San Juan Summer – first overnight trip

It took us 15 days but we are finally taking off for an overnight trip this week.

Aug 14 – We drove to LFS in Bellingham to get a water pump and bilge pump. 82 degrees here but feels like 100! Too windy to go out. Jeff from Just Right III (Bellevue) came over and gave us the rundown on some fun spots in the area. His tips ended up being some of our favorite places that we visited in the San Juans. We met so many nice people over the summer. I’ll expound more in a different post. Practiced launching the dinghy here in the marina. It wasn’t too bad. We were worried, we just have a baby crane to go with our baby dinghy. Jim has a lot of crane envy around here.

August 15 – Jim got his tools sorted out. We found the binoculars! (I wish I would’ve jotted down where we found them and how long they were missing! We’ll never know) Went to James Island, moored and deployed the dinghy. Yep. Way too little. Fun though. We need some more practice. We also need to figure out a graceful way to hook up to a mooring ball. Practically divorced and maimed. Got back and had charcuterie for dinner. Early night.

August 16 – Got the laundry done – propane filled – went to Costco and provisioned. It’s only 80 degrees but it is so hot we are melting. What the heck? Are we closer to the sun here? We put the mister fan on the flybridge. Wow. What a difference. Big day tomorrow.

August 17 – Thought we were taking off today. Jim found a crack in the site glass for the sea strainer. This is a sink-your-boat part, so we are not leaving and North Harbor Diesel is ordering one for us, it will be here tomorrow. So haha. One more night at the marina. SO HOT today! Fueled up for the first time. $600 for how much cruising we have done — not too bad! Salad for lunch and brats for dinner. We have to check out tomorrow! Someone has reservations for our slip, so we have to leave by noon. Hope that part arrives in time.

August 18 – (Friday) Filled up with water, took out the trash and showered. Nope, the part was not here by noon. We left our slip and went over to the courtesy dock. Unloaded our bikes from the flybridge. They called about 12:30. We biked over and $245 later we were off. It is our first night away from the marina and we would like to stay on a mooring ball tonight. It is pretty cut-throat around here during the weekend and mooring balls are at a premium. You really should be there early if you hope to have a chance. It’s now after 2 in the afternoon and we are just leaving. We are just heading over to Cypress Island since it is so late. There are 3 mooring balls at Cypress Head campground. All occupied. We head over to Eagle Harbor. A ranger tug is pulling up and taking the last one as we approach. Drats. We head over to Pelican Beach. LAST ONE and it is ours! Yay!!

August 19 – (Saturday) While we are extremely grateful to be on a mooring ball, we will affectionately for perpetuity call this “Washing Machine Beach”. It is a very unprotected anchorage and VERY rolly! We played some games, and did some sorting. We are moving tomorrow no ifs ands or buts. We do not want to leave today as the unknown could be way worse than what we are experiencing – we might lose this less-than-stellar location for none. We’re not ready to anchor out overnight yet.

August 20 – (Sunday) Ugh, such a rolly night! We got up and left by 9 am. It was immediately nicer cruising around. We were hoping Eagle Harbor had a spot, but they were still full, so we left and went to Jones Island. Success! We stayed on the South side. We need to move to the North side Monday as the winds will be shifting. Deployed the dinghy and went to Deer Harbor. Fun! (also note in the map above how far Deer Harbor is from Jones Island – it was pretty far in a little dinghy with an electric motor) We almost got taken out by a Seaplane. His wake swamped our boat and we got soaked. We laughed and laughed. Relaxing on the flybridge in the evening WE SAW SIX ORCAS. They were so close. It was magical. They were there and gone so quickly that I never got a photo. I grabbed a photo from the Facebook Orca Network Community Group

Words cannot convey the wonder.

Talk Soon.