Sunday's snow mostly was gone by Monday, but we got another load later in the week. The weather system was difficult to forecast. Although the snowfall was less than the record originally anticipated, enough still fell to keep anyone off the roads who didn't need to be out. And we got an unusual freezing rain event. The combination knocked out power for many folks on the Eastside. The past few day's below-freezing temperatures have eased off now, and the snow is melting. But conditions still are pretty bad on many city streets, with power still out for a number of Eastside residents.

Below are a couple of images taken from our boat at Bell Harbor Marina. On the left someone is using a leaf blower to clear the ramp, and we actually had enough to warrant using a snow blower on the docks.

We had several inches piled on our decks. When building the boat, we added extra insulation above the overhead panels to improve heating efficiency for high-latitude cruising. Judging by the lack of snowmelt on our decks, given we keep the boat 72F inside, the insulation is working.

Novik from Skol checked out the snow for a bit. Spitfire left a few prints, but generally wasn't impressed.

The freezing rain coated our our rails in ice. The last time we remember seeing our deck rails frozen like that was several years back when saltwater froze on our rails and decks. After the freezing rain, the snow was like a hardshell candy: a solid crust on the outside, with soft and fluffy snow on the inside.

By Thursday, the snow path cleared on Wednesday was starting to fill in. The picture on the right below is taken along the old waterfront streetcar tracks across the road from the marina.

Lots of marina space. Even in the winter, it's unusual for the guest dock to be completely empty near the weekend.

Downtown Seattle was pretty quiet on Thursday. Some of the steeper roads were blocked for traffic. Many businesses were closed, and few cars or people were about. Pike Place Market was open, but unusually quiet, with a handful of vendors open and not many customers.

Snow is fairly rare in the Puget Sound, so a layer of the white stuff always is a treat. We'd spent the weekend in LaConner, where 2-3 inches of snow had fallen overnight, and left around 7 this morning for the run back to Seattle. The trip through Swinomish Channel was magical in the dark. With few people about that early, the snow was mostly undistrubed and lay thickly on the rails and every flat surface of the many boats tied off on either side of the waterway. The white blanket softened all the hard edges and reflected the faintest light. Even the most tired-looking vessel we passed looked shiny and new. In the shoreside houses beyond town, a few early risers were reading the morning paper with a fire burning in their hearths. Their house lights cast a welcoming, golden glow onto the white landscape. At the steep cliffs near the turn west, snow clung to the rocky walls and filled the trees. 

Some of the communites farther south had snow, but there wasn't much along the south end of Whidbey Island, so we weren't expecting any snow in Seattle.

On VHF, we could hear Vessel Traffic talking about restricted visibility in Elliott Bay. It was snowing fairly hard as we approached, we couldn't see the other side of the bay. The storm lifted as we neared downtown, and West Seattle appeared, presumably with a fresh coating of snow.

And an inch or two had fallen at Bell Harbor. The classic wooden sailboat Skol looked wonderful with a layer of white.

One upside to winter's shorter days is the nighttime lights. Whether from a passing ship, a moored boat, or a nearby house, we enjoy being snug inside with a view to lights twinkling in the distance. The show gets even better during the Christmas season, when colorful holiday light displays are put on afloat and ashore. Much of the time we spent in Barkley Sound over Christmas was away from any signs of civilization, and the nights were pitch black. We didn't see much in the way of winter light displays until arriving in the Gulf Islands.

Here's our log from the Sidney to Port Madison, or you can display them on the live map view.

1/1/12: Sunrise over Olympics Happy New Year. The winds were still blowing from the east as we left Sidney Spit, and predicted to hit gale force this afternoon. We'd left Effingham at exactly the right time. Yesterday the winds at La Perouse bank were blowing 13 at 7am and were up to 21 by noon. By mid-afternoon the winds were blowing in the high 20s, gusting into the mid 30's, and were still at that speed this morning.

1/1/12: Tsehum Harbor Public Wharf Fishing fleet on the Tsehum Harbor Public Wharf. We took a tour around Van Isle Marina along the south side of Tsehum Harbor. The place was full of Nordhavns--we saw two 62s, three 55s, a 47 and several 40s.

1/1/12: S/V Kestral S/V Kestral heading out for a rum race.

