Haul Out

Monday, August 24.

Smuggler’s Cove, Lummi Island

Saturday, August 22. We heard there were 150 boats in the anchorage at Sucia Island last weekend! So our evasive maneuvers have worked; we’ve been mostly by ourselves here at Smuggler’s Cove for the last two weeks. We were horrified when we first pulled in on a Saturday and there was not one, but TWO boats in our special spot. Then another sailboat came and squeezed in after dark, making four boats in our little one-boat anchorage. They all left the next day and since then, with only two exceptions, we’ve had the place to ourselves. We see a steady stream of boats going up and down Hale Passage to and from Bellingham. It’s unbelievable how busy it is!

And what a peaceful place it is. An eagle lives around here and visits the cove nearly every morning. We call all eagles “Merlin,” so when it flies in and “talks” to us, I always call out, “hey Merlin!” Two blue herons also live here. Herons are shy, yet curious. I took the dinghy to shore yesterday and one of the herons went over and walked all around it but flew off when I approached. For such elegant birds, they have a raucous cry, which often comes in the middle of the night!

We’ve spent the last two weeks visiting with daughter Heather, canning salmon and tomato sauce for the winter. Heather had a nice birthday dinner for me (Nancy). We leave for Bellingham tomorrow and Calliope will be hauled out Monday morning for dry dock storage. Our next post will be from Harvey the RV! I hope we can continue to find peaceful places. Our original plan was to head east to Maine to visit a brother, then south to Atlanta to visit son Vincent, then west to Arizona to visit friends. It looks like that plan is foiled because the northern route was through Canada and the border is STILL closed. We don’t want to go through Chicago and Detroit and that and we don’t really want to be on the east coast during all of this unrest. We plan to hide out on government lands in Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. Maybe visit the Grand Canyon.

Birthday flowers from granddaughter Aaliyah.

Waldron Island

Wednesday, August 19. We spent a lovely week on Waldron, the first few days anchored in Cowlitz Bay surrounded by Pigeon Guillemots. We don’t know how to pronounce this: gill’-eh-mot or gill’-eh-moh (French, like Peugeot), so we just call them the “orange-foot-tribe.” They make nests by drilling holes in the sides of the cliffs, so there will be many wherever there are cliffs. For water birds, they are exceedingly clumsy at take-off and landing, the orange feet peddling at 90 miles an hour and plunking down with an ungainly splash. Hilarious.

We visited with friends, bicycled, walked, picked blueberries, stocked up on veggies and flowers at the farmstand, collected seaweed and had a great time. After a few days, we moved over to North Beach for a potluck. We spent three nights anchored out of the south wind but open to wakes from the shipping channel in Haro Strait. The currents pulled us sideways to the wakes for some uncomfortable nights. Next time we’ll try a stern anchor to keep us pointed into the wakes (why didn’t we?). As an added bonus, we were able to get our sail repaired by a seamstress on Waldron. Thank you, Penny!

Blind Bay, Shaw Island

July 30, 2020. We’re on our way to Waldron but hiding out here in Blind Bay waiting for a south wind to blow through. We counted 42 boats when we came in but boats are continually coming and going. This is the sort of place we generally avoid. The Harvey equivalent would be spending the night in a casino parking lot. One nice thing was a lady sitting on the bow of her boat playing a flute. That was lovely. We are right next to the ferry dock on Shaw and directly across from the ferry dock on Orcas. You’d think there would be terrible ferry wakes but there aren’t. Maybe because the entrance here is surrounded by rocks and the ferries are going very slow when docking. In any case, it’s a safe harbor. Off to Waldron tomorrow.

Doe and Clark Islands

July 29, 2020. Yesterday we took Heather and her SO, David, to tiny Doe Island. Doe Island is a state marine park off of Doe Bay at the southern end of Orcas on Rosario Strait. We pulled up at the tiny dock, ate a quick lunch, and then walked around the island. Once around is only 0.3 miles. We did it twice and were still rarin’ to go, so we decided to go to Clark Island (between Lummi and Orcas) have dinner and do it again. It was a lovely day. We forgot to take the phone with us on Doe Island for photos but there was an awesome view of Mt. Baker and the Cascades behind Lummi and Cypress Islands. You’ll have to take my word for it. I did get a couple of cute pics of Heather and David in the dinghy at Clark.

