We have, in one way or another been planning this trip for a year, almost since the day we got back from last years vacation to the San Juan Islands. Maybe even before we got back. I use the word “planning” loosely. The main idea behind the trip was no schedules to speak of. Just a month off, on our boat, sailing between Seattle and Desolation Sound in British Columbia, Canada.
Some fun facts from the trip, we were gone for about 30 days (July 13th – Aug 13th).
- Covered a grand total of 580+ miles (using less than 70 gallons of fuel).
- We took 300+ pictures (which can be found by clicking here) and over 20 short videos (Which I plan to edit togather and post up here at sometime in the near future).
- Drank a lot of really shitty, really expensive Canadian Beer (Sorry Canada, I just call it like I see it).
- Saw some amazing sites and got some incredible sailing in.
All in all, the best vacation We’ve ever been on.
As per usual, i’ve created a map on Google maps so you can follow along. I’ve placed icons at the locations that I mention in the text and underlined. I think it will help you get a better idea of where all this is taking place at in the world.
Here is the story, as I recall it:
DAY 1 July 13th
As I mentioned before, we did’nt really have a set schedule of places to go, or things to see. We had a rough idea of where we wanted to go and a few ‘must see’ places that we had either heard about or read about. We did however want to get as far north as possible in the first couple days of the vacation so we could slow down and slowly work our way home. As opposed to taking out time up and having to haul ass home as the vacation came to a close.
So with that as a rough outline for the trip, as soon as I got home from my last day at work. I went straight to bed (7pm). The idea was that I would get up at midnight, which was about a half hour before high tide. We would get the boat ready and leave, riding the tide as it ebbed out of Puget Sound. This basically speeds our boat up. Just like how a plane can fly faster if the wind is behind it. The tide carries us along with it.
As I was much to excited to really sleep, I got up at about 11:30pm and started getting things ready. Tawn had not gone to bed, since she would go to sleep as soon as we left the dock and I would wake her up around 4am for her watch.
Leaving the marina in the middle of the night was very cool. As we left the north entrance of the marina the bonfires on the beach at Golden Gardens Park were dieing down as the cops were kicking the people out of the park. Including the stoned mofos in the drum circle.
Once out of the marina, there was absolutly no wind. The moon was about 3 days from being full, so you could see pretty well. Tawn went below to get some sleep. I had a cup of mocha and a Thermos full of beef stew. My first night watch was pretty uneventful. Flat calm water and tide with us, we flew north. Making way better time that I thought we would.
I wasn’t really paying attention to the time and was sorta enjoying myself when I realized that the sky was lighting and the sun was coming up. At about 5am we passed Marrowstone Point and I could see Port Townsend about 3 knots to the west. I was just about to duck below to wake up Tawn, but noticed a really slow moving, and very big wave moving towards me. Not a wave, in the surfs up sort of wave. But a large rolling wave. I thought it seemed odd since there were no other waves at all. As the wave passed under the boat, I noticed more and more of them and then realized we were coming up to the notorious Point Wilson tide rips.
Tawn had woken up on her own and came up on deck. We talked for abit and got to talking about the waves that by now were really building. The wind was also picking up from the west. In the space of 10 minutes, we went from absolutly no wind and flat calm seas to 25 knots of west wind and 10-12 foot seas. The waves were crazy and confused. There was no rythmn to them. They would pop up and slam the boat from every direction.
The reason for this is that Point Wilson is the point that Puget Sound (Admirality Inlet) and the Straights of Juan De Fuca meet. Point Wilson is also a fairly shallow point. So all the water that had been flowing out of Puget Sound with the tides all night (us with it), hits the waves that are created by the west wind that had been blowing down the Straights of Juan De Fuca all night. Imagine a gutter, then taking two buckets of water. One at each end of that gutter and pouring the water from each end at the same time. Now imagine being a ant on a small bit of leaf in the middle where the water meets…..That was us.
Any way, sails up and I went to bed. But not before getting sea sick for some reason. So a quick toss of the cookies over the leeward rail then back to bed. :)
A couple hours later I woke up and came up on deck. The sun was out, the wind had died to almost nothing, but we were left with some roly poly waves. This was just south of Lime Kiln Point on the SW side of San Juan Island. We entered Bedwell Harbor and tied up to the customs dock so we could check into Canada at approx 1pm on Sunday afternoon.
For some reason, I had been worried about clearing into Canadian customs. We’ve done a crap load of times by car, but never by boat. I’m not really sure what I was worrying about. The questions are the same, but for some reason I had thought that we would have brought to much of the wrong type of food (which we did’nt) or to much booze (which we did). But to my surprise and relief, they did’nt give a shit. We got our clearance number and away we went.
In this case, “away we went” did’nt actually amount to that great a distance. We just motored about 1/4 mile away and anchored in the bay. It was a nice sunny day, the wind had picked up. We found our spot in the anchorage and dropped the hook. Ate a little bit of food and started to read a book. Next thing I know, it’s 3 hours later and I’m drooling. I guess I was more tired than I thought. We did’nt even bother to put the dinghy in the water as we had to get up early the next day and head further north. We had to be at Porlier Pass by 8:30am so we could get through with the current.
More to follow…..