Early Spring in the San Juans: Island Jewels

Part three: After a rough start (part one) and a nice passage north (part two), we concluded our three weeks of island hopping through the beautiful San Sun Islands, enjoying mostly fine weather and deserted anchorages.

Jones Island

After a blissful three days on Stuart Island, we plot the seven-mile course to Jones Island. A strong current flows against us between Speiden and San Juan Island, so we decide to take the northern route above Speiden to see if we could make better time. This turns out to be a mistake. An even stronger current slows us, and worse, a series of tidal eddies have us spinning this way and that as we make our way eastward through New Channel. At the narrowest part of the passage between Speiden and the Cactus Islands, I marvel at a flock of floating birds spinning on the water like they are riding an invisible merry-go-round. Moments later, we enter this vortex to hell ourselves. Let’s just say we are still cleaning up the mess from our drinks refrigerator spilling all its contents into the salon on one particularly vicious careening lurch. Now I know to lock the refrigerator door before each departure, regardless of how calm the water might seem.

We find the northern bay of Jones Island nearly deserted when we arrive. The dock had been reinstalled a day earlier after being removed all winter. We take a spot along the pier, joining a small powerboat. All three mooring buoys sit vacant. Spring cruising!

We love anchoring and mooring buoys, but docks are incredibly convenient when traveling with dogs. After our ceremonial arrival beer, it’s a simple matter of stepping off the boat and walking down the dock for shore leave for the pups. No crane to lower the tender, no long motoring to the dinghy dock. This is especially welcome when it’s dark and rainy. We find ourselves gravitating towards state park docks a lot this trip.

Friends from Rendezvous and Alexandria join us at Jones for some buddy boating the next day. We enjoy hikes through the island, cookout meals on the dock, and merriment. Getting together with boat friends after a long winter of isolation and social distancing is like salve for our souls.

During a visit here many years ago when our kids were still quite young, we encountered miniature deer that came trotting straight up to us. We have deer on Vashon, but none so small, cute and friendly as these fellas. We watch for them during our hikes, but I’m guessing our two rambunctious dogs spooked them this time.

We have fantastic weather for two and half days, but a north wind rolls in on our last night. Our friends are on mooring buoys, and both boats roll and pitch from about midnight on, making for a very uncomfortable night. Even boats at the dock surge and lift with the waves. Our captain friends cast off their lines at dawn for a calmer anchorage elsewhere, and we depart ourselves soon thereafter.

Deer Harbor

We make a stop at Deer Harbor Marina on Orcas Island to top off our house battery bank, offload some trash, and pick up supplies from the little dockside store. We miss the cut-off for their delicious bacon-cheeseburgers by twenty minutes. Ugh! Next time.

The marina has ample guest moorage with little need for reservations this time of year. An added bonus: off-season moorage rates are less than half of what they will be in the middle of summer.

Fossil Bay on Sucia Island

We depart Deer Harbor after a single night for Sucia Island. We prefer Fossil Bay to the other anchorage options at Sucia because of the easy access to the shore via the two docks. On this visit, we take a space at the eastern end of the innermost dock. We expect high winds during our stay and don’t trust mooring buoys during a blow. We worry a bit about depth at the dock as the guidebooks are unclear about it. At a zero tide, we still have about two feet of water under our keel (Indiscretion draws 5 1/2 feet), but we wouldn’t want to dock here during a minus tide.

We stay three days at Sucia, taking in this beautiful island. We spoke with the park ranger when we first arrived, sharing our delight at how uncrowded it was. “Traffic has quadrupled in the last week or two,” she said. “For a few weeks in February, we didn’t have a single visitor here.” Wow.

We are joined at the dock by our friend Steve Mitchell on Rendezvous. We take long, picturesque hikes through the island trails and enjoy cocktails and boat stories together on the dock in the evenings. Welcomed by utterly flat water and sunshine, we take our tenders for a tour through Ewing Cove, Echo Bay, and even make a landing on prehistoric Finger Island.

