Last week, an anchor accidentally deployed on the BC Ferry Spirit of British Columbia at it exited the east end of Active Pass into the Strait of Georgia. The ship apparently did a complete donut as the crew put the vessel in full reverse to slow it down. The ferry was delayed for 80 minutes as the crew worked in rough waters to secure the anchor.

It's not clear at this point why the anchor dropped--a BC Ferries spokesperson said the crew did not deploy it. According to a comment posted to the CBC story linked above, the anchors normally are locked on deck. But in close quarters or when approaching a dock, the lock is removed and a clutch is used to hold the anchor in place. On exiting Active Pass, the anchor should have been locked back in place. Perhaps the lock failed or was not engaged properly, or the clutch failed before the anchor lock was in place.

They're lucky the anchor didn't let loose inside Active Pass, particularly while passing another ferry. The channel is narrow, with swift current, and has blind entries at both ends. BC Ferries has already had two major accidents in Active Pass. Three people were killed with the BC Ferry Queen of Victoria collided with the Soviet freighter Sergey Yesenin in 1970. And in 1979, the BC Ferry Queen of Alberni went aground there, incurring extensive damage but fortunately with no lives lost.

The picture below shows the two 550-foot Spirit-class ferries, the largest in the fleet, just inside the west entrance. The waterway barely has sufficient passing room. Donuts are out of the question.



We see plenty of pleasure craft where a windlass clutch is all that keeps the anchor properly stowed when underway. Securing the anchor is as important for pleasure craft as it is for larger ships. An anchor can come loose in rough water and deploy, or bash about on deck or into a windshield. We’ve heard stories of pleasure craft where anchors deployed accidentally and the rode fouled the propellers. This resulted in thousands of dollars in damage, in addition to putting the vessel and crew at risk.

We secure our anchor with a short length of half-inch line with a carabiner permanently tied on one end. Once the anchor is stowed, we clip the carabiner to the anchor's trip line eye, and tie the other end to a nearby cleat. This is a simple and efficient system, and we can easily tell at a glance from a distance if the anchor is secured.

When near land, 802.11 is the cheapest and fastest form of communications there is. Around the Pacific North West, BroadBandXpress offers a fast, reliable service. BBXpress has a point of presence in 104 marinas in the area from Portland, Oregon to Sitka, Alaska (coverage map). We spend most of our time at Bell Harbor Marina which unfortunately doesn’t have BBXpress coverage, so we use Clearwire.

802.11 coverage can be expanded with an external antenna mounted on the mast of the boat but, even then, coverage is limited to area near the access point.  When out of range, we use cellular.  However, when cruising north, almost everywhere we go has no connectivity. Some argue this is a good thing, but I really would prefer to be able to stay connected. Once past cellular coverage, the choices are limited.  At very low data rates, Single Side Band (SSB)Marine radios and Ham Radios can be used to transport data using the PACTOR protocol. But there are limitations.  First, ham radios are not to be used for commercial traffic (not a problem with SSB). And data rates are limited to 200 baud “when conditions allow” and 100 baud otherwise (Pactor Primer).  In 1982 I actually did find a way to work over 300 bps, but I’m not sure I want to run at 1/3 this speed.

What to do when out of range of 802.11 and cellular when you don’t run at Pactor speed? Satellite is the common choice, but antenna prices range to more than $30,000 and the offerings are difficult to compare. Thinking through what we will want to use on the new boat, I narrowed down the search to three offerings: Inmarsat Mini-VSAT, Inmarsat Fleet Broad Band, and Iridium OpenPort. Antenna prices for these options range from $5k to $30k. To normalize across all the variables, I amortized the antenna cost over 5 years at a 5% annual cost of money and looked at the cost to move different amounts of data over a month. I also looked at the cost of not using the system (idle).

The offerings are very different. Iridium is cheaper to idle and is the cheapest at low data rates, but it is also the slowest at 32kbps.  At higher costs, rates up to 128kbps are supported but, on plans less than $800/month, only 32kbps is supported. Fleet Broadband supports up to 128k but is using background  IP (streaming IP and other services have priority). If there are enough competing guaranteed bandwidth customers or enough background IP customers, speeds considerably slower than 128kbps are likely. Mini-VSAT supports very high speeds but I only show 64k and 128k here since the prices on higher communication rates escalate quickly. Mini-VSAT is unquestionably expensive, but it is the only satellite data communication service offering unlimited data (with a fair use policy).

I would love to get Mini-VSAT, but it’s a tough system to afford. We’re leaning towards Iridium Open Port  due to lowest cost antenna, lowest cost airtime, and the ability to idle the unit when sat data isn’t needed at lowest cost. It’s also the only one of the three services that doesn’t require a complex, gyro stabilized antenna and I like simple. Let us know if can think of other options worth considering.

