Gulf Islands

Location:  Anacortes, WA

Sunset, Montague Harbor, Galiano Island, BC

We have been cruising the Gulf Islands for the last 10 days or so.  We ended the last blog in Bedwell Harbour (Map Location 1).  We spent a few days at anchor there.  We took the dinghy over to Poet's Cove Marina to fill our portable gas tank.  Their gas pumps weren't working so we took the dink through the Pender Canal to Port Browning. We ate lunch at the marina then walked into town to fill our tank at the gas station.  Oops, we left our portable tank at the fuel dock at Poet's Cove.  So, we bought a new portable tank at the station.  Back to the dink, thru the canal, to Poet's Cove to pick up our tank and back to our anchorage.  Dave dropped me off at the beach for my afternoon walk and to buy some beer at the Medicine Beach Liquor store.


Map showing our stops in the Gulf Islands: 1. Bedwell Harbour, BC  2. Montague Harbour, BC  3. Chemainus, BC 
4. Ganges, BC  5. Prevost Harbor, WA  6. Anacortes, WA

Bridge over the Pender Canal.  The Pender Canal connects North and South Pender Islands.
The canal bridge has a height restriction of 27 feet so we weren't able cruise under it with Seabiscuit.
Our air draft (vertical height above the waterline) is 37 feet which includes our SSB (single side band) antenna.

On the morning of June 5th, we left Bedwell Harbour and cruised to Montague Harbour, Galiano Island (map location 2).  We set the anchor then got ready for our project of the day.  Our new dinghy is 1.5 feet longer than our old one, and the hull is aluminum, so we needed to do some modifications to the dinghy cradle on the boat deck.  As shown in the photograph, we added some PVC hose to the cradle rails so that the aluminum hull wouldn't sit directly on the stainless steel rails.  We added an extra layer of hose at the rear of the cradle (blue ovals in the photo) and also added some padding to the forward part of the rails to raise the dinghy bow (red ovals in the photo).  This will help the dink drain and also lift the motor shaft enough so that it doesn't rest on the deck.

Modifications to the dinghy cradle to fit the new dink.

Late afternoon we took the dink over to the Montague Harbour Provincial Park dock and walked along the beach and through the woods.  Along the beach you can see shell middens, evidence of the native population who lived on the island more than 3000 years ago.  We ate supper and had orange-mango margaritas at the marina restaurant before dinghying back out to the boat.

Looking across Montague Harbour from the anchorage.

Wednesday morning, June 7th, we cruised to Chemainus on the east coast of Vancouver Island (map location 3).  Chemainus has a Wednesday market during the summer so we walked into town to check that out.  The town is full of murals and art projects depicting the town's history, Chemainus Murals.

A ferry runs every two hours between Chemainus and Thetis Island.
We stayed at the town marina, located just south of the ferry landing.

Water wheel and mural in Waterwheel park.  The Wednesday market is held here.

B standing in front of a wood sculpture depicting the Chemainus lumber industry.

Chemainus also has a highly rated professional theater Chemainus Theater.  We got tickets for the Thursday night performance of Rock Legends.  The theater is small and intimate and we were able to get seats in the middle of the second row.  The show was very well done and we had an enjoyable evening.

Friday morning, June 9th, we left Chemainus and cruised to Ganges (map location 4).  Ganges is known for its Saturday market and is a provisioning stop for cruisers coming from the US into Canada.  We weren't ready to do any major provisioning but wanted to check out the market along with the grocery, liquor and hardware stores.  Ganges will most likely be our first stop in Canada when we head north towards Alaska.

Produce at the Ganges Saturday market.

Canadian Navy training ship 58 "Renard" at the Ganges Marina dock.  It and its sister ship 57 "Caribou"
pulled in on Saturday evening.  You can read about them here Canadian Navy Orca Class Patrol Vessels

Sunday we cruised from Ganges to Prevost Harbor, Stuart Island, WA (map location 5).  We had originally planned to anchor near the Princess Margaret Marine Park on Portland Island, BC but it was a tight location with recommendations to anchor and use a stern tie back to shore.  We aren't set-up to stern tie so we decided to continue to Prevost Harbor.  We'll get some stern tie line before we leave Anacortes so that we'll be ready next time.  The water in Prevost harbor was really clear, so after we got anchored up, Dave put on his wet suit and used the hookah to dive and clean the boat bottom.  It was fairly clean with the exception of some algae on the top of the stabilizer fins and a few barnacles starting on the main prop.  After he was finished, we launched my kayak and I paddled along the shoreline.