1/1/12: Close quarters Spitfire looking nervous as we turn around in the marina. He's not big on close quarters.

1/1/12: Abandoned cabin Abandoned cabin on Harlock Islet.

1/1/12: Pocket tug Pocket tug in Page Passage.

1/1/12: Lewis Bay We're anchored in Lewis Bay, on the northwest end of Coal Island, with a view to the ferries at Swartz Bay. The Coastal Celebration and the Mayne Queen already were at the dock when we dropped hook, and the Spirit of Vancouver Island and the Skeena Queen arrived shortly after. Winter allows us different choiced in anchorages than the summer, partly due to less crowds but also due to prevailing winds. Lewis Bay would not be a great summer anchorage with a northwest wind blowing, but we've got gale force winter southerlies in the forecast and Lewis Bay is well-sheltered from that direction.

1/1/12: Dockside Grill We ran the dinghy to Tsehum Harbor for a quick of the area and to see if the Dockside Grill was open. It was closed for New Year's Day. Bummer--their view looked awesome.

1/1/12: Marina beacon This beacon is in the middle of one of the fairways at Van Isle Marina. And they're serious--a big rock is underneath that post.

1/2/12: Sunrise Sunrise over the head of Lewis Bay.

1/2/12: Ferry terminal We love having a view to a ferry run, and being able to see the terminal was even better. Winter is a great time for ferry watching--the late dawn and early dusk means the ferries are lit up more often than in summer. From the anchorage we also could see several large cargo ships way down Satellite Channel towards Cowichan, and lights on the hills on the southern tip of of Saltspring Island.

1/2/12: Spirit of VI Spirit of Vancouver Island off Fir Cone Point, at the northern tip of Cole Island. Lewis Bay turned out to be an excellent anchorage. We were a little concerned that the ferry wakes might be a problem, but no wakes of any note came through the entire time we were there, even when the big Spirit-class ferries came booming through.

1/2/12: Coastal Celebration The Coastal Celebration is the newest BC Ferry. It sailed from Germany through the Panama Canal, arriving in June of 2008. The bridge is unusually low in the bow compared to the other ships of that size.

1/2/12: Coast Guard Canadian Coast Guard ships moored in Patricia Bay. The Institute of Ocean Sciences is in the background.

1/2/12: Brentwood Bay We're anchored off another ferry dock--this one a lot smaller than the last though. The previous time we were in the area, the temperature was below freezing for days. Todd Inlet to our south was completely iced in. Brentwood Bay is another good Christmas anchorage-- houses pack the shores, many with holiday lights.

1/2/12: S/V Cetacea S/V Cetacea at anchor nearby in Brentwood Bay. Everthing was painted black, even the kayaks.

1/2/12: The Sea Lion The century-old tug Sea Lion on the docks at Brentwood Bay. We've seen this boat as far north as the Nakwakto Rapids, working as a floating resort, and more recently moored at the Vancouver Maritime Museum on False Creek.

1/2/12: Public dock Looking west across the public dock into Brentwood Bay.

1/2/12: Brentwood Bay Resort We had an excellent lunch at the pub in the fabulous glass and cedar Brentwood Bay Resort.

1/3/12: Ganges Harbour Ganges is a busy water aerodrome. The planes run fairly close to the anchored boats--it's a pretty exciting show. The harbor is open to the south, and big southerly blows will generate waves. But the waves tend to be less than a foot or so and not uncomfortable. We love anchoring here in the winter--crowds are less and the shores all around twinkle with light after dark.

1/3/12: Cape Kuper Cape-class 47' motor lifeboat Cape Kuper heads out from its base in Ganges.

1/4/12: School bus Water taxi The Graduate arrives into Ganges. While we watched from Shipstones pub last night, several dozen kids boarded this boat, Scolarship and Ganges Hawk. The vessels returned back to Ganges a few hours later. They headed out again this morning and all returned about the same time.

1/4/12: Seahorse Seahorse moored behind us, with the Coast Guard station in the background.

1/4/12: Ducks Finally got our ducks all in a row. :)

1/5/12: Sunrise Sunrise looking south through Swanson Channel. We ended up spending an extra night in Ganges, just catching up on various projects, watching the floatplanes and hitting each of the two waterfront pubs for dinner.

