Category Archives: Cruising

July 4 – At Reid Harbor

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We woke to a rosy sunrise and cold morning (45 degrees). Clouds filled in later, but cleared by midday and it was quite pleasant. A great day to try out our new Superwinch to launch the dinghy and take a hike!

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The new winch works GREAT! It’s wonderful to be able to push a button and hoist the dinghy. Not too noisy either. We are quite pleased with our new arrangement.

The hike from the State Park (link: Stuart Island Marine Park) at the head of Reid Harbor to the Turn Point Lighthouse is abut 4.5 miles round trip. This is one of our favorite boating hikes, and we’ve been doing it since the late 1970s when we first started boating in the San Juan Islands. Much of the hike is on the main county road on Stuart Island. It’s usually dry and dusty, but after the past couple of rainy days, we encountered several places where we had to get around gooey mud and mud puddles. Plus, the county had recently put down large chunks of crushed rock, which was good for the ATVs that use the road, but not so good for hiking!

We found some familiar things as we reached the top of the hill: Stuart Island’s school, the Stuart Island museum (formerly their one-room school house), and the Boundary Pass Trader’s Treasure Chest with lots of souvenir clothing that they sell on the I.O.U. system. We found a couple of shirts to buy.

We also found a wonderful display of finely made wooden bowls, being sold by Alex Olson of Stuart Island Woodworking. Alex lives and goes to school in Seattle, but spends summers with his family on Stuart Island. He uses mostly native wood found on Stuart Island, and his work looks great. He plans to display his bowls for sale in this location through the middle of August. Alex said he can create custom bowls by request. If you’re interested, please leave a comment in the “Leave A Reply” box below, and we will send you his contact information.

Once we reached the Turn Point Lighthouse, we discovered a new addition. The Turn Point Lighthouse Preservation Society (http://www.tplps.org) has restored one of the buildings on the site and has opened an historical museum there. It’s a great museum with a very thorough display of historical events about the lighthouse and the lightkeepers, and we enjoyed browsing through all the artifacts that are on display. While we were there, a host was available to answer questions.

Back at Phoenix, we enjoyed being able to hoist our dinghy back to the boat deck easily with our new electric winch, and settled in for a quiet evening.

Anacortes Thunderstorm

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Anacortes thunderstorm 01

During a break from the rain, I took some photos of the angry sky. This is looking northwest from our foredeck.

Anacortes thunderstorm 02

This is a view looking north. Notice the rain cells in the distance.

Anacortes thunderstorm 03

Above the boathouses, the sky to the west was an angry deep red, intensified by the setting sun.

Anacortes thunderstorm 04

Another view to the north. Some of the boats at Cap Sante Boat Haven are visible through the opening of our marina’s north bulkhead, near the center of the photo.

Wow! What a night we had in Anacortes last evening. There were lots of thunderstorms throughout the entire Puget Sound most of the day yesterday, with most of the rain to the south of us. Anacortes was dry until the evening, when we definitely got our taste of the storm.

Between 6 and 7 PM, heavy rain started to come down like rain we’ve seen in Ketchikan or the tropics. Just a downpour. This was followed shortly by almost continuous lightning and thunder. The first boomers were a ways away, but by 8 PM we were seeing lightning strikes all around us, and the boomers were so strong that they occasionally rattled the boat. It was definitely close to us!

This storm didn’t want to leave us, and the lightning and thunder and on-and-off rain continued for almost 3 hours. Our kitties were definitely not happy campers. Gratefully, most of the lightning and loud thunder was over before bedtime.

During one of the breaks in the rain just before sunset, I managed to snap a few quick pictures from the foredeck…didn’t really want to venture too far away from the safety of the boat, but wanted to try to capture the intense red sky. It was so very ominous looking.

We are grateful that this morning was calm and foggy…even though unsettled weather is still in the forecast for the next day or two.

July 3 – At Reid Harbor

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Reid Harbor in the morning

By late morning, the sun had come out and many boats had left the anchorage.

Kayaks in Reid Harbor

Four of the many kayaks we watched come and go in Reid Harbor.

