As far as boating went, it was a fall and winter made bleak by too few moments on the water. But, things are looking up and I’m feeling better for it.
Two recent cruises, both short, took me into the fabled San Juan Islands of Northwest Washington state. Off season, the islands are great. During the summer – after July 4, that is – they are great but crowded.
Early in June, American Tug provided three boats for a day of cruising and photography. We spent most of our time near tiny Matia Island, a state marine park that has a dock built for two, a pair of mooring buoys and occasional tricky currents. Its sandstone shoreline has been sculpted artistically by eons of pounding seas and ocean winds.
We had two of the new AT flybridge models, a 34 and a 41, and a standard 41 that worked hard as our photo boat.
The day began with the need to find our way out of Anacortes Marina with a -3.6 tide. Mike Beemer, a high school teacher (math and marine technology) and my skipper-of-the-day, had no trouble keeping the flybridge 41 in deep water. She was the English Rose, and her owners would take possession the next day.
Jim and Sandy Garrus of Centennial, Colorado, were aboard their weeks-old Footloose, the standard 41AT. Karel and MiJoung De Regge of Oriental, North Carolina, agreed to make Mikjoung their flybridge 34, available for a day of adventure. They are four wonderful people on boats still being commissioned, all with ambitious cruising plans. As a stay-near-home boater this year, I was purely jealous. You’ll learn more about these nice people in an upcoming issue of PassageMaker Magazine.
We were out a few days before summer solstice and in Washington this time of year the weather usually is a confused mix of rain showers, wind, clouds and sun. This day it was all sun, with an air temperature of about 60 degrees and not a drop of rain. In some places, I know, this would be on the chilly side. Believe me, it was the finest. We cruised in shirt sleeves with the doors open and from the flying bridges. No day need be any better.
Boating traffic was light and, with care, we were able to do some high-speed cruising without irritating others with our wakes. The flying bridges were a valuable option for photo work and for navigating in the close quarters of Matia Island’s tiny Rolfe Cove.
We watched eagles soar and the DeRegges and Garruses were impressed with a brief show by a small fleet of harbor porpoises. A plan to put one photographer aboard an airplane failed, so we instead rounded Lawrence Point on Orcas Island and cruised south to Obstruction Pass, a narrow channel between Orcas and Obstruction Islands. We kept turning to port and followed the south shore of Obstruction to scoot east through Peavine Pass. Most boaters and state ferries use Thatcher Pass a few miles to the south, so I almost always use Peavine and was pleased to see no traffic but our fleet of ATs.
The day ended with dinner and wine in a small Italian restaurant in Anacortes.
But my San Juan adventures soon resumed as I joined a group of men who have retired from 9 to 5 work, but not from boating, in a “stag” cruise to Sucia Island, which is a couple of miles northwest of Matia. These gentlemen of leisure refer to themselves as ROMAOs (Retired Old Men Anchoring Out).
Radiant Star, a 75-footer displacing close to 100 tons, dropped her huge anchor near South Finger Island in Echo Bay. I put Quadra on her starboard side and Hasta Luego, a 37 Tolly, and Whisper, a 30 C&C sailboat, were to port. The cruising season still was young and only a few boats were at anchor or on mooring buoys.
There was a little wine tasting, a ton of good food, much of it from kitchens left behind and some from Costco. In good years, we would haul Dungeness crab aboard but the season had not opened.
We watched Citizen Kane and a documentary about it. Not kidding! And some hiked Sucia trails, slapping at mosquitoes all the way. After two nights I took Quadra home (my 9 to 5 was calling) and the rest of the fleet went west to Friday Harbor and dinner in a restaurant.
If I’m going to be making short cruises this summer, this was the way to do it.