Monday, July 29th
We got on I-5 with Triticum on the trailor about 11am for the trip north. A trailor on the freeway sure beats a hull speed of 6 knots for the trip from the bottom of Puget Sound the south end of the San Juan Islands.
We reached Cornet Bay launch ramp about 3:30pm and started to load the ship and prepare for launch. We had seen heavy fog in deception pass as we crossed over the bridge. The launch was in bright sun but we could see wisps of fog drifting through the pass. We launched the ship and parked the car.
Disaster had already struck in the form of a DSI game console falling out of Alex's pocket while he was holding the ship at the dock. It vanished into the green water under the dock. We were headed towards the pass by 4:30pm. The current was coming in through the pass and was still fairly strong. High tide wasn't for a couple more hours and we didn't want to wait that long. We needed the motor running close to max power to make reasonable headway against the current. The further into the pass we moved, the heavier the fog became.
When we passed the west end of the island in the middle of the pass we could not make out Deception Island which can't bore more than 1/2 a mile ahead. We couldn't see anything on the south side and could barely make out the top of the trees on the North shore. We hugged the North shore, trying to keep as close as possible while staying out of the kelp beds. We rounded the head and eased into Bowman bay which I know well from previous trips. There was a power boat tied up to a dock on the East side of the bay and we swung by so I could confirm that we were actually in Bowman bay because I was not at all sure. The fog was so thick that we hugged the inside of the bay all the way around the inside of the 3/4 mile wide bay because at no point could I see more than 150 yards and often 50 yards was about as far as was possible.
We found the buoys on the west end of the bay and then rounded the head. Here the visibility improved, at least to the north and so we anchored in the south end of the cove in about 20 feet of water. The cove faces WSW and was getting enough of a swell to be annoying. We pulled up the anchor and motored North between the coast and Northwest Island. By the time we got well clear of NW island, the visibility to the north was up to a couple of miles. Looking south we could now see Deception Island.
The map showed a reasonably protected harbor a couple of miles further up the coast so we kept going. As we neared the point protecting Langley bay, we could make out Williamson rocks and the tops of Allen and ??? Islands to the north. The setting sun highlighted the top of Decatur Island on the west side of the straight we had intended to cross but the water level view was still white. We pulled into the bay and dropped anchor just inside the permanent buoys.
The bay is well protected from southern winds and swells. We fired up the grill and sorted out some dinner. It took some time to do some organization and sorting of gear. In the process, I found where the GPS had been stowed so we would have a better chance at crossing the channel the next morning.
Tuesday, July 30th
I awoke about 20 past 8 to a funny noise. The hatch was open so it only took a small movement so that I could see the stern railing of the ship. Perched on it was a male Kingfisher who was in the middle of his morning preening. I called softly to Alex in the bow V birth and after a bit he responded. The curtain was open and with a small movement he was also able to see the Kingfisher. We watched him for another five minutes and then I started a slow movement trying to get to the camera. That was more than he will comfortable and he flew off. Alex got up and climbed into the cockpit and promptly asked what kind of seal is white. My response is that some of the harbor seals can be a light gray. He was looking at a harbor seal who was hauled out on a rock about 75 yards away. The seal slipped into the water as I grabbed the camera. There was a lot of fog and everything was cool and damp. I went to fire up the grill for breakfast only to find that we were out of propane. I pulled out the spare cylinder and switched it out. I boiled water in a pan and we did tea/cider and oatmeal for breakfast.
While we were eating a couple of herons flew overhead. One dropped to the rocks off the stern of the ship and stayed there watching us watch him. After a bit, we realized that the small rock pile to the side of the rocks was actually moving. It was a hauled out seal who wasn't too interested in getting started with the day. He stayed on his rock until the tide flooded the top of his rock. We say six seal heads near the rocks at one point. A large and small pair was obviously a mom and a baby.