Although bald eagles are among the largest birds we see on the coast, often we see gulls and other much smaller birds chasing eagles through the sky or tormenting them on a tree branch. This seems curious, given the difference in size. While eagles are excellent hunters, according to Bald Eagles: Their Life and Behavior in North America they are not above scavenging for their meals, or stealing food from other birds or preying on them. So to ward of threats to themselves and their young, smaller birds often harass eagles and other birds of prey. The larger birds mostly ignore these attacks, rarely fighting back. The eagle’s behaviour, from scavenging, to stealing food, to ignoring attacks, led Benjamin Franklin to oppose their choice for America’s seal:

I wish that the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character; he does not get his living honestly; you may have seen him perched on some dead tree; where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to its nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes it from him. . . .  Besides he is a rank coward; the little kingbird, not bigger than a sparrow, attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest.  

-- Benjamin Franklin in a letter to his daughter Sarah Bache

Occasionally, it would seem, the eagle doesn’t always ignore the attacks. One time while out in the dinghy, we started seeing white feathers massed on the water surface. A short distance away, we came across an eagle, tearing into what was left of a seagull clutched in its talons. That probably was just one taunt too many.

On Monday we passed Anacortes and went through Swinomish Channel (area map) during a significant, and poorly forecast, wind event, with an amazing variety of weather. The barometer gained 10 mb in 4 hours and peak winds approached 60 knots.

We didn’t think we’d ever stop at Pirates Cove Marine Park, at the north end of British Columbia’s Gulf Islands. The BC Marine Parks Guide bills it as one of the more popular parks in the Gulf Islands, with room for 75 boats. This is remarkable, given that the cove from shore to shore is about 730 by 1275 feet, and only 485 by 910 feet outside the 2-meter contour line where we safely could swing. Stern-tie rings line the shore, allowing many more boats to anchor than if they all swung free.

Normally we save the busy summer anchorages such as this one for the winter, when fewer boats are about. We hadn’t yet visited Pirates Cove though, even in the winter, because of the holding. Most cruising guides describe the holding at Pirates Cove as poor, mentioning fire drills of boats dragging anchor whenever the wind came up. In the winter, when gale-force winds are common, good holding with room for plenty of scope is especially important. We always felt we should try Pirates Cove anyway, and this year we noticed that the guides also mentioned a gooey and sticky mud bottom. We were skeptical that the holding would be poor in that kind of bottom, so we finally gave it a try.

After all those years of avoiding it, Pirates Cove turned out to be an ideal winter anchorage. The holding really isn’t poor, it’s just poor on short scope. On a 5:1 scope, the holding was good. We didn’t budge, even with gale-force southeasterly winds blowing. That scope, however, reduces Pirates Cove from a 75-boat anchorage to about 3-boat one.

We’d arrived during a period of unseasonably cold below-freezing temperatures and lots of snow. We had to dig out a spot to tie off the dinghy, and the ramp was about a foot deep in snow.

Not far down the trail, we noticed a narrow channel had been cut down the hillside along the surface of the snow.  From way up high above the trail, the channel swooped through the trees, crossed the trail, and went right down to the water. It was about 8-10” wide, too narrow for a snowboard, and the path through the trees and branches wouldn’t allow anything larger than about 6” high to pass anyway. Pacific Coast Mammals supported our theory that playful river otters made them: “Makes river bank slides 30 cm wide. Snow slides show track marks. When on land, spends most of its time frolicking, chasing tail, or playing tag.”

We found snow slides all over the island. The most impressive slide started at the top of a very steep flight of stairs and went all the way to the bottom. That must have been some ride. Cowabunga!

Animal tracks were everywhere, but ours were the only human footprints ashore. Besides its beauty, the snow gave us a glimpse into the area’s extensive and varied animal life. In some cases, it appeared that the otter Super Bowl had taken place—a veritable highway of tracks led to and from a certain point. We realized it must be one of their dens. We’d never have noticed it without the snow.

Mount Tzouhalem is the 1,500-foot bluff directly west of Genoa Bay. We’ve eyed it every time we’ve anchored in the bay, but this year, we finally climbed it. We’d arrived on a cold, crisp winter day, after a recent snowfall. The weather was cold enough to freeze the surface water around the marina.

Partway up, icicles had formed on an unusually large boulder.

From the top, we could see across Samsun Narrows to Mount Maxwell on Saltspring Island, south into Genoa Bay and towards Saanich Peninsula and westward into the Cowichan River valley. Wow.

On the way back down, we stopped at Skinner Bluff. The views were almost as good as from the top.

