Check-in/OK message from Anacortes

Latitude:48.51371
Longitude:-122.60791
GPS location Date/Time:05/11/2014 17:49:58 PDT

Click the link below to see where we  located.
http://fms.ws/GoLLg/48.51371N/122.60791W

If the above link does not work, try this link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=48.51371,-122.60791&ll=48.51371,-122.60791&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

Cruising With Friends in The San Juan Islands: A Sampler

Last weekend, the day after our harrowing docking experience in Anacortes, friends Doug and Jill with their German Shepherd Lua came aboard to cruise the San Juan islands with us for the week. We first met Doug, Jill and Lua early in 2009 while RV-ing in Baja, Mexico for 3 months, saw them in Baja two more winters, and traveled with them most of our third winter there in early 2011. They're Canadian, and we've seen each other infrequently, as we live 8 hours apart.

The short version of our week is this:

Night 1 -- Anacortes, Cap Sante Marina
Night 2 -- Sucia Island at the State Park dock
Night 3 -- Friday Harbor marina on San Juan island
Nights 4 and 5 -- Fisherman's Bay, Lopez Island

On day 6 we returned to Anacortes, dropped them off at Cap Sante marina, and we continued to Oak Harbor for the night.




Doug, Jill, Cathryn and Bob on a 6-mile hike, exploring Sucia Island

Lua, the world's best "boat dog", a black German Shepherd, exploring Sucia Island.

Doug and Jill each happily took turns at the helm, and were great deckhands as well.

The view up Fossil Bay on Sucia Island is always lovely.

It rained almost every night, but most days had partial to full sun, with afternoon temps in the 50s.

This is the first time we've been to the San Juans by boat in any season other than summer, and Friday Harbor was incredibly quiet and un-crowded. We enjoyed the shops and galleries anyway.

The spring weather yielded some great cloud formations and only one thunder clap.

As always, we walked the docks looking for pretty boats and had no trouble finding them.

We even managed to store 4 bicycles on board, so went for a ride on Lopez Island to Shark Reef Point.

There were fewer seals hauled out at Shark Reef Point than usual, but a couple eagles were on the rocks too. And we enjoyed a fabulous dinner, as always, at "Bay Cafe" in Fisherman's Village on Lopez.
























We have a Canadian courtesy flag, which always flown when in Canadian waters of course, but we flew it this week in honor of our wonderful Canadian guests too.

We never get  bored with the San Juan islands and enjoyed our first Spring trip there by boat. And plans are in the works to see Doug, Jill and Lua again at their Okanogan mountain cabin in Canada in July.

May You Be Cursed With Interesting Times

Distance traveled:  44.8 miles
Travel time:  5 hours, 27 minutes

Even Wikipedia won't tell us who authored that quote, but he or she was surely thinking of a day like today! Having already decided the unsettled weather meant we didn't want to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca, we took the inside of Whidbey Island to Hat Island yesterday so we'd be going north via the very protected Swinomish Chanel instead. We traveled this same route on our March trip to Victoria, Canada. This morning we left Hat Island at 7:00 am under benign conditions.

We checked NOAA and multiple other online weather sources as always, and as usual, our biggest point of concern was wind velocity and wave height. We don't care about temperature or rain. The "Wind Alert" app said the morning would be comfortable, with winds rising from 8 mph to 20 mph between 11am and 2pm. That's what lead us to get an early start, planning to arrive in Anacortes before the wind came up.

Today we met Euronotus, the Greek God of the South East Wind. He is not a favorable God.

We have no more photos for the day, unable to manage a camera. As we departed the town of LaConnor at 11 am, we called the Cap Sante Marina 90 minutes away to inquire about availability of a  reciprocal slip for the night, and check the sea and weather conditions. We were told it was blowing 10-12 mph with the highest gust at 21 mph and no whitecaps. So off we went.

The next 40 minutes were pleasant. But as we rounded the corner from the Swinomish Channel into the Guemes Channel, we were hit by an unexpected wall of wind on our beam, clearly much higher than 20 mph, that kept us rocking hard.

Thirty minutes later with considerable tension aboard, we entered the breakwater of the Cap Sante Marina expecting the wind to die down in the protected water. Nope, not happening. The waves disappeared, but the wind seemed to be channeled even more forcefully between Cap Sante (land mass) and the town of Anacortes, blowing directly down the marina fairway we had to enter to get to our assigned slip.