We cleaned up the dished and fired up the motor. After pulling up the anchor, we headed North West towards the top of Allen Island we could see in the distance. As we cruised along the visibility improved and we spotted Williamson rocks to the West. We turned due west 200 yards south of Allen Island and ran until we found the buoy to the SW of the Island. Giving it some space, we kept a due west course as we headed into the shipping lanes. The GPS gave us a good sense of location and range to the bigger islands. The charts showed the rocks and shoals to watch out for. Between the two, I was comfortable in trying to cross the channel. The buoy was still in sight behind us when we spotted a couple of large power boats headed north. I ran the motor up to a fairly high power setting to move us quickly across the channel. Shortly afterwards, I spotted a large Tugboat headed towards up. I set our course to 90 degrees across it's bow to limit our transit time. As we watched it astern, we could see that it was a Crowley ship named "CHIEF". About 15 minutes after "CHIEF" was safely astern, we spotted another tug following the first. We were never close enough to tell what it was. We spotted a long fast ship in front of us headed South. It may have been a passenger ferry but it wasn't visible for long. We cleared the ship channel as we came south of Bird Rocks. We saw a few harbor porpoises in this area but only at a distance.
We had been aiming at Lopez pass for the past 10 or 15 minutes but as we past Bird Rocks the swell dropped and so we turned to the NW and headed towards the south end of James Island. We looked up James Island and found it is a state park and could make a good place to have lunch.
As we neared the south side of the island, we spotted a red topped wild human walking along the rocks. As we came around the SW corner of the island, we spotted a bald eagle sitting in a tree just above a bull kelp bed. He was good enough to stay put while we took pictures.
There is a nice state park dock in the western bay on James Island. Both sides were filled with large power boats when we arrived so we dropped anchor in about 25 feet of water and let out enough anchor line so that the stern was in a foot of water. (engine and tiller brought up)
We hopped off and used the park's fancy pit toilets and walked 100 yards to the west beach. The beach and rocks on both sides are mostly slate but there is an interesting mix of other rocks mixed in.
We were getting hungry so walked back to the west bay to find the wind had shifted and there was not 20 feet of open water between us and the ship. We watched for a few minutes and realized the wind wasn't stable and a few minutes later the stern once more swung close to shore. One of the large boats fired up and headed out. I pulled the anchor and fired up the motor to find that the other ship at anchor had done the same thing. He was a 26' cruising tug named "Kracken" and tied up on the outer end of the dock. I put the aft 14 feet of my ship on the other end of the dock and tied up.
We had a chat with the master and mate of the Kraken, a nice couple. His first sailboat was a CM 30 that he had bought new in 1975 partly because the salesman said he could finance anything. He thought we were a clipper because of the shape of the bow but he couldn't see the pop top at a distance. We moved some of the stuff off the top and showed him that he was right! We talked about destinations and he said that Spencer spit is really pretty boring with nothing to see and rough if the wind changes. We asked about Lopez landing our other possible destination. He told us that the store is much further south, at the top of Fisherman bay. There is a good store at the top of Blakeley Island, just before Peavine passage. About that time the "Thunderbird" showed up and dropped anchor in the southern lobe of the bay. We had seen her in the south end of Hood Canal on July 4rd so it was a bit of a suprise to see here at Jones Island.
We had lunch and then headed back to the east side of the island and hiked south to the next cove. There was a large pile of building supplies under a tarp - hard to steal if you can't put a 4x8 sheet of plywood on your boat... We walked the beached and headed back to the ship. I mixed the gas in the spare tank and filled the main tank. We fired up the motor and headed north.The visibility was rapidly improving as the clouds burned off and blue sky appeared. We had enjoyed the trees on James island partly for their shade.
We spotted a ferry and a large barge under tow log before we reached Thacher pass but they were well north of us. We made it through Thatcher pass and and turned north before we spotted the next ferry. I put up the main sail just south of Willow Island. We motor sailed along Willow Island and saw a group of seals hauled out on the rocks on the north end of the island.
