Seattle/Seabeck/San Juan Islands

Pulling the mast

Replacing transducers

Hood Canal Bridge - coming and leaving

Pleasant Harbor and the Cole's place across the canal

9/27 - Friday Harbor

I’m sitting here in Friday Harbor writing this blog. Except for one day, it’s been sunny and warm since I left Seattle, and in Seattle it was perfect weather too.  I can’t believe how nice this weather has been.  The people here in the North West can’t believe it either...lots of fires are becoming an increasing danger here on San Juan Island. They had a nasty fire on the west side, but was put out pretty quick. It’s funny when I look at the weather report in Ketchikan, rain, rain - here in Washington, sunny, sunny.

Blue Bossa in front of the Cole's house (to the left)

Party at the Cole's!

Blue Bossa from the Cole's house

Bill's Magic BBQ touch

I hope that the weather stays like this for the next 10 or so days, as my son Alex will be here tomorrow and the next day we leave to head south to California, about an 850 mile trip. There are lots of opportunities for winter weather to try to show its hand, since Fall is trying to bust in, but so far only showing shorter days and cooler nights. I don’t relish pounding into a rainy south-easterly on my way down.

Friday Harbor is pretty much how I left it a year and a half ago. Some shops have changed, dock fees have gone up, but otherwise same ol’. I’ve been in touch with some of the musicians and have sat in on a San Juan Quintet gig at Rumor Mill, and practiced and played with the big band “One More Time”, and will play tomorrow night at the Rumor Mill with them.  Playing in a big band is a remarkably disciplined feat: as one of the members mentioned: playing in a big band is like driving a locomotive on a railroad track vrs driving a sports car on the salt flats which is akin to me playing in a piano trio.

Last month, I finished up getting the boat overhauled with the help of Yacht Masters. I mentioned in my last blog what I did to the boat.  I’m still in sticker shock and will likely stay that way for the rest of the year. The boat performs very well, though I have still to try out my new solent jib. The auto pilot is super quiet and steers as straight as an arrow (my old autopilot was nicknamed “Snake-Way Sam”) and takes less electricity. The Simrad system works really well and is nicely user intuitive. Radar is super clear - fog is much less stressful.

Bill & Cathy - Bill was the ferry operator

Matthiew (on the right) and friend

Cathy & Bill

Cathy & the Captain

 September found me leaving Seattle and heading to Pleasant Harbor, located in the Hood Canal. The Hood Canal bridge is an obstacle that was interesting to pass through. The highest part of the bridge (east side) is 52’, and that’s almost exactly what my mast height is. Luckily it was a minus tide, so I backed up slowly, watching the top of my mast and made it clear enough.  But I decided when I went out, that I would call the bridge and have them open the gates for me (it’s a floating bridge in the middle of the canal), which meant that I would have to get them an hour to comply, since the operators have to drive from an office to work the bridge.

I checked into Pleasant Harbor, which is, indeed, pleasant. It’s basically a resort, with swimming pool, little pizza store, and some other cool things.

The next day, I went across the canal to tie up in front of my friends Bill, Cathy and Matthew Coles’ house.  They had finished remodeling (aka: teardown) their home overlooking the canal and the Olympic Mountains a couple of years ago.  I don’t think you could get a more scenic

Hood Canal Bridge letting me out

A kayak crasher

New electronics

Sucia Island

On one of the Sucia islands

Interesting sandstone

view from any house that I know. They put a lot of time, energy and money into their home and it shows. Their next door neighbor had a bullet-proof mooring buoy on the canal, which I was able to use, going back and forward using the dinghy (without engine), and then using his clothesline rig that he had set-up.

The two nights I spent there was a great visit, with a fun dinner party first night with some of their friends, then we had a nice sail on Blue Bossa the next day, with another fine dinner afterwards on Labor Day. The sail was especially nice because we actually had a good wind, so sailing with main and 150 jib was a lot of fun. Mathiew, Bill and Kathy’s son, brought a friend along and both had a great time exploring the boat and enjoying the sail.

Tuesday after Labor Day, I sailed through the hood canal, timing the tidal currents nicely, and arriving at Friday Harbor at almost nightfall.  For the next 3 weeks, I revisited some of the places I’ve been before (South Bay/San Juan Isl, Roche Harbor, Reid Harbor on Stuart Island, Anacortes).

A couple of places were new that I visited. Just south of Anacortes is a place called Skyline Marina in Flounder Bay, a mostly retired community with a goodly amount of boats in a land-locked marina.  I had my Yanmar serviced there. The other first-time place was Sucia Island. Sucia Island is a unique horse-shoe shaped set of islands that is a full-on state park, much like Stuart Island This was a full-on park, with mooring buoys ($12/nite), lots of clearly marked and kept-up paths which I explored. I stayed there 3 nights.

During this whole time, I never once used my dinghy.  I was always using the kayak, since the weather was nice the whole time, even if the water was at a cool 51 degrees. One very quiet night while I was reading a book in bed, I heard a noise that I couldn’t identify towards the stern of the boat. I got up, had the flashlight and pointed it to the stern of the boat.  The noise sounded like it was outside, so I looked over the stern and saw a seal perched comfortably on top of my kayak, which was tied up to the stern of Blue Bossa.  I just had to take a picture. When I got up in the morning, the seal was gone.

The first part of September was unbelievably crowded with boats, but has been getting less so as the month has gone by. The first time I was here, I was lucky to get a slip, and worked diligently not to run into any other boats. There were also a lot more shops open during this time than what I remember from the winter spent here, especially ice cream shops.

So - stay tuned for my last adventure with Alex going down the west coast of Washington, Oregon and California. After that, I’ll be staying somewhere in central California (probably Half-Moon Bay) for probably a year.  Depending on what happens during that time will determine when I take the boat further south, with continuing Blue Bossa Blogs.