Typical PNW Cruising
-by mike-
It is the middle of May, but when I got up this morning it felt like February. Thick clouds hung over the San Juan Islands and the occasional drizzle fell on Via as we swung back and forth at anchor. I spent the morning on my phone searching for remote jobs that I might be able to do to earn a little extra money along the way. I actually found some Fraud Investigator jobs that might be a good fit for my skillset. I then spent a long time trying to get our Wifi booster to actually do something, but with no success. Either it doesn’t work, or I can’t figure out the technical side of it. I think its the latter.
Taylor spent an hour or two getting work done while I took Chandler (our dinghy) into town to fill up on gas and propane. After that we picked up anchor and headed North from Friday Harbor to Stuart Island. The weather slowly improved throughout the day as we motored against wind and current almost to the Canadian border. Instead of making directly for Prevost Harbor on Stuart, I decided to motor up into the wind for another 30 minutes or so so we could have a nice beam reach into the anchorage. The wind had been consistently on our nose as we pointed at around 340 true at 10-12 knots. My plan was to get far enough North that we could make left turn, put the wind on our beam and have a nice leisurely sail.
We got to our waypoint where I had planned to raise sail, turn about 90 degrees to port and shut off the engine. I went down below and turned off the water maker, and by the time I got back on deck and we raised the main, the wind had shifted and died down. We made our turn and found the wind to be only about 20 degrees off our starboard beam, not the 40 or so we need to actually sail. It is really amazing how often this happens here, and it can be extremely frustrating. I can only imagine what it is like to sail in the trade winds, where you can set your sails and know the wind will pretty much stay the same. In our case, we bore off the wind a little more, tacked, then tacked again, and were able to make it right to the entrance to Prevost Harbor sailing at a leisurely 3.5-4 knots.
Prevost is a beautiful spot, the kind of place I had in mind when I pictured the cruising life. We dropped the hook and then put the paddle boards in the water to explore the anchorage a bit. This was my favorite paddle board outing so far. We glided along over the glassy waters, over eel grass, crabs, and schools of tiny fish. The shore is littered with oysters and the rock formations are pretty wild. I made my way around a reef that emerges at low tide, just barely keeping the paddle board’s fin above the sea floor. About 8 or 9 harbor seals left off the rock they were snoozing on and circled around us at a safe distance, poking their heads out of the water to watch us. They are so funny how they will just watch you with cautious interest. As we headed back towards Via we could hear something moving through the wood line on shore, and soon saw two deer snacking on the leaves of young trees.
Once back on board I cracked a beer and Taylor made a kitchen sink salad as we listened to music. A beautiful sunset gave the few clouds overhead a stunning orange glow, and the water reflected a rainbow of pink, orange, silver and blue. We need to head back to Friday Harbor so Taylor can take a work call, but we will have to come back here and explore the island more. We are a little over two months from our planned departure to head off shore down the west coast!