Entry, anchoring and other notes:

The rough trail map below is drawn from memory. The solid line is the main route to the top. The trail is rather steep, and has occasional blazes marking the route. We were following footsteps in the snow, so we’re not sure how hard the trail is to follow otherwise.

We learned about the trail from British Columbia's Gulf Islands: Afoot & Afloat  (the Afoot and Afloat books are excellent on-board references). The unmarked trailhead is between a utility box and a private property fence, where Genoa Bay Road bends around to follow the waterline and intersects with Saltspring Road. Follow the fence around the private property, first west and then southwest towards Skinner Point. (We saw blazes in the trees west of the fence corner, but didn’t investigate.)

Where the dashed line starts is a fork in the trail with a sign pointing left to Cowichan Bay and right to the hill top. We took the hilltop route. Another fork led to Skinner Bluff to the right and the hilltop to the left. We again took the hilltop route. On the return, the footsteps we were following took the dotted line shortcut route to  Skinner Bluff. We’re not sure if this was a trail, but the going was relatively easy and open. We returned from Skinner Bluff on solid line that met the regular trail at the second fork. The hike to Skinner Bluff is easier and less steep than going all the way to the top, and the views are still impressive.

A big winter storm swept through the region yesterday. The barometer fell hard as the storm approached: from 1032 at 9pm the night before, to 1009 at 5am yesterday, down to 988 by 3pm yesterday afternoon. We recorded gusts to nearly 50 knots as the storm intensified.

The pressure slope hit 5.8 around 2pm, equal to the worst we’ve seen. (Environment Canada originally reported the pressure slope at a booming 6.2, but later revised it to 5.8. We’re not sure why.)

We had anchored in Port Madison the night before the storm hit and had been planning to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca the next day for Victoria But with storm force winds predicted, we decided to go up the inside of Whidbey Island instead.  The winds were blowing about 20 knots from the south when we left. Conditions weren’t too bad with the waves with us, but our autopilot struggled a bit to maintain course in that following sea. We’d decided to make an early stop in Oak Harbor around 1pm. Conditions in Saratoga Pass deteriorated, with the storm nearly at its worst, as we neared Oak Harbor. The winds were gusting to nearly 50 knots and the waves were about 8-10 feet and closely packed.

To add to the excitement, the approach was littered with crab traps that were afloat only in the troughs and invisible until we were almost on top of them. As we neared Oak Harbor, we could see waves crashing over Buoy “2” at the mouth and were concerned that conditions in the shallower entry channel might be even worse. Fortunately, the waves diminished considerably once inside the channel. It’s all relative though—waves were crashing against the northwest shore of the harbor and it appeared several drivers had stopped their cars nearby to take in the show.

We tucked away at the head of Oak Harbor on 10:1 scope with plenty of room and slept like babies.

Tod Inlet is a busy anchorage in the summer months. The basin has all-weather protection, but the main attraction is nearby Butchart Gardens. The gardens have a dinghy dock that makes for easy landing and access to the spectacular garden display. And boats crowd the waterway on Saturday nights to watch their firework show.

Entry, anchoring and other notes:

See the Waggoner Cruising Guide for approach and anchoring details. The Butchart Gardens dinghy dock is closed in the winter. This is just as well, because it can be a long cold ride around. To reach the gardens, land instead at Tod Inlet along the north shore. Go north on the trail that runs along the fence behind the washrooms and keep left at any forks. It’s a quarter mile to the Butchart Gardens parking lot exit at Benvenuto Avenue. Walk a short distance up the road to the main gates (see map).

Francis Point Marine Park, established in 2000, is a relatively new addition to the BC Parks system. The park takes up about a third of Francis Peninsula, just south of the entrance to Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast, and has sweeping views across Malaspina Strait to Texada Island. We visited one winter while at anchor in Gerrans Bay.

Francis Peninsula, an island at high tide and a peninsula at low tide, was named in 1930. The name was changed in 1945 to Beaver Island after the SS Beaver, then changed back to Francis Peninsula in 1972 to “conform to entrenched local usage.” The local usage of Francis Peninsula wasn’t completely entrenched based on some of the old buildings we saw.

We followed a wide and easy trail about a quarter mile to Middle Bay. The bay is reasonably sheltered, and kayaks or other portable craft could be carried there to launch and explore the outer coast.

From there, the trail runs about a half mile along the shoreline to Francis Point, on the southern tip of Francis Peninsula. This trail was more rugged, steep, slippery and muddy than the trail to Middle Bay, but had great views along the way.

The best view was at Francis Point—we could see south beyond the tip of Texada Island and into the Strait of Georgia. A big winter storm had come through the day before, and Francis Point would have been an exciting place to watch it from. But given we recorded 52-knot storm-force gusts in sheltered Garden Bay, the winds on the outer peninsula shore would have been much higher and that open trail would have felt awfully exposed.