1/5/12: Rainbow Rainbow over Mount Tuam, Saltspring Island.

1/5/12: Wind in Haro Strait A gale warning was in effect for the Strait of Juan de Fuca, east entrance. In Haro Strait the winds were gusting to nearly 40 knots from the southwest. We were expecting to take real pounding when we rounded Gonzales Pt along the southern tip of Vancouver Island. But the gale warning had ended and winds had calmed by the time we got there, and the seas were smooth.

1/5/12: Esquimalt Harbor HMCS Algonquin and HMCS Regina just inside the entrance to Esquimalt Harbour, with HMCS Protecteur behind. Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Esquimalt covers 10,300 acres on both sides of Esquimalt Harbor and employs some 4,000 military and 2,000 civilian personnel. Their primary misson is to support Canada's Pacific Fleet. Esquimalt is the first Secret Coast destination we've visited in the 52. Other than the Desolation Sound trip last Christmas, we've not been up the Inside Passage beyond the Gulf Islands. Both summer Alaska trips were offshore.

1/5/12: Navy ships HMCS Saskatoon and HMCS Brandon moored deep inside the harbor. Alongside likely are HMCS Whitehorse and HMCS Yellowknife.

1/5/12: Coastal Inspiration BC Ferry Coastal Inspiration moored alongside the Esquimalt Graving Dock. The 1,200' dry dock is the largest on the Pacific coast and can handle som 90% of the world's ships.

1/5/12: Six Mile House Pints of Kilkenny at Six Mile House. In the past we landed below the pub and climbed up through their garden. They've put a fence up, however, so we couldn't go up that way. We instead landed under the bridge and climbed up to the Parsons Bridge Park path and then walked up to the road.

1/6/12: Dawn Dawn looking from the anchorage toward Dockyard, CFB Esquimalt's main facility. The Olympic Mountains are in the distance. Some of the base lights still are visible, but nothing compared to the display at night. One of Esquimalt Harbor's many attractions, especially in the winter, is the nighttime view of the brightly-lit base.

1/6/12: Sir Wilfred Laurier CCGS Sir Wilfred Laurier, a light icebreaker, arriving in Esquimalt Harbor to tend the buoy at the entrance.

1/6/12: Breakwater Sunrise over the Ogden Point breakwater.

1/6/12: Float plane Float plan readying for takeoff in the inner habor.

1/6/12: Victoria Inner Harbour The Causeway floats usually are near empty in the winter, but were packed when we arrived on Friday morning. The Victoria Harbor Authority now allows winter moorage there, so most of the boats were somewhat permanent.

1/6/12: Coho The Coho rounding Laurel Point on arrival into Victoria. It sure looks like a tight squeeze for a ship that size.

1/6/12: Bastion Square Historic Bastion Square, packed with tourists in the summer, is pretty quiet today.

1/6/12: Murchie's We had an excellent breakfast at Murchie's, and spent the day in Victoria touring around and visiting with family. And, of course, we managed to fit a pub stop in there too.

1/7/12: Port Madison Paul Johansen at its mooring in Port Madison. We left Victoria about 5am this morning, and arrived here at 2pm. We only ever to go Port Madison in the winter--its too crowded other times. The harbor is an excellent winter anchorage: snug with good wind protection, and in the early evening the lights from the houses on the hills above cast a warm glow.

A storm warning was in effect, with winds expected to reach 40-50 knots in the afternoon. More systems were on the way. The only obvious weather break coming up in the next few days was a several-hour window starting sometime after midnight, when winds would be 15 knots or less. We weren't pressed for time yet, so had no reason to risk rough seas. But we did want to take advantage of the window if conditions looked good. We also wanted to avoid entering an anchorage in the dark. Since the run would be 10-12 hours, and we only had 7-8 hours of daylight, we'd have to leave or arrive in the dark, or both. If we have to navigate an anchorage at night, we'd rather leave from one that we've recently entered and are familiar with. Leaving between midnight and 2am would allow us to arrive well before dusk.

Here's our log from the Ucluelet to Sidney, or you can display them on the live map view.

