Sunday, June 4, 2017

GETTING STARTED

Well, now that we are a week or so into this trip, I guess it's time to get going on this blog...

When we bought our new (to us) boat last November, we started thinking about a summer cruise "up north." We have cruised the Puget Sound, San Juan Islands and Gulf Islands several times in the past for a week or two at a time, but haven't had a chance to get much further north to other desirable destinations like Desolation Sound, Princess Louisa Inlet, Broughton Islands, etc. It just took too long to get there, and when we last had a boat in Puget Sound (1990s), we were both working, the kids were in school and just didn't have the time.

We now have the time.

Our original plans called for heading out the Golden Gate and turning right, harbor-hopping our way up the California, Oregon and Washington coasts to Canada, then on up the Inland Passage - possibly to Alaska. After a thorough evaluation of that idea, and rupturing a tendon in my leg while playing tennis, we decided to have the boat transported up to Tacoma, and start from there.

After a few days of work getting everything back together and cleaning off all of the road grime, doing mundane things like provisioning, getting the right cell phone plan, storing the car, etc., we took off from Tacoma on Memorial Day, May 29th, and spent our first real "traveling" night anchored at Blake Island. On a beautiful, sunny Tuesday morning we kept heading north, passing Seattle, Edmunds and Everett, spending our second night anchored off of the town of Langley on Whidbey Island. We took the dinghy into town, explored a while then had an early dinner at the Primo Bistro - a nice little restaurant.

Our immediate destination for the week was Anacortes, at the north end of Fidalgo Island. After some last-minute arrangements, we had signed up for a "Rendezvous" of Nordic Tug boats, sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Nordic Tug Owner's Association (PANNTOA). It's always fun getting together with like-minded boating people, and they had organized a program of speakers on salient topics for cruising the Northwest. From Langley to Anacortes isn't all that far (we could have made it in a day), but we wanted to stop by La Conner - a town we had heard of as a place to visit. They are very supportive of visiting boaters and have very nice, inexpensive municipal docks right in town, convenient to all of the shops and restaurants.

We left La Conner on an overcast, drizzly morning, continuing on up to Anacortes where we docked at the Cap Sante Marina around mid-day. Rendezvous activities kept us pretty occupied from Thursday afternoon to Saturday night, but we did have time to get into town and buy a couple of crab traps - equipment that we hear is almost mandatory for cruising British Columbia.

This morning, Sunday, we filled the water tanks, fueled up and headed out for Rosario Resort on Orcas Island in the San Juans. It was unusually windy for the morning, so we had a pretty bumpy ride crossing Rosario Strait with 4-5 foot seas which changed directions at times as they reflected off of the islands. The worst of it lasted for less than an hour and we got into the protection of the San Juans for a much flatter, but still quite windy, cruise into Rosario. We will spend the night here, then cross the Canadian border tomorrow, going over to Victoria on Vancouver Island, assuming the wind dies down in the morning as forecast and the Strait of Juan de Fuca is passable.

This has been a quick summary of our first few days and I have left out a fair amount of detail, but most of that detail has been related to us learning the ins and outs of cruising on a new boat. One does not really learn all about the systems on ones boat until spending some time cruising and experiencing how everything works -- like what happens when the black water (sewage) holding tank gauge isn't accurate and the tank overfills (don't ask!), or how long it takes to fill up an 80 gallon fresh water tank with a small hose, or wondering if the diesel tank fuel gauges have been calibrated accurately... Minor things (well, one wasn't so minor) that, once we experience and learn about them, will no longer be issues to distract us from the journey.

Elaine & Dave

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