Joint (Ad)Venture

We bought fishing rods a year ago but have only puttered at fishing a few times on beaches since then. We bought our new cruising boat a month ago and have spent almost 3 weeks on it since, loving every minute! Bob’s sister Lynn and her husband David bought a Grady White fishing boat in May and have done some fishing, but haven’t been on overnight trips so far. This trio of circumstances created the perfect recipe for a joint adventure, so this past week the four of us embarked on a 3-day, 2-night boating, camping and fishing journey to South Puget Sound.

Lynn and David cast off from Manchester and met Bob and Cathryn just south of the Narrows Bridge near Tacoma. Our boats played follow-the-leader from there, passing the south end of Fox Island, the west side of McNeil Island, around the south tip of Key Peninsula and on to Jarrell Cove at the north end of Hartstine Island where we docked (not completely gracefully, but it worked) and set up “camp”.

We spent the afternoon touring the waters north of Hartstine Island on Bob and Cathryn’s boat, including a circumnavigation of Reach Island (also called Treasure Island) to see if Bob and Lynn could identify the location where they spent many weeks over the course of many summers camping with their mother and another family. Too much development has occurred in the past 50 years, so they couldn’t pinpoint the lot but enjoyed seeing how things have changed.

After dinner and a glass of wine, we agreed not to get TOO early a start the next morning for some fishing on David and Lynn’s boat. 7:30 a.m. found us heading to the south tip of Hartstine, setting 3 rods on the downriggers, and trolling the waters to see what we could catch – which turned out to be nothing!

We hear salmon fishing in the area has not been so good this year, and we got a late start (by fishing standards), but had fun learning how to work the equipment, watching David set all the lures and chargers and weights and drop the lines to depth. It was instructive and enjoyable.

 

That afternoon we cast off from Jarrell Cove and moved our boats to Penrose State Park on the Key Peninsula, where we tied up at the dock after a somewhat rough and windy crossing, during which David and Lynn experienced several temporary gauge failures due to faulty fuses (now replaced).

Showers, dinner and wine found us heading for bed a bit early, tired but happy. We ended the trip the next morning sharing coffee on our boat, then taking off for our separate destinations, having learned more about docking, fishing, boat camping, navigation, and equipment, as we find is always the case any time we take a trip on the boat! Lynn says she’ll do it again next year, and David threatens to take their boat to the San Juan islands eventually, so the trip was obviously a success!