Legoe Bay, Lummi Island

Monday July 27, 2020. New evasive tactic: go to private islands with no public land. So far, so good. We’ve been by ourselves in Legoe Bay since last Saturday. By ourselves being a somewhat relative term. There are local yokels running around in little mosquito boats and people on the beach, but no other larger boats. We’ve been getting a jump start on fall chores. Spent all day yesterday at daughter Heather’s canning beef. We’re taking them out on the boat later this week then we’ll head over to Waldron (another private island) and visit with friends there for awhile. We were also able to stock up on good food because we have “connections”.

Cyprus Island

July 27, 2020. Our evasive action didn’t work very well. We went to a small unnamed notch on the north side of Cyprus Island situated between two designated anchorages. It was deep and steep and somewhat difficult. There was barely enough room to squeeze in out of the current in Bellingham Channel. We had about two feet of water under our keel at low tide the next day! We thought we’d finally gotten a place to ourselves but no. Monkey see, monkey do. Unbelievably, another boat squeezed in next to us right at dusk. They were in about 50 feet of water and definitely out in the current. They left early next morning. Phew! Finally, all to ourselves. Not. That evening four kayakers paddled in and set up camp on the beach and another sailboat came in and anchored in the same place as the other guy the previous night. Then, when we were already in bed, another big sailboat came in and tried to anchor between the two of us! We watched as they dropped anchor, set, raised anchor, dropped it again IN THE SAME PLACE (defn. of insanity!). He set anchor, raised and repeated 2 more times for a total of 4. Each time he set, he backed in a different direction, yet he dropped the anchor in the same spot each time (forehead slap). Alan was laughing his a$$ off. I was too a little bit but I felt kinda sorry for the guy. By this time it was full dark and he left, heading toward Bellingham. This is why we ditched the San Juans in the first place.

The busiest anchorages are those near public lands where people can go ashore and walk around. The property on Cyprus is DNR land. Spencer Spit is a state park. Squaw Bay is near a county park and Griffin Bay on San Juan Island is a national historic park. This is the problem. Peace and quiet is amazingly hard to come by. But it beats downtown Portland so we shall complain no further.

Squaw Bay (Shaw Is.) and Spencer Spit (Lopez Is.)

July 23, 2020. We spent several days at Squaw Bay where we got drinking water from some friends who live there. There is a nice trail on San Juan Trust property accessible from Squaw Bay. The only thing wrong with this anchorage is the hourly ferry wake. I got my kayak down from the roof, got in and promptly tipped over! It happened so fast I don’t know how. I’ve had this kayak for a dozen years and have never tipped it over. Well, it was a hot day and one way to stay cool is to get soaked!

We stayed four days until we could no longer stand the wakes. Yesterday we sailed up Upright Channel, around the top of Lopez and then motored the rest of the way into Spencer Spit. This place is a zoo with over a dozen boats! We will take a short hike around the Spencer Spit State Park and then leave this afternoon. There are a lot more boats here, as expected. We’re taking evasive action and heading for less-known places.

Crossing the Strait, Aleck Bay and Mackaye Harbor

July 23, 2020. We thought about going back to Port Gamble again rather than back to the San Juans, but we were getting bored with it so on July 14 at the crack of dawn we started across the strait. It was a rough crossing, not at all like the peaceful passage from San Juan to Sequim on our way over.

The trip from Flagler to Aleck Bay at the bottom of Lopez Island took five hours. We spent an uncomfortable night in Aleck Bay because a west wind kicked up out in the strait sending rollers around the corner into the bay. Next morning we raised anchor and went to Mackaye Harbor to wait for slack tide through Cattle Pass (between southern end of San Juan and Lopez Islands). While in Mackaye Harbor we went ashore and hiked out to Iceberg Point.

More Backtracking (Gamble, Ludlow, Hadlock and Flagler)

July 23, 2020. We ended up going back to Gamble Bay where we stayed for a week. We hiked more of the trails, but our favorite was the one to the beaver pond. We still haven’t seen any beavers but the place is swarming with cedar waxwings.

After a week at Port Gamble we were in need of fresh water, fuel and laundry so we went to the marina at Port Ludlow. We stayed one night at Ludlow, walked around a bit and then headed north to get groceries at Port Hadlock. There is a QFC just up the hill (everything is uphill from a boat!) from the public dock at Hadlock. Very convenient. After loading up with groceries, we went directly to Kilisut Harbor and anchored near Fort Flagler. We stayed almost a week at Flagler where we hiked every trail and every possible combination of trails!