After we cleared the north end of the island, I powered up the motor and we changed course to shoot directly across to Frost island to get across the ferry route. Just after we turned, we spotted a ferry to the north but it turned and vanished from sight - probably to dock at the north end of Lopez island. We drew close to Frost island and turned north headed to the east side of Humphrey head. We could see birds on Leo Reef from a long way off and wondered if we would see any other wildlife there. As we got closer it was clear that there were seagulls so I figured we wouldn't see seals. As we rounded the side of the reef, we could clearly see cormorants. As we passed to the north we could see a group of seals hauled out on the rocks. We cleared Humphrey Head and started to pick up wind coming through Upright channel. To the east, we could see the snow on Mt. Baker. To the west we saw a fairly large ship come through Upright channel and head north towards Peavine passage. It may have been a passenger ferry from Friday Harbor. As we neared the center of Harvey channel, the wind became pretty strong and so we shut down the motor and pulled it up with almost no loss of speed. We sailed into the bay to the east of Foster Point on Orcas Island. Alex put up the Jib for the first time in the calmer water then we headed back into the strong wind outside the bay. We tacked back and forth in Harvey channel making for the straight on the north side of Shaw island. As we tacked back towards grindstone harbor, the wind slowly moved to the south and slowed as we reached the lee of Shaw island. We were well past grindstone harbor when the wind totally died. We pulled the jib down and rolled the jib and put on its cover. It only took about 20 minutes on the motor to cross the channel and tuck into the south east corner of Blind Bay.
We dropped anchor in about 15' of water on the shore ward side of the permanent buoys. "Gunkholing in the San Juans" (revised edition 1990says there are four buoys in the bay. I counted some 21 sailboats and 16 power boats, probably more than half were tied up to buoys. There were at least 12 empty buoys as well. The bay is very quiet except for occasional groups of waves - possibly from the Ferries headed to Orcas or Shaw islands. We could see around Blind island and across the straight to the buildings at Orcas. The plan it to motor over to Orcas in the morning and see if we can find gas. propane and some fresh food.
Wednesday, July 31st
We past a very quiet night in Blind bay. Minimal wind and waves made for a quiet ship. I woke very early but saw only mist out the hatch so went back to sleep. we got moving about 9 AM and I fired up the grill to heat water for breakfast. We finished off the last of the oatmeal and pulled up the anchor and gently eased out of the bay. We ran across the channel and watched "Washington State" pull into the ferry dock on Shaw island. We pulled into the shore side of the transient dock at Orcas and tied up. The ferry was headed our way so we stopped and watched her come in. There were a mass of bicyclists on the front. We then had to wait to cross the street until the cars unloaded. Oatmeal, sandwiches, drinks and Orcas T-shirts were purchased. We learned that East sound was where we should look for gas. After a short blank stare when I said we had a sailboat and not a car, we were told that we should try Deer Harbor. After a long battle to get the engine to stay running, we headed out under power. We rounded the head and started to cross West Sound. As we cleared the head, we spotted the "Adventuress" on a converging tack under full sail.
The sun had come out and the white sails and white hull made her shine in the distance with the green of the trees in the background. We spent quite a while watching her. Being faster, she ran well past us and then tacked and headed back past us. We got to see her from fairly close as she headed back across West Sound.
Ten minutes later we approached Crane island. and we carefully nosed into Pole passage. The passage is quite narrow - maybe 150 feet wide but I had seen a video of how to go through it so I was confident until a sailboat appeared heading towards us. I put us into a large 360 degree turn to make it clear that I wasn't entering the pass and to kill some time as the other sailboat made it through the pass. As we completed the loop, we fell in behind a power boat and we followed it through the pass.
As we cleared the pass, we passed another sailboat who was lining up to transit the pass. We set a northerly course for the center of the large mass of boats which I assumed marked Deer harbor. A power boat was running about 10 minutes ahead of us so I watched him and realized that he had tied up very close to the orange windsock that I thought might be the fuel dock.
I turned towards it and as we got close it turned out that I had made the right guess. As we neared the dock, a Hunter sailboat cast off so I did another 360 degree turn to let him clear the narrow opening between the fuel dock and the private pier on the shore side. We tied up at the dock and filled the spare 6 gal tank. We then walked up the dock to the little store on the pier where we found a replacement propane cylinder and a block of ice. We headed back to the ship in a good mood with the supplies we had hoped to find. We headed out of Deer Harbor on a southern course and then turned west towards San Juan Channel. We could see a number of sails in the distance so Alex started working on putting up the main. It took quite a bit of time to unroll it and rig it. This is the first time I have rolled the main since I heard about the approach from the CM forum. The bottom corner needs to be unclipped for this to work and it isn't easy to get it back in place. Alex did most of the work, also a first time for him putting up the main sail. We ended up very close to the lee of a small island. We slipped through the channel between this island and some rocks to the north into the San Juan Straight. The wind was pretty strong so I shut down the motor.