12/29/11: Red sky at morning ... Last night we recorded winds over 30-knots, but the seas are calm this morning. We've got another storm warning in effect though: Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.

12/29/11: Seal show A seal put on an energetic show just off the back deck. It leapt, jumped and splashed for ages.

12/29/11: Whiskey Dock We tied off at a public dock, Whiskey Dock, to walk through town. A dramatic cedar commercial complex, overlooking the waterfront, is nearing completion in the background.

12/29/11: Ucluelet Aquarium Part of that new complex is the Ucluelet Aquarium.

12/29/11: Driftwood flower Near the north end of town, someone has built amazing varnished driftwood sculptures. This flower stands perhaps 10' of the ground and is at least 5' in diameter.

12/29/11: Driftwood octopus Another spectacular sculpture, this one of an octopus.

12/29/11: Drill bit art At the foot of a nearby driveway, three drill bits were mounted on each entry post. Ucluelet is full of unusual creations like this.

12/29/11: Small Craft Harbor The Ucluelet Small Craft Harbor. We're anchored on the other side of the buildings in the background.

12/29/11: Cynamoka House We'd not had breakfast yet, and were hoping to find a nice coffee house. Cynamoka House and Guest Suites fit the bill.

12/29/11: Breakfast Great coffee in a bottomless cup and delicious fresh-baked muffins hit the spot.

12/29/11: Barometer falling The barometer fell 21 mb, from 1011 to 990, in the past 12 hours. Another big system is coming through.

12/29/11: Big winds The winds were strong when we arrived, but really are building now. You can see the calm weather that we had this morning, sandwiched between big blows.

12/29/11: Boat movement at anchor The chart plotter track shows where the winds have been coming while we've been anchored here. We've spent little time drifting around the anchor and most of the time blown hard to the northwest and southeast.

12/30/11: Sea lions Sea lions seem to have taken over one of the Ucluelet docks. Perhaps thirty lounged there each time we passed, and we could hear them barking as we walked through town yesterday.

12/30/11: Exploding wave Wave exploding against the shore at the Crow Islets. The barometer bottomed out at 990 last night, but still is at 992 this morning. A gale warning is in effect, with winds expected to be northwest 35 to 45. The winds are in the high 20s now with gusts into the 30s.

12/30/11: Surf Surf crashing against Page Island, with wind blowing the wavetops off.

12/30/11: Wind-streaked waves Wind-streaked waves as we head into Peacock Channel. We'll have a brief weather window early tomorrow morning, with winds dropping to 15 knots sometime after midnight, but rising to 20-25 tomorrow morning and 30-40 tomorrow afternoon with more systems on the way later in the week. We thought hard about leaving then. But the window just seemed too small, and we weren't pressed for time yet, so we had no reason to risk rough seas.

12/30/11: Ruins of Ecoole In the 1920s and 1930s, Ecoole was a BC Packers Pilchard Reduction plant with a small supporting settlement. The site was abandoned in the 1940s and this is pretty much all that is left. Because the Vancouver Island's west coast was populated so early and so heavily, it also suffered through many abandoned enterprises and communities as their resources waned or business moved elsewhere. Ruins are common in Barkley Sound and farther up the island's west coast, much more than at other places along the BC shoreline.

12/30/11: Floathomes, Rainy Bay We're considering a run to Port Alberni tomorrow--while winds have been fierce throughout Barkley Sound, the highest wind speed in Port Alberni over the past 24 hours was 4 knots. Big outflow winds were blowing down-inlet when the weather was cold a week or so back, but the winter storms don't seem to reach there. The cove at the head of Rainy Bay was a potential anchorage for the night With a string of a dozen or more floathomes along the west shore, however, and boats coming and going, it didn't feel private enough.

12/30/11: Canadian flag A Canadian flag is painted high on the cliff near the cut to Useless Bay. The inscription with it reads "1965 Whitehurst". We're not sure what this refers to--perhaps a tug name?

12/30/11: Rainy Bay We considered anchoring in the northeast portion of Rainy Bay, but it felt pretty exposed and also not very private. Several small boats were about and a couple of fair-sized houses were ashore.