Entry, anchoring and other notes:

The entrance to the park is less than a mile’s walk from the public dock at the south end of Gerrans Bay.(We anchored southwest of Dusenbury Island, but you can reach Gerrans Bay by dinghy from anywhere in Pender Harbour.) Walk south from the public dock and follow the road as it curves to the right (this is Francis Peninsula Road). After about a quarter mile, look for Merrill Road on the left and follow it a quarter mile to the park entrance.

Approaching the head of Blakely Harbor this weekend, we saw what looked like a rock near where we planned to anchor. It turned out to a small boat, submerged bow-up. It was covered with barnacles and appeared to have been underwater for a while. We guessed that it must have blown in from farther out in the bay. The boat appeared almost neutrally-buoyant—it spun slowly in the current and submerged only slightly as the tide went up.

The next day, the Bainbridge Island police boat arrived and attached a large orange buoy to it.

Later that day, Blakely Harbor resident Kim Bottles stopped by. (In his power power cat “Ceol Luaithe”, Kim had helped rescue a sailboat aground in Blakely Harbor earlier that spring.) Kim said he’d watched two boats struggle to raise their anchors the previous weekend. Eventually, up popped the boat we can see now. Apparently, it’s weighed down by chains in the stern. Someone might purposely have sunk it, or more likely those chains are attached to slipped anchors that became entangled in the wreck.

When we arrived, we had been planning to anchor just about where the wreck was. We’ve already lost an anchor once due to entanglement—we felt lucky to have avoided going through that again. The wreck is reasonably obvious during the day, but would be difficult to see at night without that buoy. Now that we’re off daylight-savings time and the days are getting shorter, we’ll be navigating at night and arriving at our anchorages like this one after dark for the next few months. It’s a good reminder to keep a careful lookout, even in anchorages we frequent.

Elliott Bay Marina is a wonderful place to keep a boat, but docking can be difficult—the fairways are narrow, as are the slips. And the slips are oriented east-west while the winds are typically from the north or the south, so if any wind is blowing, it’s against the side of the boat as we back it in. North winds are worse, because they blow us towards the boat beside us rather than the finger peer. Yesterday morning when we returned to the marina, the winds were blowing 17 knots from the north with gusts to 19.

We had the boat turned perpendicular to the fairway ready to back into the slip. We have no bow thruster so, when there is a crosswind, we need to lean the bow slightly into the wind as we work backwards into slip. I shifted the port engine into reverse and felt the cable break, leaving us without port transmission control.  I ran down to the lower helm and, mysteriously, it too broke. Now we have a problem.  We’re sideways in the fairway with only a few feet on either end of the boat separating us from collision. 

A two-engine boat with only one operating prop sounds easy. You would guess it’s not worse than a single prop boat. But with the prop biased over on one side of the hull, it’s remarkable how poorly the boat responds to the helm and actually turns and, with a strong wind, the boat simply won’t turn into it. Our first focus was keeping away from other boats and to keep the boat centered in the fairway as we gained speed sideways driven by the brisk wind. That done, we starting backing and filling in an attempt to get the boat turned around with limited fore and aft clearance. The boat slowly came around bit by bit and, after 5 or 6 iterations of backing and filling, it did straighten out. By this time many spectators were along either side of the fairway. Once straight in the fairway, with the wind behind us, the boat actually was fairly easy to manage.

We took the boat around to the outside guest dock where there is much more space and landed there to make repairs. We did have a spare transmission shift cable, but the parts connecting it to both the upper helm and lower helm shifters had broken. A quick trip to Fisheries Supply solved that.

The next challenge was running the new cable. The cable runs on a circuitous route through an incredibly narrow slot between the two windows in the salon. After much effort and WD-40, we finally managed to pull the new cable through, taped to the old cable, and got everything connected up and working again.

Four hours later, after lunch and repairs, we glided back into our slip. The wind was still brisk and from the north but it’s amazing how much less exciting it is to land with everything operational.

Thinking about it later, we couldn’t figure out why the parts connecting both ends of the throttle cable could have broken, and were concerned we might have a transmission problem. And then we realized—the cable must have seized, causing the fly bridge end to break when we shifted. When I tried shifting down below, that broke the other end.

We’ve had cable failures before. They typically rust up and get stiffer and stiffer but continue to operate. To have a cable fail without warning and lock up so tight the cable ends break off is quite unusual.  Yet another argument to keep speed moderate when near other boats in that you could experience an unexpected failure at any time.

Like many Puget Sound boaters, we’ve passed Point No Point dozens of times on our way to and from places north of Seattle.  The last time was on a sunny, warm day with calm winds. It was time for lunch, so we decided to stop there. We found good anchoring depths and holding on the south side, and had lunch on deck while watching a variety of vessels pass to our east.