Looking to the North we saw Spiedon Island, easily identified by shape and limited trees. We ran across the straight on the main and the wind died on the lee of San Juan Island. We went about and headed back towards Shaw Island. There were a fair number of sailboats visible, mostly at a distance.
Alex set up the jib and we finally got it up as we neared Shaw island. We came about and picked up speed headed towards Friday Harbor. It took a few tacks to reach the south side of the channel into Friday Harbor and while doing so, we watched four sea planes come down the same channel and land in the harbor. Twice, the planes aborted the landings and made large loops to allow sail boats to clear the channel so there was space to land. Alex pulled down the jib and we came in under power close to shore, clear of the very busy channel. We tied up to the outer breakwater dock labeled BWA which later turned out to be the transient dock. We cleaned up the worst of the mess aboard and hopped of the ship and wandered down the dock looking at ships as we went. We walked across the park and Alex found a rubber duck anchored in the pond. We wandered up Spring Street – the main drag headed up the hill until we reached the Spring Tree. It is now a coffee and gift place. When I was last here with Alex's mom 22 years ago, it was a nice restaurant. We wandered back down the south side of the street and wandered into the bookshop. Alex found a book called “We are not et by Yaks” which he found greatly amusing and the first “diversion” of the trip. A couple more store fronts and we were at the Chinese and pizza place. Alex had fish and chips and I had a pizza. We enjoyed the chance to have something not done on the grill off the stern of the ship. We wandered on down towards the docks and noticed the Ferry was in the slip.
We walked back out to the ship looking at the dingies and at some of the sailboats tied up along the rather long docks. When we had prepared to leave, we saw that the ferry was still in the slip. I ran the motor up to full power and made a straight line to Brown Island to clear the channel as quickly as possible. As we cleared the dock, I saw a sea place cast off and head out to the channel. I turned to point at it and tracked it's tail to make it clear to the pilot that we would pass behind it (as if I can cross in front with a hull speed of 6 knots...) We spotted a medium sized ship also casting off – possibly a whale watching boat or a passenger ferry but it passed behind us. The seaplane passed us so I kept on a direct course for the nearest spot on Brown Island. Reaching the island, we turned, dropped back to cruising speed and ran parallel to the shore just off the docks to keep clear of the channel. The seaplane took off but I was sure there would be more sea planes and there was still the Ferry to worry about! We rounded the north end of Brown Island and clear of the wind shadow, put up the sails again. The wind had come up a bit more and we were doing a bit better than 5 mph on sails according to the GPS. We were well off the shore when we spotted a Ferry making for Friday Harbor, shortly after the Ferry that had been sitting in Friday Harbor appeared leaving space for the newcomer at the slip. About 15 minutes later we noticed a large sailing ship. I thought we had encountered the “Adventuress” again but as we pulled closer it turned out to be a different ship.
She was not as large and was moving slowly. We realized she was pulling down her sails and heading to the bay to the south of us. I got a couple of pictures so we could try to identify her. With brisk winds and full sails rigged, we had a good run across the straight on a beam reach pointed directly at Fisherman Bay. Alex wasn't too happy about the ship tipping in the strong breeze and bouncing somewhat in the wind chop that was over a foot high. We could see the sails of another boat near the side of Lopez in what looked like an approach to Fisherman Bay. Shortly we were passed by a power boat headed in the same direction. Later on we spotted a mast along the shore on a similar course. All three vanished just past a white mark on the shore so we used that as our guide. We started to bring down the jib as we reached the quieter water near shore but is wasn't until we were past the channel marker that we could see the narrow entrance to Fisherman Bay. We motored into the bay with the mail sail up. There was a little wind from dead ahead as we wound our way through the channel. We tied up at the fuel dock and pulled and rolled the main sail. There were a few annoyed folks on the pier with suitcases but no one from the resort so we walked up the pier to the restaurant. We got a couple of ice cream bars and found out that the charter plane was way late and that the folks on the dock couldn't reach anyone at the charter office. It was also too late to make the Lopez dock for the last ferry of the evening. We got the scoop on the showers and headed back out to the dock. We fired up the motor and had just made it around the outer end of the docks when we saw the very late sea plane taxiing towards the dock we had been tied up at. We motored to the south end of the bay and anchored inshore from the fixed buoys in probably about 12 feet of water.
