On the Road Again
28 July 2014 | Friday Harbor
Debra and Andy
Everything arrived at our private mailbox, and Lion's Paw has been completely detailed, inside and out. The only exterior teak on the boat, the gangway, has been varnished, and the final fix, a defective bow thruster control panel, has been replaced. Before heading north, we were visited by Bill and Sandy of Wavelength, a sister Beneteau 46, whom we had met while moored at Marina del Rey. We have officially begun what we have come to the Pacific NW to experience.
On Saturday, we left Elliott Bay around 6:30AM for our first destination-Port Townsend, accompanied by Jeff and Melody of Double Diamond, who have been great resources about where to stop and what to do. We were bid farewell and bon voyage by a beautiful bald eagle perched on the breakwater as we pulled out of the marina. With very little wind it was mostly motoring, but it was a pleasant day as we timed the currents perfectly. At times, we were able to reach almost 10 knots with 3 knots of current at our stern. We arrived at Port Townsend around noon and anchored offshore. Melody knew about the Saturday farmer's market, so we found our way and had some nice lunches from a couple of the stands: crab cakes, wood fired pizza, and seafood gumbo. From there, it was time to explore the island, so we walked along the seashore for about a mile or so to the lighthouse at the entrance to the Straight of Juan de Fuca which is the gateway to the San Juan Islands, Vancouver Island and all points north. From there, it was a trek back to the town where we were joined by friends of Jeff and Melody for dinner at the Fountain Café. After dinner, we dinghied everyone back to Lion's Paw where we had after dinner drinks (sparkling Shiraz) and chocolate before retiring for the night. Unfortunately, it was a quite windy and rolly anchorage this night, but we all managed to handle it in stride, Debra and Andy in the front cabin and Jeff and Melody in the aft quarter berth to test out those sleeping arrangements. The report was that it was acceptable despite the cramped quarters for two, especially with a nice, synthetic feather topper.
We were up early for the next leg of our journey, as it is best to cross the Straight in the morning before the winds build and cause standing waves. Besides, we wanted to cross the Straight in an ebb current to help with our speed, as this is an important factor in cruising this part of the U.S. and Canada. The early morning did bring some nice westerly winds so that we were able to sail north for a good portion of the crossing, but the winds did die to practically nothing for the rest of our crossing. We hit Cattle Pass, the entry into the San Juan Islands, slightly ahead of schedule, so we did face a bit of a head current but not enough to be of concern. We were heading for Fisherman's Bay on Lopez Island which is quite shallow at its entrance, and we were arriving just after low tide, so we decided to anchor just outside the entrance to await the rising tide and have a brief rest. We entered the harbor about the time we expected the tide to fill in enough to handle our 6.5' draft, so we started in. Our depth gauge was not adjusted to show true water depth as it was measuring from the bottom of the hull, so we knew the readings would be low. As we passed the first marker, the gauge read about 12 feet, then 10 feet, then 8 feet, the 6 feet. When it hit 4.5 feet but had not hit bottom yet, we still feared the possibility of running aground, so we immediately went into reverse and backed out of the channel, returning to deeper water where we dropped anchor awaiting more flood tide. We also decided to calibrate the depth gauge and discovered that it was about 3 feet less than true depth, so we had been in about 7.5' of water with only 1' to spare! It was a wise choice to back out and await higher tide. After about another 2 hours, we could tell that we would have another 3' of water below us, so it was time to try again. Sure enough and after re-calibrating the depth gauge to give accurate readings, we made it into the bay with the lowest reading of 8.5'-We would have bottomed out had we gone further on our earlier try, so we had made the right call. Having re-calibrated the depth gauge made it good for our future adventures.
The next adventure was docking the boat in the continuing flood current, so it took two tries and some help from a couple of people on the dock to successfully moor the boat. This was a true learning experience which will definitely come in usefully for our future adventures. After securing Lion's Paw, it was off to the nearby village where we had a nice dinner at the Bay Inn overlooking the bay as the sun continued to grow lower in the western sky. We are now all back at the boat and ready for a good night's sleep, as this is a well protected bay. Tomorrow it is off to our next port, Friday Harbor, which is only about 2 hours away. Nevertheless, we will need to get an early start as the tide will start going out in the early morning, and we want to make sure that there is enough water under the keel to successfully depart this very pleasant port on what is a very beautiful and charming island in the San Juans.