Most of the land south of the point is either part of the Point No Point Lighthouse and Park or is DNR beach. Woods line the shore, so it’s a private-feeling, nice anchorage. After lunch, we took the dinghy ashore. The wonderful soft-sand beach that ringed the park was popular. People were out walking, fishing, building sandcastles, paddling, sunbathing and throwing sticks for some very wet puppies.

The Point No Point Light Station, completed in 1879, is among the oldest in the Puget Sound. The lighthouse itself is no longer in service—in 2006 the Coast Guard installed a modern, low-maintenance light—but most of the original buildings and equipment are still in place, including the original fresnel lens. The Friends of Point No Point Lightouse maintain the site and open it to the public. We weren’t allowed up into the lantern room, but we could see the lens from down below.

While few houses are south of the point, the land to the north is quite built-up. An old 1920’s resort and boat launch, now in disrepair, was partway down the beach. WDFW owns the property and plans to restore the boat launch and possibly the buildings.

This month James finally became a US citizen, after a nearly three-year delay. We’d both applied in late 2005 and were interviewed in early 2006. I was approved in a couple of months and became a citizen in the summer of 2006. James, however, went into application limbo pending an FBI name check, but eventually was approved as part of a class-action lawsuit.

Our overriding interest in citizenship was the ability to vote, but citizenship actually is required for a number of things in the nautical world. Some boat loans and insurance policies require that a vessel be documented, and some countries allow entry by boat only on documented vessels. Non-citizens, however, cannot document a vessel, nor pilot a documented vessel out of the country. Only citizens are eligible for USCG licenses other than the OUPV (or “6-pack”). And twice we’ve missed opportunities to tour a US navy nuclear submarine because we weren’t citizens.

The vast majority of time, close quarters maneuvering at low speed is fine. But strong current or big wind gusts can greatly reduce the margin for error. We recently saw an example of exactly that at Eagle Island, where strong currents wrap around the island. A particularly large exchange that weekend made for especially swift currents.

The people on one pleasure craft had just finished raising anchor. As they cleaned off the tackle, the current carried their boat towards another moored to a buoy. As the boats closed, someone on the moored boat became concerned and walked up to their bow. Those on the drifting boat moved their vessel forward slightly so that they drifted closely past the moored boat. But their dinghy passed on the other side and hooked on the buoy.

Held by the buoy, the drifting boat now spun towards the moored boat. The person on the moored boat jumped into the dinghy to try to free it and prevent damage to his vessel.

Soon after, the painter snapped from the strain. The dinghy rocked violently and the person aboard was thrown in the water. Fortunately, they appeared unhurt and were able to make it to their stern and climb aboard at the swim platform.

Big clouds of diesel smoke came from the drifting boat as the crew throttled up to turn and retrieve their lost tender.

When things go wrong, either on our boat or another, we try to learn what we can from it in the hopes of avoiding a similar incident. We thought about what we would do if our boat were in the same situation as the moored boat. The first step would be to get our engine started to give us maneuverability. Then we could release the line to the buoy and hopefully get away. Were we at anchor, with the engines running we still would have a reasonable amount of leeway to move the boat around and perhaps even let out more rode. Slipping the anchor quickly might be difficult because our first 200 feet of our rode is all chain. Was our boat the one drifting, we’d want to get well away at the first sign of trouble. Barring that, we’d release the tender if it hooked.

We arrived back from nearly 3 weeks exploring the Outside Passage.  And, similar to our exploring in Queen Charlotte Sound, we found a wonderfully complex shoreline with literally thousands of anchorages.  Some were quite challenging and most were incredibly beautiful.  For example, the entrance to Port Stephens is a bit of an eye opener at low water.  We chose to enter at high water J.

Particularly notable was Cann Inlet, where we anchored in front of three waterfalls. 

The one consistent factor is there simply was no boat traffic.  During the entire time we were in the area, we rarely saw another boat and never shared an anchorage.  The crabbing was good, the exploring was fun, the hiking was amazing, and we’ll certainly be back.

We’ll post more when we get the time. Here’s the overall trip summary:

·         1,309.5 miles traveled

·         204 total engine hours

·         Fuel consumption over trip: 966 gallons of fuel @ $5,566

o   Least expensive: $5.06/gallon (Campbell River)

o   Most expensive: $6.84/gallon

o   Average cost: $5.76/gallon

o   Average MPG: 1.36 MPG

o   Average GPH: 4.74 gallons/hour.