There were high clouds in several bands which made for a beautiful sunset. We had had a very busy day so both of us crashed on our beds. I worked on catching up with the log and he was reading his new book. Both of us enjoying LED lights to read by! I don't think we turned on the cabin lights the entire trip.
Thursday, August 1st
The morning sort of slowly crept in. There was heavy clouds overhead and a bit of low fog, enough to make the ships in the bay hazy but not enough to obscure anything in range. There was a light breeze that made it pretty nippy out. We fired up the grill and soon had hot water for tea/cider and oatmeal. During breakfast, we noticed that there were the tops of kelp just below the surface of the water. This probably meant that we were in 5 to 6 foot of water and low tide was expected later in the morning. We fired up the motor and let it idle while I pulled up the anchor. We definitely were "gunk" holing judging from the fine gray silt stuck to the anchor. We slowly motored to the north side of the dock and tied up at #101. We found out that this is the transient tie up we didn't find the night before. We dug out a clean set of clothes and headed to the pool building. Eight quarters buys seven minutes of hot water - worth it's weight in gold at this point! We headed back to the ship in much better spirits with a bag of clothes that are now banned by the EPA. We cast off and threaded our way out the narrow twisting channel out of Fisherman Bay. Once clear of the bay, we headed west and set the main sail. Rounding the point we picked up fairly strong wind from the south. About 45 minutes later we put up the jib as well. About that time we discovered that the keel was only partly down so it got put all the way down. We spent the next four hours tacking into the wind and tide coming up from Cattle pass. Towards the end of that time we were fighting a very strong wind. We tacked back towards the south west and continued on that course out of the current and well off course for Cattle pass. We had been watching the barren stretch of San Juan Island on the tack and decided to find out if the wind was quiet close into shore.
There was only a modest breeze near shore so we tied the ship up on the beach. We slowly worked our way up through the grasses and bushes to the road and then followed the road to the crest of the hill. We could see the Olympics across the straights to the south and some of Vancouver Island to the west.
It turned out that American camp was probably at least 1/2 a mile North along the ridge and Alex wanted to see it so off we hiked. What is left of American Camp is a white picket fence that probably encloses 5 acres and a rebuilt officer's house and main office building.
These were rebuilt using pictures taken during the 14 years the camp was occupied. (Look up "the pig war" for a history of the stand off between the US and the British in the San Juan Islands) It was probably about 4:30 when we made it there and we had been passed on the road by the ranger on a bike. It turned out that it was time to bring down the huge American flag that flies over the camp and we were drafted to help get it into a large tub without it touching the ground. This isn't easy as it flies on the top of an exposed ridge with the prevailing wind coming from the south west across the straights and right up the hill. The ranger cranked the 108 turns needed and we succeeded in capturing the flag and getting it stored for the night. We walked back along the road and found our way back down to the beach.
The tide was right at full and we backed off the beach and started the motor and headed parallel to the shore towards Cattle pass. About five minutes later the rudder hit a rock and popped out of the fitting. It went sideways and into the prop. I got the engine out of gear and found that there had been substantial damage to the rudder where the lower mount is bolted in. In addition, the prop had gouged a nice hole in the middle of the rudder when it went sideways. I put the rudder back in place and engaged the motor again and headed much further off shore. I was lucky we didn't hit the prop as I don't have a spare shear pin in the kit at this point. (note to self...) We motored along and looked carefully at fish creek. It looked like a nice if tight place to anchor but looking at the tides and the waves just north of Cattle pass, it looked like the current would be very mild outbound and the wind we had spent the day fighting had almost completely died off.