On our second night at Sucia, a wind squall steals our Nordhavn welcome mat I left on the swim step. We search the shoreline but can’t spot it. It’s heavy, so it might have simply sunk near the dock. Steve brings out his underwater drone to see if he can spot it. I am doubtful, but I am learning never to doubt the ingenuity of boaters.

Friday Harbor

We depart Sucia Island in a fresh North wind and uncomfortable seas en route to Friday Harbor. Two days of high winds have whipped President Channel into a maelstrom with rolling waves on the beam. Besides cooler weather, storms and high winds keep you on your toes when you cruise in early spring. This would have been a mighty uncomfortable passage without active fin stabilizers. Steaming along on an even keel in a cross-sea on a blustery morning like this reminds me once again why we chose a go-anywhere Nordhavn trawler.

We take a guest slip for three days at the Port of Friday Harbor Marina to enjoy some shore leave while we wait out another squall. We heard stories about a notorious current that interferes with docking inside the marina, but we hadn’t experienced it ourselves.

Our assigned slip is on K dock on the inside of Breakwater D. Winds gust to 15 knots inside the marina as we make our way between boats circling the fuel dock, then through the tight fairway turns leading to K dock. We don’t have much wiggle room to maneuver. A beamy trawler takes up at least half our assigned berth, so this is going to be a tight squeeze. An impromptu audience assembles along the encircling dock like fight fans at a boxing match to observe any miscues I might make. With prop wash and prop walk, I spin the boat around to face our slip, and slowly ease her forward. I don’t know it yet, but I’m about to experience first-hand the unwavering force of a cross current. I want to avoid hitting the neighboring trawler to port, so I favor the dock to starboard on my approach. With the bow about ten feet inside the slip, I get bad news from Lisa over the headset.

“You’re coming in too too close! Bow to starboard! OH! BOW TO STARBOARD! We’re going to hit the dock!”

These are not the words you want to hear as you dock a boat, especially with a crowd watching.

I find that the thrusters aren’t powerful enough to keep us off the dock, so I give the engine a healthy burst of reverse, and we back out and away from calamity. Once clear of the slip, we have about ten feet behind us before hitting a beautiful 60-foot motor yacht, with other sailboats and yachts in every other direction. I have nightmares about being in this kind of situation. I take a breath, get the boat aligned with our slip, and try again, this time with a little more speed, aiming for the beamy trawler next to our slip. It takes a certain amount of moral certitude to purposely aim your trawler at another yacht. This time, the current corrects our course and we squeeze in without a scrape on either side, though we only have inches to spare all around. The disappointed crowd shuffles off. There should be cheers, but none are offered.

We enjoy our stay at Friday Harbor, taking long walks along the harbor and to the off-leash dog park outside of town. We buy more provisions at King’s Market. We treat ourselves to a delicious date night dinner at Herb’s Tavern, where the two of us played pool so many years ago.

Heading Home

Despite an improving forecast of sunny weather in the islands, family responsibilities require we point the bow south and homeward after almost three weeks of island cruising.

Before releasing the dock lines, I toss a piece of bread in the water off our stern. It bobs there unmoving until a seagull swoops down to devour it. No current. I smile.

We set out at 9 am through Cattle Pass to catch the flood. True to the forecast, the Strait of Juan de Fuca welcomes us with light wind and calm seas. At seven knots, it takes us around four hours to cross this large body of water, which is exposed to the vast Pacific Ocean. On a smooth crossing like this, we mainly focus on avoiding logs and other boats while keeping a keen eye for porpoises and whales. We take hour-long turns at the helm to break things up. I enjoy a hot shower, another cup of coffee, and time in the cockpit watching the islands sink over the horizon in our wake. At trawler speed, you have more time to meditate on life afloat: the changing colors of the water, the astonishing forms a single stretch of sea can take (so beautiful today, but the Strait can be harrowing in a small craft), and the almost evolutionary process of traveling to a new place on a slow boat.

The wind picks up and the seas grow as we approach Port Townsend and Admiralty Inlet. The next day’s forecast calls for heavy winds out of the north, so we decide to push on for Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island to make the final leg home shorter.