B kayaking in Prevost Harbor.

Seabiscuit at anchor, Prevost Harbor.

Monday morning we cruised to Anacortes (map location 6).  We saw our first pod of Orcas in Rosario Strait just before we entered the Guemes Channel.  Our hope was to get our heater part installed and then to head north.  But... the part arrived from Europe damaged.  So, we are now waiting on the replacement of the replacement.  It is supposed to be here on Monday.  We have been keeping busy working on our project list and getting things crossed off of it.  We'll go anchor out at a nearby island for the weekend, then come back into the marina for our part early next week.

Until next time...

Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands

Location:  At anchor, Medicine Beach, Bedwell Harbour, North Pender Island, BC

We have enjoyed our last few weeks of cruising and are starting to get some of our boat chores checked off the list.

Departing Port Orchard Marina
View of Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, WA with the
Olympic Mountains in the background

At the end of the last blog, we were in Anacortes getting ready to head south to Puget Sound.  We stopped at the fuel dock on our way out of Cap Sante Marina and loaded 1500 gallons of diesel at $2.01 per gallon, the best diesel price we've seen since we left Florida four years ago.  That should last us all of this season and most of next season.

Dave loading fuel, Cap Sante Marina, Anacortes, WA

From Anacortes, we cruised to La Connor via the Swinomish Channel.  We tied up at the dock and watched as a local shipyard loaded a new whale watching vessel onto a barge.  After talking to one of the tug captains, we learned that the only way they could launch the vessel into the water was to load it onto a barge then move it to a dry dock in Anacortes.  It was interesting to watch the process.  They succeeded in getting it loaded, then moved it to the west side of the Swinomish Channel where they would wait for slack water before moving the barge to Anacortes.  For supper we walked into town and ate at a local Mexican restaurant, Santo Coyote - very good service and fresh, tasty food.

New whale watching boat, Island Explorer 5, being loaded onto a barge.
La Conner, WA

Log boom on the west side of the Swinomish Channel, La Conner, WA

Sculpture - Fiddler Crab, downtown La Conner, WA

On Thursday, May 11, we left La Conner and cruised to Shilshole Marina, just north of Seattle.  As we got south of Whidbey Island, the wind and seas really kicked-up.  We were seeing a steady 30 knots of wind from the south with gusts up to 40+ and we were doing a lot of pitching.  Our anchors were loose and banging against the side of the hull so we slowed down, did a 180 to put the stern into the wind and Dave went forward to tighten them down.  That helped for a while but we did it one more time before deciding they were secure enough for the rest of the journey.  We slowed down from our normal cruising speed and that helped to lessen the pitching.  We arrived at Shilshole mid-afternoon.  It was windy and rainy so we had supper on board.  I mentioned in the last blog that our refrigerator and freezer weren't getting cold enough so our purpose of stopping at Shilshole was to meet with a refrigeration tech to figure out the problem.  It turned out that the frig and freezer were both over-charged.  He lowered the gas pressure of the frig from ~25 psi to ~7 psi and that solved the problem.  We also let some pressure off the freezer.  Now both are working great.

Statue of Leif Ericson, Shilshole Marina, WA

Saturday, May 13 we left Shilshole Marina and headed across Puget Sound to Port Orchard Marina.  Puget Sound is a major marine traffic area with northbound and southbound traffic lanes for the commercial marine traffic entering and exiting the Seattle/Tacoma area.  Using the VHF radio, ships communicate with "Seattle Traffic" to get updates on other marine traffic in the area.  Saturday morning the traffic was very light and we had no issues crossing the lanes over to the south side of Bainbridge Island and into Rich Passage leading to Port Orchard.  The Port Orchard Marina is just across the channel from Bremerton and a foot ferry carries passengers between the two.

Alki Point Lighthouse, Seattle, WA

We rented a car for the weekend so that we could run errands, provision and pick up parts and supplies.  Dave found a kayak on Craigslist that was a good fit; we checked it out and the guy selling it agreed to deliver it to the marina for us.  On Monday night we drove over to Seattle to take our HAM radio technician exams.  We both passed and now have HAM radio call signs.

 Carlisle II, Built in 1917
Currently in use as a foot ferry that carries passengers between Port Orchard and Bremerton

Our main purpose of going to Port Orchard / Bremerton was to attend the educational courses and seminars offered at Trawlerfest.  Dave attended a two-day diesel engine course and I attended seminars on Weather, Navigation, Cruising BC, First Aid, "Dialing in Your Trawler" and Passagemaking.

