Knotaklu: Sailing the San Juan Islands

Pretty much all my adult life I've owned a sailboat. We spent almost all of our vacations sailing in the San Juan Islands in Washington, the Gulf Islands in Canada and places further north along the east side of Canada's Vancouver Island.

That ended about 13 years ago when sailing and cruising just became too dangerous for my wife due to some health issues.

This was our last sailboat, a 36 foot Catalina that we named Mierissa after our kids. After we sold Mierissa we bought a motor home, land yacht, with which we made a few trips until she passed away shortly thereafter. Since then I have been cruising in an RV are now with a trailer.

This last winter a friend offered to sell us his sailboat. He kept this boat in absolute immaculate condition since he bought it in the early 90s. He said he wanted us to buy it because he knew we would take as good a care of it as he did. He offered it to us at a price we couldn't refuse. My daughter Christine and her husband had expressed an interest in buying a sailboat with me as a partner for some time. At my age now I was thinking more a power boat. They also had good friends of theirs that was interested in a partnership boat as well. As a result I am now the owner of 1/3rd of a sailboat.

Mona and I took a 3 week sailing adventure on her in August. We would have loved to go to Canada but the border was closed due to the Covid-19 virus, so we, like lots of other boats, went as far north as we could, the San Juan Islands.

We are naming the boat Scuppers after the dog in the children's book "The Sailor Dog". Christine and Clint along with our other partners have 4 young children between them and the book is a favorite with the children, as it was for my kids in their childhood.

I had saved the cockpit table from our previous two boats. It has a lot of sentimental value and looks really great on Scuppers.

Here the table is folded out.

We enjoyed many evenings eating meals while at anchor. Mona is quite the creative cook.

One of our favorite islands in the San Juans was Sucia Island and Fossil Bay. The bay had a dock which was deep enough at the very end of it for a sailboat. We usually tried to get a spot there so the kids could get off the boat and run and play in the sandy beaches without using the dinghy to get ashore. Sometime since the last time I was there the state park put in a new dock which extends way out into the bay and deeper water

Reports were that the San Juans were really crowded with lots of boats, especially in Echo Bay. While there were a lot of boats, it didn't seem to be more than other years in the height of the vacation season. What was different was that the vast majority of the boats were large. Scuppers is around 34 feet long and in most places, we were among the few smaller boats. I think with the border closed all the big boats in Washington went as far north as they could, which was the San Juans. We wondered where all the smaller boats were with kids. We're assuming that all the smaller boats were staying home due to Covid-19.

A favorite activity on while on Sucia Island is to watch the sunset from Fox Cove, just a short walk from Fossil Bay where we were tied to a buoy.

After Sucia Island we went across the channel to Matia Island where we were lucky enough to grab one of the two state park buoys there, both of which are in Rolfe Cove, along with a small dock. Rolfe Cove has two small entrances, one of which faces up the Strait of Georgia. On a strong ebb tide the current from the Strait of Georgia rushes through the Cove. It was like we were anchored in a river. The current was flowing so fast that there were waves in the water. Thanks to the Washington State Parks for attaching their buoys to huge concrete blocks via large chains.

After a couple of nights at Matia, we went to Stuart Island where Mona worked her magic and we were able to grab one of the three park buoys in Prevost Harbor. I don't know how she does it, but it is almost without fail when traveling with Mona, we will arrive at a location late and there will be a camping spot, or in this case a buoy, that opens up. So far in the San Juans were able to tie up to a buoy even though all the others were taken. It's Amazing!

Stuart Island is great for hiking the roads. The above picture was taken from Turn Point Light Station. For some reason the kelp beds are huge there.

In all the years past when visiting the light station the keepers quarters have been boarded up. Since then volunteers have created a small museum there which normally is open to the public during the vacation season. Not this year due to Covid-19. Dang! I was looking forward to getting to see it.