12/30/11: Effingham Bay We're back at Effingham Bay. The weather forecast worsened to storm warning 40-50 knots for this afternoon, but the weather window has increased. Winds are expected to drop to 15 before tomorrow morning, and instead of rising to 20-25 tomorrow morning, they'll rise to 20 knots late tomorrow morning. We'll keep an eye on the weather and if conditions look good, we'll head out sometime early tomorrow morning.

12/30/11: Barometer back up Conditions aren't good yet though--the barometer was 992 when we left Ucluelet this morning and by 5pm was 1009. Gusts to nearly 50 knots in Imperial Eagle Channel heeled the boat over 4 degrees as we approached Effingham Island. 20-30-knot southwest winds are blowing through the anchorage, bringing 1-3' waves. The boat is pulled back on the anchor a long way from where we set, but isn't undulating much in the waves. With good holding, 8:1 scope on an all-chain rode, and tons of swing room, we're safe and comfortable inside.

12/31/11, 3:00am: Pachena Point We got up at midnight and checked the weather. Conditions definately were calming down out there. Winds were averaging 15 NW on the latest lighthouse weather reports. The seas were 10-12' on our beam coming out of Barkley Sound, but not really a problem. And once we turned towards Juan de Fuca Strait, they'd be behind us. Even better.

12/31/11, 7:30am: Juan de Fuca Strait We picked an excellent weather window. Seas now are near calm, with 10-20-knot winds on our sterm giving us a nice speed push. We'll be into the Victoria area by noon.

12/31/11, 10:15am: Olympic Mountains Snow-covered Olympic Mountains. We're making excellent time--with a push from the current and the wind behind us, we're doing almost 10 knots.

12/31/11: Race Rocks Conditions here can be wicked when wind blows against a several-knot current. But the waters are calm now.

12/31/11: Coho The Coho heading to Port Angeles from Victoria.

12/31/11: Pilot Pilot boat returning to the Victoria Pilot Station.

12/31/11: Golfing Golf with a view at the Victoria Golf Club.

12/31/11: Surf kayaker A half dozen kayakers were surfing the waves off Cadbora Point.

12/31/11, 2:00pm: Sidney Spit Smooth seas the rest of the way. We're anchored at Sidney Spit and will take the dinghy across to Sidney for lunch at the Rumrunner Pub overlooking Haro Strait.

12/31/11: New Year's Eve We found Gray Matter moored at Sidney and spent New Year's Eve with Mark Mohler, Christine Guo and friends. We had a cold dinghy ride back to Sidney Spit after--the winds had come up from the east and the water was quite choppy.

Previous log post for this trip: Christmas Cruise 2011: The Wild Pacific Coast

A southwesterly gale was well underway as we approached Ucluelet. 6-8' waves were rolling through and crashing into the shore on either side of us. The buoy in Carolina Channel, to our west, was disappearing completely behind the waves. The calm weathers we'd experienced early in the trip had given way to storm after storm. What better place to enjoy the weather than in Canada's storm-watching capitol? Ucluelet has built a thriving tourist industry based in giving visitors a chance to experience the west coast's fierce weather firsthand. We were eager to walk out to the Amphritite Point Lighthouse to view the storm in full force.

Here's our log from the Pinkerton Islands to Ucluelet, or you can display them on the live map view.

12/27/11: No rain, no wind The heavy rains we've had for the past two days finally have stopped, as has the wind. This is the view looking north from the anchorage.

12/27/11: Snow level The snow level has dropped since we arrived in the area. We didn't see any in snow on the foothills last week.

12/27/11: Pinkerton Islands The view west from our anchorage.

12/27/11: Dinghy tour The wonderfully complex islets of the Pinkerton Group are great dinghy and kayak territory. We've not been out in the dinghy for the past two day as it's been raining too much. Our general rule with winter boating is: "If it's not raining, get out there." We'll have plenty of time pinned inside the cabin to relax or do boat chores when the weather is bad.

12/27/11: Float home The Pinkerton Islands are outside the Pacific Rim National Park, and have a number of floathomes and cabins tucked away on and alongside the islands. Of the many floathomes we've seen on this trip, only a few have been occupied.

12/27/11: Walking on water This would be a bad time for a large wake to hit.

12/27/11: Private island This cabin was on an island all to itself.