The next 5-10 minutes (felt like hours!) was among the top two most tense times in our boating life! As we entered the fairway, careening between 50 boats ranging from 40-50 feet in length, the wind repeatedly caught the boat as if it were a billboard and slung it 90 degrees sideways, and we were unable to straighten it with our single engine and revved up throttles, transitioning rapidly from forward to reverse gear to keep from hitting boats only 1-3 feet off both our bow and stern. Blowing into the dead-end of the fairway and worrying we'd smash into it, unable to stop, two men came racing down the dock to grab our lines and help us dock. Saints these men were! Disaster was averted, but Cathryn was in tears and Bob was badly rattled.

After tying up and walking to the Harbormaster's Office to register and tell them we'd missed our assigned slip and ended up in the last one on the fairway, we were told the wind was blowing 30-35 mph with gusts to 42 or 50, depending on who you believe. And we spent the next 2 hours listening to Channel 16 on the VHF radio where the Coast Guard was assisting with 3 disasters in the immediate vicinity: one sailboat that capsized and left a person in the water who was later rescued by helicopter; one boat that grounded just outside the Cap Sante Marina and was able to re-float themselves just before crashing onto the rocks (they continued back to the safety of La Connor and the Swinomish Channel, undamaged), and a dis-masted sailboat, the outcome of which we didn't hear.

It took awhile to de-brief this tough experience and try to divine the "take-away lessons", but our equanimity returned after dinner and a glass of wine. Later the Security Guard at the marina helped us handle lines to walk the boat around and move it to the slip we'd been assigned to, after the wind calmed, so whenever we leave here we'll be pointed in the right direction, not requiring a 180-degree turn under almost impossibly tight conditions.

We won't go into all the details of also learning our hot water heater is dead, and having the nicest man in the world, Jeff, a live-aboard here, volunteer to disconnect it from the rest of our pressurized water system so we can at least continue to use cold water on board until we get home. Hot water heaters have to be ordered, so we we'll be showering in shoreside facilities for the duration of this trip.

We're hoping for sweet dreams tonight, not nightmares of what could have been.

On The Way to The San Juans, Tonight Hat Island

Bremerton Yacht Club to Hat (Gedney) Island

Distance traveled: 41.8 miles

Travel time:  5 hours

Yesterday in Olalla it rained cats and dogs, and the NOAA forecast for the next two days was "unsettled", leaving us uncertain whether we could make it to Anacortes in one day to meet up with friends who are joining us for a week in the San Juan Islands. So this morning we slipped our lines at 10am and headed north. What a great decision!

The water was flat, the sky was mostly sunny, and the solar heat through the windows on the flybridge left us driving the boat in short sleeves. Climate change may be a bad thing in many ways, but for boating in 2013 and 2014, it's been wonderful! We've had more dry, sunny weather than normal, while the rest of the country shivered and shoveled snow for the past 6 months.

When we bought this boat, the auto-pilot was more or less functional, but its' performance has deteriorated since then. We tested it today to see if we could live with it rather than replace it, and as it hunted for a proper heading, it swung through 70-degree shifts leaving the track below. We finally gave up and went back to hand-steering. New auto-pilot will be on the list of upgrades before this summer's six-week trip into Canadian waters.

We were astonished when the osprey below, with a fish in it's talons, flew within 5 feet of our flybridge windshield, circled around again with a gull in pursuit, then flew away. Spectacular!

As usual, there were large tow boats and some other traffic out, but clearly the summer boating season has not yet begun, despite the wonderful weather. We mostly had the water to ourselves.

We'd planned to spend the night in Kingston or Edmonds, but were getting such a boost from the out-going tide (hitting 12.9 mph briefly as we traveled Agate Pass; normal speed is approximately 8 mph), so we continued on to Hat (also called Gedney) Island west of Everett. We first came to Hat Island 13 years ago when a neighbor offered us a stay at their summer/weekend home on the island. We were enchanted then, and enchanted again today. The island is 1 mile by 1/2 mile, all privately owned, with a newly-rebuilt marina, 9-hole golf course, yacht/golf club, and private ferry.

We walked the shoreline adjacent to the marina and found this stump/trunk in which someone took the time to carve an eagle, baby bear, and Pooh-bear-like hind end! This is not a totem pole; rather a real tree stump!

While there are 200 homes on Hat Island, very few people live here full-time, and almost no roads are paved. The only access is by private ferry (foot traffic only), so if you want a car to travel from the marina to your home, you barge it over and leave it parked in the parking lot at the marina (with keys in the ignition, we're told). Not that anyone would want to steal these cars. Most of them are rusty and green with algae, looking like they've been sitting here, only occasionally used, for years. 

The afternoon was warm, so after tying up the boat, we sat on the bow in the sunshine for awhile. Later we had a glass of wine on the flybridge, admiring the distant mountains and flat water. We're told we somehow missed seeing the whales as we came into the marina this afternoon.