Schooner in Reid Harbor

It was fun to watch the schooner “Odyessy” come into the harbor.

Aft deck of schooner in Reid Harbor

A closer view of the aft deck and cockpit of the schooner “Odyssey.”

Reid Harbor sunset

By the time the sun set in Reid Harbor, the winds had died and it became a wonderfully calm and quiet evening.

Moon at Reid Harbor

What can be more beautiful than a full moon shining over the water in a calm anchorage…it was gorgeous!

Heavy rain all night and into the morning made this a good day for lounging and reading. Cool and windy too, with temps only in the 50s.

We were anchored on the south side of the harbor, a bit away from the head of the bay…so we were able to enjoy watching boats come and go. There is also a lot of kayak activity here, as the beach at the head of the bay is sandy and offers an easy place for getting in and out of kayaks. Also, the Washington State Park here offers a great place for camping, and many of the guide companies bring groups here.

As we crossed San Juan Channel yesterday, I received a message on my iPhone from Verizon Wireless that my phone had been picked up by a Canadian cell tower. I had forgotten that as soon as we reach the northern part of the San Juans…even if we’re not in Canadian waters…we can get either a U. S or Canadian cell connection…so it is a good idea either to get a Canadian roaming plan or turn off data. Since we don’t plan to be cruising in Canada, we didn’t get a roaming plan, and I decided to turn off the data on my phone and go without the Internet and email. The roaming rates while in Canada are pretty steep. In addition, we get only a marginal 3G signal here in Reid Harbor.

The sky cleared later in the day, and we enjoyed sun for the rest of the afternoon and had a clear evening. When the tide changed, our boat turned to face the setting sun, and we got blasted by the bright sun. We covered the windshield with our winter Sunbrella cover to avoid being blinded.

It was the perfect night for an easy dinner of vegie burgers and mandarin oranges.

July 2 – Anacortes to Reid Harbor

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Guemes Channel

Heading west in Guemes Channel, we caught the outbound current.

Rosie underway

Rosie curled up on the dashboard…she frequently sleeps while we’re underway.

Mickey underway

Mickey likes to crawl under our foot stool while we’re underway…a nice secure place for him.

Double Island anchorage

Looking into West Sound from our anchorage behind Double Island, where we stopped for a couple of hours to wait for the Speiden Channel current to change.

Mickey relaxing at Double Island

After we got settled at Double Island, Mickey came out from under the stool and showed us one of his best relaxation poses.

Navionics on iPad next to Raymarine Chart Plotter

The navigation display on the left is on the iPad using the Navionics app “Marine & Lakes U.S. and Canada,” and on the right as it looks on our Raymarine Chart Plotter.

Navigation display on the iPad

A closer look at the iPad navigation display. Notice the red line that continuously updates while we are underway to show where we are headed. What a great tool!

Whale watching boat

We passed this whale watching boat as we crossed San Juan Channel on our way to Reid Harbor.

Container ship in Haro Strait

As we approached Reid Harbor, we spotted this container ship in Haro Strait, headed for Boundary Pass.

Entrance to Reid Harbor

Approaching the entrance to Reid Harbor on Stuart Island, one of our favorite anchorages in the San Juans.

Reid Harbor anchorage

In Reid Harbor, Stuart Island, looking toward the head of the anchorage.

First, a note. We are now back in Anacortes after a one-week cruise from July 2nd to the 8th…but we did not have access to the Internet while we were out, so publishing the posts from our cruise has been delayed. This is the first post from our cruise…more to come soon!

The weather conditions in Anacortes looked good this morning…grey and overcast, but no strong wind and no rain. This was a good morning for us to head out for our first cruise of 2012.

We caught the outbound current in Guemes Channel, and crossed Rosario Strait near the slack. We found lots of boat traffic in Harney Channel this morning, including several ferries. One of the ferries came up behind us as we motored west in the narrowing channel by Shaw Island…we got caught between the oncoming ferry and a large power boat with an enormous wake next to us paralleling our course, so ended up turning toward the beach and slowing almost to a stop, then going in a circle so that we could cross behind all of them. Harney Channel can get really crowded in July and August!