12/27/11: Unusual current On an 11' high tide, we were able to work a ways up two creeks that empty into the Pinkerton Group from Vancouver Island. The surface current in this one was most unusual. The current was running perhaps a knot or so where we're stopped, and the direction kept changing back and forth, between inflow and outflow, in the space of minutes. We couldn't figure out what would cause that.

12/27/11: End of the road We probably had enough depth to go further up this second creek, but too many branches were in the way, and the rain had started up again. Time for lunch.

12/28/11: Newcombe Channel A gale warning is in effect for West Coast Vancouver Island south. Winds are expected to be 25-35 from the southwest with 4-meter seas. The wind already was blowing a steady 25-30 from the SW as we approached Ucluelet Inlet, and 6-8' waves were rolling through and crashing into the shore on either side of us. The buoy in Carolina Channel, to our west, was disappearing completley behind the waves. Newcombe Channel looks reasonbly wide on the chart, but felt pretty narrow with breakers all around. We've recently added an attitude gauge to our Maretron N2KView display. The video shows the boat's motion, with pitching up to 10 degrees, and also the wind speed.

12/28/11: Newcombe Channel The attitude gauge showed little rolling motion, even though the waves were on our beam. Our stabilizers were working hard to produce that result.

12/28/11: Spring Cove, Ucluelet We tied off at what was left of the public dock in Spring Cove to walk out and see the weather at Amphritite Point.

12/28/11: Peninsula Road “There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing” (Ranulph Fiennes). Rain was pouring and the wind was gusting, but that was kind of the point: we were out to see storm.

12/28/11: Wild Pacific Trail A spur trail for the Wild Pacific Trail is at the intersection of Peninsula and Coast Guard roads. The main trail is incredibly well-built and maintained. A wide gravel path, with room for 3 or 4 people walking abreast, winds through vibrant rainforest along the rugged shore. Numerous lookouts, interpretive signs and benches are along the way.

12/28/11: Carolina Channel Looking east across Carolina Channel. We entered Ucluelet Inlet less than an hour ago this side of the barely-visible islands in the background. The buoy on the right of the picture is the one we saw bouncing around as we approached. We could here it's bell from our anchorage in Spring Cove.

12/28/11: Breakers The "wild Pacific" definitely was on display today as waves battered the rocks. The steel bark Pass of Melfort wrecked nearby on Chrismas Eve, 1905. The ship was enroute from Panama to the Puget Sound and was blown off course in a southerly storm. None of the 36 on board survived. These shores are as unforgiving as they look.

12/28/11: Amphritite Point Lighthouse The Amphritite Point lighthouse on its rocky perch. Behind are the old light keeper quarters—the light was automated in 1988.

12/28/11: Original lighthouse The original wooden lighthouse was built in 1906 in response to the Pass of Melfort tragedy. The structure lasted less than a decade before a storm swept it away.

12/28/11: Storm watching We weren't the only ones out enjoying the storm. On our short walk we encountered perhaps twenty others, some clearly local, some obviously tourists. Ucluelet bills itself as Canada's storm-watching capitol. The Wild Pacific Trail was built to give visitors a safe and accessible view.

12/28/11: Head of Ucluelet Inlet The storm was sending fair-sized waves into the anchoarge at Spring Cove, and the houses on shore reduced the privacy somewhat. Either one we could have put up with, but with no compelling reason to stay, we moved to the head of Ucluelet Inlet for the night.

12/28/11: Eagle's Nest Marine Pub On the way to our anchorage, we passed a building with a big sign: "MARINE PUB". This turned it to be the Eagle's Nest Marine Pub. We have a hard time passing up on a marine pub, but the weather was pretty miserable for a dinghy ride. Luckily, the rain and wind stopped just around dinner time and started up again only after we'd returned to Dirona.

On Christmas Day, the barometer fell nearly 20mb in 24 hours and Environment Canada was predicting big weather: Storm warning in effect for West Coast Vancouver Island South. Wind west 25 to 35 knots diminishing to northwest 15 to 25 early this evening then backing to southwest 15 to 25 late this evening. Wind increasing to south 25 to 35 before Monday morning and to 35 to 45 near noon Monday except 50 northwest of Estevan Point. Wind becoming southwest 30 to 40 Monday evening. We actually were looking forward to it--no storm-force winds have hit Barkley Sound since we've arrived, and we were curious what conditions would be like. The storm didn't turn out to be quite as fierce as predicted, but we did get some interesting barometer movement.