·         Fuel consumption running north (2100 to 2200 RPM):

o   33.4 hours

o   359.4 Miles on 511 gallons

o   0.70 MPG

o   15.3 gallons/hour

·         Fuel consumption while in Outside Passage (1050 to 1100 RPM):

o   88.9 hours

o   404.5 miles on 192.28 gallons

o   2.1 MPG

o   2.16 gallons/hour

·         2,232 pictures

jrh@mvdirona.com, http://mvdirona.com/

We’re voyaging north to further explore the Hakai Luxvbalis Conservancy Area and the outer islands north of Seaforth Channel, so we won’t be blogging again until we’re back and caught up in the mid-August time frame.  More then.

Jennifer & James Hamilton

Jennifer@mvdirona.com / jrh@mvdirona.com

While heading south through Colvos Passage on July 3^rd, we heard on the radio that Quartermaster Harbor was closed to all boats until 6pm that day due to the Tall Ship Parade of Sail. We arrived in the area just as the last one, the CGC Eagle, was leaving Quartermaster Harbor. An impressive number of pleasure craft surrounded the parade, and an equally impressive security contingent guarded the boats. The Eagle had a particularly large entourage: two 110-foot patrol boats, the Sea Lion and the Orcas, and two large tractor tugs, the Henry Foss and the Wedell Foss. A myriad of other small Coast Guard and Coast Guard Auxiliary craft in everything ranging from Coast Guard 27-foot utility boats to 50-foot pleasure-craft to jet skis zoomed throughout the crowds and the parading ships, while the Coast Guard’s 175-foot buoy tender Henry Blake stood off the entrance to Quartermaster Harbor.

We idled off the Ruston shore to watch the ships pass, then joined the crowds in the Foss Waterway as the ships docked and fighter planes swooped overhead.

A few years back, we arrived one Friday night at Silverdale at the head of Dyes Inlet. It’s usually not a very busy place, but the docks were packed and a fair number of boats were at anchor. We dropped the hook away from the crowds a bit, nearer to the head, and settled in for the evening. About 9pm, a tug with a barge arrived from the south. The tug captain slowly picked through the anchored boats and eventually stopped near the head a few hundred yards away from our boat. We couldn’t figure out why a tug would be arriving at night like that and what it would be doing at the head. No docks or industry were there and there just didn’t seem to be any good reason for it.

We got our answer at 10pm. Explosions erupted on the barge and light filled the sky. It was a fireworks barge and we had the best seat in the house. We’d arrived at the beginning of Whaling Days. The annual event includes an always-impressive fireworks display, a street fair with live entertainment, and outrigger canoe races. It’s a real family affair—with kids and adults of all ages. On a hot summer day, the warmer waters of Dyes Inlet are ideal for swimming. The festival atmosphere extends to the docks—they’re packed and everyone is having a good time. Each year we’ve been, several dozen cigarette boats roared in on Saturday as part of a poker run and roared back out again just as quickly. We could hear their engines for miles.

Andrew Anderson Marine Park, operated by the Anderson Island Parks and Recreation District, is a lovely park on the southwest side of Anderson Island in the south Puget Sound (map of area). The nature preserve, sometimes called Andy’s Marine Park, provides the only public saltwater shore access on the island and is part of the Cascadia Marine Trail system. Little-known to boaters, the park is popular with locals and kayakers and makes a great afternoon picnic stop.

The park meets saltwater at a sloping gravel beach packed with sand stars. Behind the beach is a delicate, protected lagoon. An old wooden floating bridge crosses the lagoon, where the sounds of chirping birds fills the air. Once across, a well-maintained trail climbs up into the woods behind. Signs along the way indentify the local where flora and fauna.

We moored at Tolmie Marine State Park and ran the dinghy across. Other moorages are at Oro Bay and Eagle Island Marine State Park. The Anderson Island Historical Society has a detailed map of the island. The terrain around the lagoon bridge can be very muddy—duck feet or rubber boots are helpful.

Last weekend we anchored off Blake Island Marine State Park.  The high temperature for Saturday was 59F. A few other boats were about, but the marina was half-empty, all the buoys on the north side were free, a handful of boats were on the west side buoys, and a few kayakers had landed on the spit at the northwest corner. We walked around the island and met only one other person.

This weekend, the high temperature was a record 89F and the island was packed. Friday night a constant stream of boats entered the marina and returned back out a few minutes later because no moorage was available. We frequently anchor off the north side of Blake Island for the fabulous city views. The north-side buoys, despite the view, are rarely taken because the anchorage is exposed to wakes from large ships travelling through the nearby vessel traffic lanes. This weekend, all the north-side buoys were taken and as soon as one boat vacated a buoy, another quickly took it’s spot. It felt like the San Juan Islands on a busy long weekend. And on the west side tents and people packed the shores, while a mass of over 30 boats filled the anchorage. We’ve never seen it so busy.