Road Trip

We have 3 adult children, and all of them moved within the last year. Ryan and Jaime (newlyweds New Years Eve) bought a larger condo in downtown Seattle. August newlyweds Adrienne and Justin bought their first home in Denver. And long-time marrieds (6 years) Mackenzie and Matt moved to Marina del Rey (LA) for new jobs two weeks ago. So for the second time in less than 6 months, we drove a truck from Seattle to deliver furniture and boxes, this time to LA.

We covered the 1,100+ miles in 2 days and arrived at Mackenzie and Matt's new place a block off the beach, with sunshine and temps in the high 60s. They'd already completed the move except for the items we brought, so most of the weekend was spent playing.

We went to a great Italian place in Venice where we sat in an outside courtyard for dinner Friday night. The rest of the weekend included a bike ride to Santa Monica,

 a brief stop at the Santa Monica pier,

and breakfast at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market where we picked up some veggies for later,

a picnic lunch and tour of the J Paul Getty museum and gardens,

and from which we could see Matt's new office tower in Century City,

After a whirlwind weekend, we went for a jog along the beach Monday morning, then headed north at a more leisurely pace than the southbound trip. After wandering through Malibu, we stopped in one of our all-time favorite cities, Santa Barbara, for lunch. Squished between the Pacific Ocean and the mountains, with palm trees everywhere and houses spread out on the hills with views of the ocean, this place has it all! Including great clam chowder at a harbor-front restaurant where we walked the docks ogling pretty boats.











After spending the night in Morro Bay, we headed north again, stopping just north of San Simeon (where Hearst Castle resides, though we didn't take that tour, same as the last two times we traveled Big Sur) to look at the always-hilarious Elephant Seals who haul out by the hundreds (or thousands?) on the beach. They snort, growl at each other, waddle in or out of the water (graceful in the water, but AWKWARD on land) and sleep in piles on top of each other. Fascinating!

We've driven the Big Sur stretch twice before, both times southbound, so this was our first northbound journey. The weather was gorgeous most of the way, though it began raining toward the end. This is really spectacular country, though very remote and windy, so doesn't appeal to us as a place to live. But it sure is worth seeing, including the slow travel speeds around all the curves.

Tonight we're at Point Reyes Preserve, a little north of San Francisco, and the weather forecast calls for sunshine tomorrow, so we have no plan from here.

Great Loop, Round Two

March 24, 2012 we left Fort Pierce, Florida to begin a 12-month journey around the Great Loop (eastern third of the United States and portions of Canada) returning 6,000+ miles later. In April 2013 we sold the boat to Jack and Sara, who re-named her "Ithaka".

Today at 8am Jack and Sara and pulled out of Fort Pierce headed north to begin Ithaka's second Loop, their first. Congratulations Jack and Sara! We wish you adventure, fun, happiness, safety, learning and hordes of new friends! We drank a toast to you and King Neptune with our first cup of coffee this morning.

The Best Weather Forecasting Tool

Distance traveled:  50.2 statute miles
Travel time: 6 hours, 22 minutes

Thursday afternoon when we arrived in Port Townsend, all the websites we use to make travel decisions based on weather said Friday wouldn't be a good day, and Saturday would be better. So we told Lynn (Bob's sister), our Float Plan Monitor, that we'd be staying in Port Townsend another night and travel home Saturday. We don't normally file a "Float Plan", similar to a Flight Plan for airline pilots, except when we do major crossings of big bodies of waters, like the 174-mile overnight trip we did on the Gulf of Mexico a year ago. But during winter months here, there are so few recreational boaters on the water to help in the event of problems, and we did cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca twice, and we're traveling alone, so we decided to file Float Plans for this trip. It's comforting to know someone is monitoring your plans and will call the Coast Guard to check on your welfare if you don't arrive at your destination on time. Wouldn't want to suffer the fate of the Malaysian Airlines flight that disappeared more than a week ago and has yet to be found!

Friday morning we got up and checked the weather and didn't like what we read: everything had changed since the previous night's posting. We deferred our jog so we could check the NOAA weather update that's usually posted at 9am. Yikes, Friday didn't look good and the next few days looked worse!

Instead of Friday looking marginal, and Saturday better, conditions on Saturday now looked worse than Friday. It looked like if we didn't travel home right away, we might be stuck in Port Townsend for 3-4 days. Looking out the window, conditions didn't "seem" worrisome. We're currently enrolled in the Bremerton Sail & Power Squadron's "Weather" class, and had been reminded that the best indicators are our eyes, checking to see what's visible in the sky and on the water around us. Those observations said "Go now!"
 .