Here's our log from Snug Basin to Turtle Bay, or you can display them on the live map view.

12/23/11: Misty skies, Snug Basin A heavy rain shortly after dawn has given way to a calm, misty morning. The temperature is much warmer today than yesterday--in the high 40s up from the low 30s.

12/23/11: Entering Poett Nook The channel into Poett Nook looks tight, but is reasonably wide and deep.

12/23/11: Poett Nook We were considering anchoring at Poett Nook, but it wasn't very appealing. Aquaculture fills the east shore and a large marina and trailerpark is along the west shore. And the marina appeared open, with a boat at the fuel dock. Had we need gas for the dinghy, though, we likely could have filled there.

12/23/11: Robbers Passage We're anchored off the Port Alberni Yacht club outstation, all closed up for the winter.

12/23/11: Surf The anchorage is well protected, with barely-noticable swell, but we can see waves crashing against the outer shore to our northwest. Another southerly gale is predicted, so that view could become even more interesting.

12/23/11: Tzartus Island Abandoned house at the north end of Tzartus Island. It looks like it once was quite nice.

12/23/11: Shahowis Lodge The Lodge at Shahowis appears to have been in disuse for several years. The dock was a mess, and it was pretty overgrown. Sad to see.

12/23/11: Sea arch, Tzartus Island Small craft apparently go through this arch in calm conditions, but we didn't have those today.

12/23/11: Sea cave, Tzartus Island The exposed outer coasts in Barkley Sound are full of storm-created sea arches and caves like this one.

12/23/11: Port Alberni Yacht Club outstation The Port Alberni Yacht Club has carved wonderful trails into Fleming Island. The trails are as nice, or nicer, than most government-maintained parks. This one leads up to what they call the Crow's Nest.

12/23/11: Crow's Nest The view looking north from the Crow's Nest.

12/24/11: Imperial Channel Earlier this morning, we were seeing gusts into the low 40s, but the anchorage was still reasonably calm from a wave perspective. Outside in Imperial Channel, the winds were blowing steady 25-30 from the southeast. Surprising, as it's only blowing 15-20 at La Perouse Bank. Conditions weren't too bad though--the waves were perhaps 3-5' high.

12/24/11: Bamfield Coast Guard Station The Bamfield Coast Guard station also is home to the Rigid Hull Inflatable Operator Training (RHIOT) school. RHIOT operates only in the winter, when the weather is at its worst.  Students from all over North America attend, learning how to operate the craft in extremely rough seas, including handling capsizes. The title of a Pacific Yachting article written by one attendee pretty much sums it up: "Getting Bashed at Bamfield."

12/24/11: Air draft We last were at the head of Bamfield Inlet in the previous boat. With an air draft of 15.5', the 17m clearance under the wires between Burlo and Rance islands wouldn't have been much of a concern. At 30.5', the 52's air draft leaves plenty of room to pass under, but it still caught our attention.

12/24/11: Bamfield Inlet Rain is pouring, the winds are gusting into the 20s, and Dirona is shifting about in the anchorage. But we're securely set with plenty of swing room, and the boat is cozy and warm. We're loving it.

12/25/11: Christmas morning Merry Christmas.

12/25/11: Entering Grappler Inlet At the mouth of Grappler Inlet. This may look tight, but its nothing compared to where we're heading.

12/25/11: Narrows at Grappler Inlet Looking back through the marked channel we just passed through. The channel is narrow and shallow--charted depths are less than a meter in parts.

12/25/11: Grappler Inlet neck With 8.5' of tide, the depth was about 8' going through the drying entrance into the inner basin at the head of Grappler Inlet. The charts are accurate and the path well-marked, but it's pretty tight. We crept through the channel with a careful bow watch. The current was carrying us in, so we used as much reverse as forward to keep our speed down to a half knot.