This was our first opportunity to use the Navionics iPad app “Marine & Lakes U.S. and Canada” for navigation. What a neat tool! It has an outstanding display, fast seamless operation, and runs from the iPad’s GPS without the need of a cell connection. The GPS does use a lot of battery, so we discovered it was best to have it hooked up to a power source. We set up the iPad alongside our 10-year-old Raymarine chart plotter and found there was no comparison…the iPad was much better! In addition to following our course, the app also provides a great tool for looking up the tide and current information for any given location.

First time out every year we get to see if things work. Most things were okay, except… The AIS wasn’t working, but that turned out to be a loose wire. And the knot meter didn’t work, and we thought that might be due to something being stuck in the paddle wheel…but no matter how much maneuvering we did, the knot meter still didn’t work. We’ll need to do more investigating to find the problem.

We turned into West Sound and found the anchorage behind Double Island empty so decided to anchor there for a few hours to wait for the current in Speiden Channel to change. We were heading on to Reid Harbor, and wanted to avoid the strong adverse current along Speiden Island. Waiting until later in the day would give the current time to moderate and reverse.

We left Double Island around 1500 and found much less boat traffic than we experienced this morning. And more favorable current! However, the clouds thickened and we had light rain most of the way. Even though we waited for more favorable current in Speiden Channel, we still encountered a strong tide race with lots of whirlpools near Limestone Point.

We found lots of boats in Reid Harbor, but there was still plenty of room to anchor. It turned into a cold, rainy night. But the heavier rain held off until later in the night, so we were able to barbecue salmon for dinner, along with steamed green beans. Felt nice to be out on the anchor again.

More WiFi Fun

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Jim drilling holes to reinstall WiFi bridge.

Jim pulled out the two bottom drawers under our helm seat to install the WiFi equipment. Here he is drilling a hole to bring up the exterior antenna cable to the space under the drawers.

Jim inserts the new airport into its new location.

Jim inserting the new Apple Airport base station into its new location under the drawers in the cabinet below our helm seat.

Mickey explores the open space where the drawers have been removed.

Of course, as soon as the drawers were removed and there was open space, both kitties had to check out the space. Here Mickey is inside, looking around. Rosie followed shortly thereafter.

WiFi equipment under the drawers.

The bridge and new Airport base station (router) fit nicely in the space under the bottom drawer.

Argh! We lost our Internet connection this week…the new WiFi bridge is still good (see May 28 post), but the 6-year-old Apple Airport base station that we use as a router seems to have become buggy. So we went to Best Buy and bought a new one. Yesterday Jim worked on re-wiring the on-boat WiFi system to hook it up to the new Airport. The new Airport device is smaller than the old one, so now there is room to install both the Airport and the bridge in the area under the drawers in the cabinet below the helm seat.

After rerouting the cable connections to the exterior antenna and hooking up everything, our system seemed to be back and working as it should. However, this morning it was down again, so looks like we need to do more trouble shooting. In the meantime, we are able to connect our laptop directly to the bridge, so we are able to reach the Internet from at least one device.

Meanwhile…we have a free week between eye doctor exams/surgeries in connection with Jim’s cataracts (his next exam is July 10), so we are getting ready to leave the dock (yea!!) to spend a few days in the San Juans. We thought we’d leave this morning, but the wind has come up a bit here in Anacortes and there is a gale watch posted for the East Entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca for later this afternoon, so we have decided to wait for a better weather window before departing…Rosario Strait can be a bit uncomfortable when the SE wind blows against the current.

Cataract Be Gone

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MASH 4077th

It’s that kind of summer!

Today Jim had the first of his two cataract surgeries. Surgery was about 45 minutes from start to finish…driving time between Anacortes and our opthamologist in Seattle was about 4 hours (round trip). All went well, and we will have a couple more trips to Seattle in the next week for post-surgery exams to be sure.

Tonight Jim is wearing a clear, hard plastic eye patch to protect his eye for the next 24 hours…kinda a pirate look… His second eye cataract surgery will be in 4 weeks.