If there was any chance this was the case, we wouldn't get a better shot at getting through Cattle pass. We shot between the head and the island north of Cattle pass and found out the hard way that a heavy bunch of bull kelp could completely stop the ship. I disengaged the motor and pulled up the rudder so we could drift free. I put the rudder back down and engaged the motor again.
Cattle pass had a gentle swell coming in from the south but the wind was mostly gone and the passage was pretty tame. We came around the point and headed east towards McArdle bay. It was getting pretty late in the day and the weather was calm so we spotted quite a bit of sea life, including another Heron.
About 10 minutes past the head, the engine coughed and speed up noticeably. I expected it to die as we should have been approaching empty on the tank. To my surprise, the increased speed maintained and the engine actually sounded like it was running better. Another 20 minutes put us into McArdle bay and then we rounded the corner into Barlow bay. We headed to the south east side and dropped anchor in about 15 feet of water near pilings with cormerants on them.
The cell phone showed one bar but I was not able to connect a call to let folks know we had made it to anchor. I finished off the hot dogs, Alex finished off his fish and chips from Friday Harbor. The grill did a nice job of heating them up in the metal pie pan I an using as a pan. We spent 30 minutes bailing water out of the bottom of the ship and then called it a night.
Friday, August 2nd
We got out of bed at 9:15. There were low clouds and it was fairly cool but we could easily see land in all directions. I put water on the grill to heat for breakfast and found that I now had three bars on the cell phone. I checked in and we had breakfast. We fired up the motor and puled anchor. Once again we had a fine gray gunk on the hook. We joined several sail boats heading out of the bay. We rounded the head and were grateful to find the swell from the night before was much lighter. The downside was that the light drizzle was getting heavier.
We ran the motor at about 65% so were were running about 6 mph according to the GPS. We ran along the south coast of Lopez about 200 yards off shore and saw one mid size ship that looked like a passenger ferry. We came past Castle Island a bit closer and were shortly off Colville point. Looking at the map, it looked like the best bet was to run East off the point to try to pick up the buoy on the rocks, probably a mile or so off shore. From there we would head a bit more southerly and try to pick up the buoy on the next set of rocks, probably more like a mile and a half further on. From there, we would swing back to the East towards Deception Island and the pass. About 5 minutes after we left the point, we spotted a dark rectangle on the horizon. About 20 minutes later, we approached the first buoy. At that point we could still see the point behind us but there was no sign of the next buoy. The drizzle kept up and almost reached a light rain. Fortunately the map is waterproof as there was a small puddle of water on the middle of it. We lined up the buoy with the point behind up and forged onwards. We had seen a couple of small motorboats - probably private fishermen but only at a distance that was hard to tell in the gray mist. About 10 minutes after passing the buoy, the clouds seemed to rise and we could start to make out the tops of the hills on the islands to the north (Allen and ???) We could see some low hills to the south and some lumps that may be near deception pass. The visibility at water level didn't change so we couldn't see ships, shore or buoys. We were crossing the south bound lane so kept a careful eye out. We finally spotted what we thought was another fishing boat but it was quite a bit south of us. Thinking that it may have come out of deception pass, we turned south to get closer to it. As we got pretty close to it, it turned out to be the missing buoy and not a fishing boat.
We turned back to the east and lined up on the southern two hills. Another 15 minutes or so and we thought we could see the top of an island, shortly afterwards there was a gap in the clouds and we could make out the Deception pass bridge above a group of trees. In the next few minutes, Deception Island appeared out of the fog. We checked the time and it was 12:25, about 30 minutes shy of full tide. We chose to go ahead and traverse the pass. When we neared the bridge we hit pretty rough chop from the tide hitting the wind.
The chop vanished as we went under the bridge and a flooding current and low power shot us through the pass quickly. Looking back we could see Deception pass centered under the bridge, a far cry from the white fog of our outbound trip.
Ten minutes later we tied up at the boat ramp. A quick trip below for clean clothes, towels and the quarters and we were headed to the showers - not so much to clean up as to warm up. Many quarters later, we headed back to the ship to drop off clothes, pull up the motor and tiller.
I backed the trailer into the water with one wheel not turning. We pulled the ship onto the trailer and pulled the winch tight. She came out of the water and the additional weight of the ship got the last wheel turning. The adventure was complete.