05/10/08, looking northeast towards Seattle from the spit at the northwest corner of Blake Island:

05/10/08, looking south from the spit along the west side of Blake Island:

05/10/08, the half-empty marina at Blake Island’s northeast corner:

05/18/08, looking west along the north side of Blake Island, every buoy taken:

05/18/08, looking south towards the spit and the west side of Blake Island:

The only thing worse than no backups is restoring bad backups. A database guy should get these things right.  But, I didn’t, and earlier today I made some major site-wide changes and, as a side effect, this blog was restored to December 4^th, 2007.  I’m working on recovering the content and will come up with something over the next 24 hours. However it’s very likely that comments between Dec 4^th and earlier today will be lost.  My apologies.

Update 2008.04.13: I was able to restore all content other than comments between 12/4/2007 and yesterday morning.  All else is fine.  I'm sorry about the RSS noise during the restore and for the lost comments.  The backup/restore procedure problem is resolved.  Please report any broken links or lingering issues. Thanks,

                        -jrh

James Hamilton, Windows Live Platform Services
Bldg RedW-D/2072, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington, 98052
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We always spent Christmas afloat, usually in Canadian waters. Some years we've travelled to the Sunshine Coast, Desolation Sound, or the Broughtons. This year we stayed closer to home, in the San Juan Islands. We had considered going to Barkley Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island instead, but didn’t have time to research safe anchorages for winter storms. In the end, we were glad we didn’t go—the storms were worse this year than any previous Christmas afloat, and the west coast of Vancouver Island receives the brunt of them. While winter storms are the downside of winter boating, the upside is that we have all the best anchorages to ourselves. And we love being safe at anchor while a storm rolls through, especially if we have a view out to the wind and waves.

Pictures and stories from the trip are posted at http://www.mvdirona.com/trips/SanJuansChristmas2007/.

While anchored in Blakely Harbor over the weekend, we watched an example of neighborly support. [Map of area.]

About 7:30 Sunday morning, a dinghy sped across the bay east of us. This was a little odd, because it was a cold and rainy morning, not ideal for a dinghy tour. Then we saw its destination—a sailboat aground near pilings along the north shore. We were surprised that we hadn’t noticed the grounded boat the day before, but then realized a sailboat was missing from its mooring along the south shore. We anchor at Blakely Harbor a lot, and that sailboat almost always is moored along the south shore. The boat must have come free overnight and blown across to the north shore. The winds weren’t very strong, at most 20 knots at West Point on the opposite side of the Puget Sound, so that likely wasn’t the issue. Unrelated, the Coast Guard reported another vessel blown aground east of nearby Eagle Harbor that morning also.

The dinghy then travelled towards the head, and met up with a neighbor in a capable-looking aluminum power cat. The two then set off to try to free the sailboat. The cat maneuvered between the pilings and a line was run from the cat’s bow to the sailboat. Water churned up behind the cat as they attempted to pull the sailboat free, but the ground vessel did not budge. The boat was well over on its side and the tide was falling. The dinghy crew had climbed aboard the sailboat and were trying to apply weight up high to tip the boat over further and get the keel out of the mud. Eventually, they were successful and the boat came free. They then worked the sailboat through pilings and tied it off to a nearby dock. The boat didn’t appear to have any exterior damage—if so, they were lucky that it didn’t smash into those pilings instead of grounding. And they were lucky to have such a helpful and capable neighbor.

In the pictures below, the first picture, looking east towards Seattle from our anchorage near the head of Blakely Harbor, shows the sailboat at its mooring the night before. And in the last photo, the boat moored beside the sailboat is Our Island, a 68-foot DeFever-designed steel trawler featured in the current (April/08) issue of PassageMaker magazine.

In busy Pacific Northwest anchorages, stern-tying is a common option to allow more boats to fit in than would if they all swung free at anchor. Smuggler Cove Provincial Marine Park along the southern BC coast is a good example:

We aren’t often in anchorages that busy, as we tend to favor less-traveled areas.  Nonetheless, we still stern-tie frequently.  We do it as a way of tucking into beautiful little anchorages where there just isn’t the space to swing free.  One of our favorites is this little nook in the south end of Jedediah Island in Jedediah Marine Provincial Park:

We sometimes use a stern anchor instead of a stern tie when swing room is limited and no suitable shore tie exists. This can happen when the nearest shore is private property, or too far away, such as this anchorage at Rupert Island in the Hakai Luxvbalis Conservancy Area:

I recently came across a set of pictures from Sweden that are notable for two reasons: 1) the anchorages are amazingly beautiful and 2) the local style in that area is to drop a stern anchor and then pull the bow up to shore.  Have a look at these pictures: http://baylinerownersclub.org/forum/showthread.php?t=6139&highlight=carman. We’ve just got to find a way to go boating in Sweden.