Heron waiting for breakfast, Port Orchard Marina

Two bald eagles at the ferry landing, Bremerton.
They were there most mornings and evenings.

Bald eagle being chased by a seagull.

Trawlerfest group dinner, Kitsap Conference Center, Bremerton.

We left Port Orchard on Sunday morning, May 21 at 6:30 a.m. in order to catch slack water at Agate Pass between Bainbridge Island and the mainland of the Kitsap Peninsula.  To get to our destination, Langley on Whidbey Island, we needed to cross the Puget Sound traffic lanes again.  They were much busier than when we crossed east to west and there was fog on the Seattle side.  We listened to Seattle Traffic on the VHF and waited until we were well clear of all the commercial traffic before crossing the lanes.  We arrived in Langley about 11:30 and walked into town for a burger and a beer. Sunday night we went to the Clyde Theater downtown Langley and watched "Their Finest".

Monday morning we cruised up to La Conner.  We spent the day doing boat chores and walked into town for supper at a Polish Restaurant - Anelia's.  Tuesday morning we cruised from La Conner to Anacortes.  We are still having problems with our new heating system so the Kabola representative, Costica, came down to do some troubleshooting.  We did some shopping, laundry and chores and walked into town for supper.

Heading north up the Swinomish Channel towards La Conner

Costica troubleshooting our Kabola heating system

On Wednesday we went north to Bellingham to pick up our new dinghy and motor.  We decided to upgrade from our existing 10' dinghy with an 8 hp outboard motor to a new 11.5' dinghy with a 20 hp motor.

The old dinghy and outboard

Dave learning about the new dinghy and outboard.

Thursday morning we bought some spare parts for the new Yamaha motor and bought some fishing gear.  We pulled away from the dock about 12:30 and headed to Sucia Island for the weekend.  Originally we were going to anchor on the west side of the island in Shallow Bay.  It was a new moon and the low tides were extreme, -2.5+ feet below chart datum, so we decided it was better for us to anchor in deeper water in Echo Bay on the east side of the island.

Map of Sucia Island.  We anchored in Echo Bay just offshore of the campground.

The weather over the weekend was beautiful.  Sunny and warm with light winds.  It was Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of the summer season and we were glad to arrive and get anchored up before the crowds arrived.  On Thursday night we counted 9 boats in the anchorage; Friday we counted 38; Saturday night the boat count was up to 87; Sunday it was 57 and Monday there were only 10.

Looking east from the anchorage towards Mt. Baker

Looking east from the anchorage towards South Finger Island

We enjoyed the weekend.  We launched the new dinghy and took it for a ride around the anchorage, then into the beach.  We had lunch ashore and hiked around Lawson Bluff over to Shallow Bay.  We launched our kayaks and paddled along the shore of South Finger Island and then over to the campground beach.  We did a lot of boat chores and finally feel like we are making forward progress.

Dave, in his new-to-him kayak, paddling towards South Finger Island.

B near the shore of Sucia Island

Tuesday we headed back down to Anacortes for some more heating system analysis.  We started to keep an operating log to see if we could detect a pattern in the failures.  Costica did some more analysis and we did some more errands.  The heater is still failing intermittently but new parts are being shipped from Europe next week and hopefully that will solve the issues.  In the meantime, we'll continue to keep our log.

Tanker at anchor is Fidalgo Bay near Anacortes

Thursday, June 1 we left Anacortes and cruised to Rosario Resort on Orcas Island.  Two of my high school friends, Ann and Bill, live on Orcas Island.  We met them in the lounge of the Moran Mansion and had cocktails and supper and caught up.  Ann and I hadn't seen each other since our 10 year high school reunion and it had been even longer since I'd seen Bill.

View of Moran Mansion at Rosario Resort.

B, Bill and Ann at the Moran Mansion Lounge, Rosario Resort, Orcas Island.

 

Friday we left Rosario, went thru Pole Pass, cruised up Spring Passage, went north of Jones Island  and crossed President Channel, cruised between Spieden Island and Waldron Island and then crossed Boundary Pass and the Canadian Border.  We cleared Canada Customs in Bedwell Harbour at the customs dock near Poet's Cove Marina and Resort, South Pender Island.  We are anchored off of Medicine Beach, North Pender Island at the head of Bedwell Harbour.  Our plan is to stay here for the weekend and to do some kayaking, hiking and exploring.

Looking southeast down Bedwell Harbour from the anchorage.

Dave enjoying a happy hour beverage, Medicine Beach, North Pender Island.

Until next time...