an hour long massage at the “After Glow” spa. Gosh did that feel good … I don’t think I realized the amount of tension we were under while working our way north.

We, of course, enjoyed all the amenities of the resort including lunch, dinner and a substantial quantity of ice cream. One day we ventured into Friday Harbor to meet up with Mike & Nita from Odessa for lunch and gossip.

Roche Harbor 48° 36.478N 123°10.390W

August 18 - 19, 2012: These two days we spent hunkered down at Spencer Spit. This place has fond memories for us both. Over the years we took the grandkids, their friends and other family members here to play in the sand and water.

Spencer Spit 48°31.995N 122°51.358W

August 20 – 22, 2012: Our next stop was on the east side of Orcas Island tied up to a mooring buoy belonging to friends Tom & Barbara on “Hooligan”. We met Tom & Barbara while cruising in Mexico so it was a real treat to see their home and share their company once again. We were completely spoiled with great steaks, fresh crab and salmon, a tour of the island and incredible view of Mt Baker from their front yard. It was really quite special!

“Hooligan B&B” 48°36.821N 122°48.361W

August 23 – 28, 2012: Sucia Island is probably my all time favorite island in the San Juans. We spent a week here enjoying the wildlife (humans included), dinghy rides and hikes. It was fun to see people we knew and reacquaint ourselves with their lives … Alan & Wendy on Blue Fin … Dan & Billie on Dark Star.

The anchorages would ebb and flow with boats coming and going so the neighborhood was always changing. The nice weather was still holding …

Sucia Island 48°45.748N 122°54.299W

August 29 – Sept 2, 2012: Time to torture ourselves and head to Friday Harbor to hang out thru the Labor Day weekend. I am sure the locals were happy this was the last big weekend to deal with masses of people. We did the usual activities of dining, pigging out on ice cream, laundry and grocery shopping. Our biggest entertainment was people watching with a dinghy cruise thrown in for good measure.

The nice thing about retirement is not being in a rush. It felt like everyone was working hard to relax and jammed as many activities they could in a day. Heck, we are lucky to work in one chore a day!

Friday Harbor 48°32.221N 123°00.572W

September 3 – 5, 2012: We moved to an anchorage at the south end of San Juan Island near the site of the American Camp. The English occupied a camp near Roche Harbor back in late 1800’s when the San Juan Islands were caught in a territory claim between Canada & the USA. Not sure of my dates but none the less there is some great history on this island.

Another friend, Sandy Kyle, joined us here for a couple of nights. Sandy loves to dive so he swapped out our zincs and checked out the boat’s bottom and thru-holes for us. This anchorage was so quiet and peaceful compared to Friday Harbor. We loved it along with the sunshine and flat water (no ferry boat wakes).

S. End of San Juan Island 48°27.972N 122°59.127W

September 6 – 9, 2012: Port Townsend, home of the 36th annual Wooden Boat Festival, was our next port. We arrived Thursday and the anchorage was already packed. Friday thru Sunday the place was packed with people all ages and colorful characters. It had been awhile since we attended this gathering and it was a lot of fun.

In fact, last time we attended the festival we had quite the adventure with Larry and Karen on Panta Rhei. We left on a Friday night and encountered heavy rain storms and 40-45 knot winds. Fortunately the anchorage behind the Twin Islands in Port Ludlow was calm and secure so we anchored for the night. Arriving in Pt Townsend on Saturday we found out the winds hit 50-55 knots and a couple of boats landed on shore.

Late Saturday night we found ourselves along with Larry and Karen rescuing two fishermen that fell in the water as they were trying to climb aboard their sailboat from the dinghy. Too many drinks caused a potentially deadly ending to this story. One survived thanks to Larry finding him the dark as he was floating away into the bay. The other guy was rescued by a Frenchman who managed to hoist him out of the water and into the sailboat. We helped this 2nd guy while others helped Larry get his now sober fisherman into Panta Rhei, stripped and into a warm shower.

Both survived although their egos were bruised. They were from the east coast and commercial fishermen who knew the folks lost at sea in the story “Perfect Storm”. Anyway the most interesting item to pass on was that one of the guys quite yelling help every 15 seconds or so. That’s what woke me up and I could tell someone was in trouble. He said nothing else but “help” and said it consistently. In the end about 5-6 people responded to this call of help.

Fortunately this year was sunny and warm but the winds did pick up in the afternoon causing boats to drag, ourselves included. We did have wonderful evening with Steve & Elsie on Osprey. Another surprise was seeing Robert & Virginia from Harmony who were speakers at the festival featuring their new book “Harmony on the High Seas, When your Mate becomes your Matey”.
Seeing folks on a one to one basis has been a nice way to ease back into our Seattle life.

Port Townsend 47°55.286N 122°41.349W