So we sent off a new Float Plan, secured items that might fall over in larger waves, cast off our lines and took off on 30 minutes notice. This is called "learning to be flexible", not entirely different from what friend Phebe did to Cathryn a year ago by cajoling her to join in Yoga and Pilates classes at the YMCA, though she's been more successful in gaining flexibility in boating than at the Y.

So we took off under skies that looked like they could go to either good or bad, but wind and water that was calm, knowing we could always "bail out" at Kingston, the half way point, if conditions became rougher than we prefer.

We crossed the Shipping Lanes (the Vessel Traffic Separation scheme that essentially creates traffic lanes in Puget Sound) twice, and got passed by vessels many, many times our size, going three times our speed.

Few recreational vessels were out, but cargo and freighter traffic was normal.

As usual, we enjoyed the shoreline scenery including a particular fondness for beachfront homes and cottages. After more than six hours, with waves trending from 1-3 feet, wind from calm to 15 - 20 mph, we arrived back at Bremerton Yacht Club where we keep the boat, happily tied up around 4pm until next time. It was a great fun trip, and we can't believe what marvelous good fortune we had with the weather, considering it's still March. Eight days, departing home one day late for weather, made for an awfully nice cruise. What a winter it's been!

Note to readers: We recently had a PC failure and are now using another PC for blogging. Unfortunately this also resulted in our losing access to the LiveWriter software we'd been using, due to some technical glitch that our IT department hasn't been able to solve. So we're now using Google's Blogger software, which we find to be unusually non-intuitive  for a Google product. This has resulted in some pretty weird formatting and other oddities. We're leaning on the IT department to get all this fixed, to no avail so far. At the same time were reformatting the Blog, as it had gotten a little stale, and too Loop- focused. Now that the Loop is a full year in our rear view mirror, we want to freshen it up. Since this too is in the province of the IT department, which seems overwhelmed at the moment, it may take awhile. In the meantime, our apologies. (Note: everyone who actually knows us, knows that Bob is our IT department, and this blog wouldn't even exist but for him!)

Victoria and the Turn Toward Home

 

Distance traveled:  41.2 statute miles
Travel time:  5 hours, 18 mins

Wednesday, our last day in Victoria, was another beautiful day with full-on sunshine and warm afternoon tempthe distant -mountains were spectacular, with sparkling snow-capped peaks.In the morning we weny to Jim and Robin's boat "Adventurethe  to take a look at their electronics set-up. They have a pilothouse and flybridge with full electronics at both helms, and we wanted to see what they have, how it's organized and works. We have few and old electronics on "Next To Me" so expect to install some stuff in the next 3-15 months.

In the afternoon we meandered around town, peeking into galleries and shops, buying a few items at the hardware store, and  taking a brief tour of the Parliament Building, Empress Hotel and other notable stops. Inside the Victoria Convention Center is a lot of First Nations art, including impressive totem poles.

The Empress Hotel is a lovely example of the chateau-style that emerged during the time it was built close to 100 years ago. Inside is grand and not at all modern-looking, though clearly the infrastructure has been upgraded to modern day standards.

We had a delightful "last supper" with Robin and Jim at ,a Polish restaurant with authentic Polish food, owned and operated by an all-Polish staff of fairly recent immigrants. It was delicious.

Thursday morning we got up with the alarm clock at 5:30 and pulled out of Victoria Harbor after hugging Robin and Jim goodbye, as they came to kindly cast off our lines. For the next 5.5 hours we traveled southeast across the Strait of Juan de Fuca toward Port Townsend.

At the early morning hour of our departure, the Harbor was beautiful and the Parliament still lit.

The weather turned out to be even better than forecast. Of all our Strait crossings over the past 9 years, this one was the easiest and most beautiful. Waves never exceeded 1 foot and the wind was calm.

The sun rose above the horizon during our first hour of travel.

Freighters, military ships and very occasionally another boater appeared.

The not-so-distant mountains were spectacular, with sparkling, snowy peaks.

We arrived in Port Townsend early afternoon, cleared U.S Customs by phone, and took reciprocal dockage again at Boat Haven at the south end of town. Huge boats came and went throughout the afternoon.

"Gyrfalcon" shown below, 86 feet long and built in 1941, arrived about 5 pm to prepare for a month-long haul-out during which a lot of hull, shaft, bearing and through-hull work will be done as part of a refurbishment to prepare it for world travel by its' new private owners. In a previous life it was owned by the government and did survey work in Alaska.

We walked the mile into town and poked our noses into dozens of shops and galleries. This was perhaps the quietest we've ever seen Port Townsend, as it's a lively town that attracts hordes of visitors during summer months.

The Wooden Boat Center had lots of beautiful boats on display and in various states of repair or construction. The forecast for Friday was not so good, while Saturday looked much better, so our plan is layover in Port Townsend another night.