As we travel down the interminable coast of Whidbey Island, a confused cross-sea has our stabilizer fins working hard to keep us from rolling, though we can’t avoid a corkscrew motion as we navigate a following sea. A little uncomfortable, but nothing like it would be without stabilization. The current pushes us along in excess of eight knots, but eddies and cross-currents toy with our Furuno autopilot, which finds itself in a perpetual state of course correction. I tinker with the Furuno autopilot settings to account for rougher seas, and the steering improves.

After a nine-hour trip, we find space on the outside of the city dock in Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island. We postpone our arrival beers to allow the dogs their shore leave. After such short hops in the islands, nine hours must seem like an eternity to these little fellas. We arrive too late on a Sunday evening to take advantage of our favorite restaurants near the harbor, so we dig a bit in the freezer and cook our last boat meal aboard before home.

Home Port and High Wind Docking

We leave Eagle Harbor at 8:30 am on our final leg home. We have a spirited trip past Blake Island and down Colvos Passage. North winds of 25 to 30 knots against an ebb tide work up quite a fetch. We toil our way south with the stabilizers and autopilot working overtime to keep us level and on course.

Gusty winds welcome us as we near inner Quartermaster Harbor. I watch the wind speed climb from 15 knots to 30 knots within a couple of breaths. Typically, a north wind lines up well with our slip, but today it veers in gusts to starboard as we make our approach. We arrive at low tide, which limits our maneuverability near the shallow marina. We consider anchoring out to wait until the winds dies down, but dropping the tender in this kind of wind and choppy seas can be difficult. Plus, we need the practice of docking in all sorts of conditions, right?

First Try: I make our usual approach, hoping the wind might be lighter near the dock. In and out of gear, letting the wind blow us inside our slip. I see that the wind is more abeam than usual, and when we are halfway inside the slip, a 35-knot gust takes hold of us (of course!), and we are pushed hard to port. We touch the dock briefly, but I give the engine a heavy burst of reverse, and we back safely away. I look astern and see mud spun up in our frothy prop wash. Ugh. Low tide has us nearly aground. I spin us around and head for deeper water to regroup.

Second Try: I aim upwind from the slip at the bow of a sailboat docked next to us. Like before, a heavy gust arrives as we near the slip, but the wind direction comes dead astern, pushing us dangerously close to a collision with the sailboat. Ugh! I back straight out this time, about 30 yards from the marina. I have a chat with Lisa over our Eartec radios, and we talk over our options: give it a third try or anchor out. I hold the boat in position in reverse gear as the wind buffets us from behind.

Third Try: I decide on one final try, this time waiting for a lull in the wind. Sure enough, the wind drops to 15 knots, and I edge forward. I was too close to the dock on the first try and too close to the neighboring boat on the second. This time, I choose a middle path with more forward throttle to keep steerage, coming in hot. I don’t realize it at the time, but our bow and stern thrusters have turned off (they shut off by themselves after a short period of inactivity). We slide into the slip at a 30-degree angle, and a burst of hard reverse with the helm hard over stops our forward progress. Prop walk and wind pushes the stern alongside the dock. Lisa has a spring line holding us in the slip faster than I could peek over the side from the flybridge. I try the thrusters to keep the boat positioned alongside the dock and realize the power is off. Good thing I didn’t need these coming in! We both have some adrenaline flowing through our veins for this landing.

Cruise Reflections

Spring cruising in the San Juan Islands was pretty fantastic. Yes, we had some weather and wind, but we have a trawler that can handle just about any conditions we might face afloat. And I got to practice some challenging docking maneuvers that I can build on as we continue our adventures in more far-flung waters.

Across our three weeks of cruising, we had two and half weeks of calm, beautiful, sunny days and nights. We couldn’t help noticing that even better weather arrived in the San Juans after making our trip home, which attracted more boaters. At the start of our voyage, we marveled at the empty bays and anchorages. By the trip’s end, things had started to get busy. Docks began filling up. Mooring buoys were taken.

I think next year we’ll go again, but perhaps even earlier, and stay longer. Even after two decades of visiting these beautiful islands, We can’t seem to get our fill of these pristine islands. Maybe Indiscretion will be the first boat that intrepid Sucia Island park ranger welcomes in 2022.

Fair winds and smooth sailing.