Most of the few residents on the island live up the valley on the west end of Prevost Harbor. A family on the island has this little t-shirt business where they have the shirts in what appears to be a treasure chest. The shirts are sold on the honor system where they request that you send payment when you get home. I was surprised to find that after all the years since my last visit that they were still doing it.

The county dock in Prevost Harbor with Mt Baker in the distance.

After Stuart Island we went to the Roche Harbor Resort on San Juan Island where we purchased fuel and some groceries. Roche Harbor has grown to the point where it caters mainly to larger boats and even some super yachts. We left there for a favorite anchorage, Garrison Bay and the English Camp National Historical Site. The requirement for going there is to take the hike up Youngs Hill to catch the sunset. That's forbidden land over there this year, Canada.

A must stop is Jones Island, a family favorite for all the years we cruised in the San Juans and later as we passed through the area on our way north. Mona's magic didn't work there but we were able to anchor just off the dock in the north cove. One day we hiked the west loop trail and the next day the east loop trail.

We left Jones Island for Friday Harbor in fog. In fact we were in fog all the way to Friday Harbor. That gave us a great opportunity to try out the radar along with the GPS chartplotter. On our last boat, Mierissa, we had radar and also a GPS. They however we're not integrated together like we have now on Scuppers. It is pretty nice to have all your GPS information, the map depth, boat speed, Etc, along with the radar information all on the same display. For many years I didn't have these great navigation tools. We got around with paper chart and dead reckoning.

As we entered Friday Harbor in the fog a pod of orca came alongside the boat.

I had just enough time to run inside and grab the point and shoot camera.

The most exciting part was having one dive under the boat and then come alongside. What a special treat that was. I found out later from the Whale Museum folks in Friday Harbor that they were not one of the local pods but a transient pod. In all our your sailing I can only think of one other time when orca came that close and some dove under the boat. The kids, now adults, were little then and we all started screaming in excitement, as Mona and I did this day.

Our next stop was Hunter Bay on Lopez Island. There is a county dock there where we could unload our bicycles. It is always quite an experience transporting a bicycle from a boat at anchor to shore in a small dinghy.

A highlight for Mona was the second day when we rode bikes to the little town, Lopez Village. She had been there many years ago. Due to covid-19 and it being a Sunday there was hardly anything open. The only place we found open to purchase something to eat, other than the new supermarket, was a small food truck serving tacos. Still, it was nice to see that the town hasn't changed much except for the new supermarket. Man, I was sure looking forward to some donuts from the bakery.

Just a note, Lopez Island is known as a great bicycling island, which it it. Folks say it's so great to ride because it is relatively flat. I've ridden on Lopez many times and it isn't flat! It's just not as hilly as some of the other islands. Mona and I rode some 20 plus miles and we were really worn out by the time we got the bicycles back on the boat. We had to walk up several of the steeper hills.

Since it was time to head south towards Seattle we decided to swing over to Bowman Bay in Deception Pass State Park which would give us a good place to start from in the morning. We tied up at the small dock so we could hike around the point and along the bay some to the main picnic area.

Along our hike we ran into this couple who were folding up their kayaks. It was amazing to
see how small their kayaks folded up to. I had never seen anything like it. While in Alaska a few years ago I became friends with a couple that had a put together kayak but it was not as neat as these kayaks. We brought our two smaller kayaks but only took them out once on Sucia Island. They took up some deck space where these folding ones wouldn't. I can't image though unfolding and re-folding kayaks on deck.

With the exception of Lopez Island, where we rode our bicycles, we hiked on every island we visited.

Later we moved over to the large float off to one side of the Bay. It was not connected to land but it gave us the opportunity to get off the boat and stretch some. Again there was no one on the dock with us until later in the day when two older gentleman in their fishing boat tied up.

That evening we sat and watched the sunset.

The next day was the long trip home. We started out in fog until half way across the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Partridge Point on Whidbey Island. We got an early start so we could catch the change of tide there, giving us an extra knot or so of speed all the way to Seattle.