                                                --jrh

James Hamilton

jrh@mvdirona.com

We were travelling north through Wells Pass in the Broughtons one year when Jennifer yelled “Bear!” We were a good half-mile from any shore, so a bear sighting seemed a little unlikely. But the bear wasn’t on shore, it was swimming about 20 feet off our port bow. We’d been running at about 7 knots, but immediately stopped. When our wake caught up to it, the bear stopped swimming, waited for the wake to pass, then started off again.

The bear paddled with its nose in the water, lifting it every few strokes to take a breath (http://mvdirona.com/blog/content/binary/BearSwimming.mov). It was paddling at reasonable speed across the channel, and seemed a competent swimmer, but we were pretty concerned that the little feller wouldn’t make it. The nearest shore ahead of it was a half-mile and behind it was a mile. So the animal likely would have to swim at least 1.5 miles, if not farther, between shores. Not wanting to witness a bear-drowning, we tried to come up with a plan for what we’d do if he started struggling. We figured sacrificing one our inflatable kayaks probably was the best bet.

But the bear eventually reached shore without problem. It didn’t even seem particularly tired. One ashore, it pulled itself out onto some rocks, looked around a bit, shook off the water, then lumbered off (http://mvdirona.com/blog/content/binary/BearLanding.mov). Wild.

While docked in La Conner recently, we were fortunate to walk past the Pacific Mariner plant at just the right time. They were wheeling a huge, empty hull, likely of a Pacific Mariner 85, around the building. It appears that they mold the hulls on one side of their property, then transport them to the other side for completion. Another large boat looking near completion was next to the slot where this one was destined.

The tractor operator did an amazing job—the clearance at many points was barely inches.

On a recent trip from Elliott Bay to Mats Mats Bay, we passed the Washington State fast ferry Snohomish running south. The last we’d heard, the ferry was still mothballed in Eagle Harbor. A successful lawsuit by Rich Passage residents had taken the passenger-only Snohomish and its sister ship, the Chinook, out of service to prevent further erosion caused by their wakes. Both are to be sold.

When we saw the Snohomish that day, it was in temporary service between Port Townsend and Seattle. The two 80-year-old ferries on the run between Port Townsend and Keystone recently had been condemned, and no other car ferries in the fleet had a shallow enough draft to negotiate the approach to Keystone.

With gale force winds forecast for the Strait of Juan de Fuca, we anchored last night in Watmough Bay at the southeast tip of Lopez Island. The bay appears to have good protection from southeast weather, but we saw exactly the same winds as at unprotected Smith Island at the eastern end of the strait: steady winds above 30 knots with gusts to 54. This is the highest winds we’ve seen at anchor. The wind speed slightly topped the 52-knot gusts we saw in Pender Harbour a couple of winters back that blew our patio table overboard.

The waves certainly were much smaller than out in the strait, but big waves rolled into the anchorage all night, tossing our boat and making for a sleepless night for both of us. Our 66-lb Bruce held well with a 6:1 all-chain scope, and boy, was it in there when we left.

Snow fell in the Puget Sound this weekend as part of a big winter storm that swept the country. We were anchored at Port Madison, on the north end of Bainbridge Island, when the white stuff started. Even though the temperature was several degrees above freezing, snow began building up quickly. It was a wonderful winter scene.

Port Madison was a fitting locale for a snowy day in the Puget Sound. Bainbridge Island and Walt Woodward, editor of the Bainbridge Island Review, were the inspiration for local author David Guterson’s novel, Snow Falling on Cedars.

This year we spent Thanksgiving aboard in the South Puget Sound (the area between Olympia and Tacoma Narrows). With extreme high tides above 15 feet, we were able to explore the drying heads of several inlets: Henderson, Hammersley, and Eld. The weather for the most part was excellent—bright blue skies and little wind. Temperatures were often near-freezing, but we’ll take that over rain.

Pictures and stories from the trip are posted at http://www.mvdirona.com/Trips/SouthSoundThanksgiving2007.

Earlier today as we sailed out of Henderson Inlet, just north of Olympia, we heard the Coast Guard asking for assistance for a downed aircraft in Commencement Bay.  At around 12:40 the vessel Grand Madison reported that it had rescued two people from the water, one an elderly lady slightly hypothermic.  At 12:50 the Coast Guard reported the other aircraft was still in the air.

At 1:21PM, the King5 web site reported that the downed plane, a Cessna, had two passengers both of whom were rescued. The other plane was reported to have successfully landed at Thun Field in Tacoma: http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_112007WAB_plane_crash_commencement_TP.21332183.html.

                                                --jrh