12/25/11: Storm coming The barometer has fallen nearly 20mb in 24 hours and the Environment Canada is predicting big weather: Storm warning in effect. Wind west 25 to 35 knots diminishing to northwest 15 to 25 early this evening then backing to southwest 15 to 25 late this evening. Wind increasing to south 25 to 35 before Monday morning and to 35 to 45 near noon Monday except 50 northwest of Estevan Point. Wind becoming southwest 30 to 40 Monday evening. We're actually kind of looking forward to it--no storm-force winds have hit Barkley Sound since we've arrived, ane we're curious what conditions will be like.

12/25/11: Grappler Inlet head The anchorage in the basin at the head of Grappler Inlet is quite scenic. We were expecting that it might be built up like the outer basin. But only a few houses are ashore here, concentrated together at one end, and nobody seems to be about. Likely the combination of a restricted entry and no apparent road makes building here less appealing.

12/26/11: Barometer "v" The barometer bottomed out at 1001 yesterday, then shot back up to 1020 again. Near the bottom of the "v", the wind was blowing 35 knots at La Perouse Bank, with gusts near 40. We had gusts up to 37 in Grappler Inlet, but the average was around 15. Conditions were reasonable when we crossed Imperial Eagle Channel early this afternoon. The wind was blowing 15, gusting 20, with a swell heigh of 6-8' while at La Perouse Bank, the winds were S 21 gusting 26, with a wave height of 3.2m.

12/26/11: Turtle Bay The more common entry is from the north, but the east entry appeared straigtforward and it was. We saw min 38' on a 12' tide.

12/27/11: After the storm The winds blew last night, but not as fiercely as predicted. We recorded speeds in the high twenties with gusts into the thirties. La Perouse Bank had the same, and Estevan Point was a little worse, with gusts to 39 knots.

The first time we encountered surface ice on saltwater was back in 2002, on a winter trip to Desolation Sound and Princess Louisa Inlet. We had to break ice to reach Chatterbox Falls. We've since seen ice on saltwater many times on our winter cruises, from as far north as Blunden Harbor to the south Puget Sound. And now, in Barkley Sound as well. With freezing temperatures the past two days, we've had to break ice to reach our anchorages.

Here's our log from Julia Passage to Snug Basin, or you can display them on the live map view.

12/21/11: Julia Passage entrance The south entrance to Julia Passage looks tricky on the chart, but we found it relatively straightforward going slowly with a careful bow watch. On an 11' tide, we had a minimum of 15' going through.

12/21/11: Surface ice, Julia Passage A thin sheet of ice covered the surface in the basin inside Julia Passage. We left a path through it, reminscent of our breaking ice into Princess Louisa Inlet years back.

12/21/11: Float homes, Julia Passage We've never stopped at Julia Passage before. With perhaps twenty floathomes ringing the channel, summers here would be much too busy. But this time of year, wintering seabirds are our only neighbours.

12/21/11: Sunset, Julia Passage Sechart Channel aglow in the sunset, looking south from our anchorage in Julia Passage.

12/22/11: Frost, Julia Passage Another cold and frosty, but clear and beautiful morning. So far we've had just amazing weather.

12/22/11: Sunrise Sunrise over the Somerset Range.

12/22/11: MV Frances Barkley The MV Frances Barkely, a working packet freighter, en route from Uchucklesit Inlet.

12/22/11: Snug Basin We're anchored in 70', with hills all around and a deep, blue sky above. We had to break through surface ice again, perhaps 1/8" thick. As we drifted about once set, we could hear the ice breaking and crackling against the hull.

12/22/11: Creek from Henderson Lake The creek draining Henderson Lake reaches Uchucklesit Inlet through a narrow channel with overhanging cliffs. This picture is looking back through the entry after we've come through. It felt like a mini version of the Marble River further north. Beyond, the channel opens into a small lake-like basin, where shallows on a 9' tide blocked further progress.

12/22/11: Frost-covered logs Looking down-inlet over frost-covered logs.

12/22/11: Dozer tugs Logging is active on both sides of the inlet. When we arrived these dozers were working a big boom from the north shore to the south.

12/22/11: Sunken barge About 30' of this barge was showing in 75' of water, so it must be a good 100' long. The sinking appeared recent, judging by the sealife still on the hull. We gave it a wide berth--we wouldn't want to be nearby if it fell.

12/22/11: Launching logs It’s an exciting show when logs are transferred from shore to water. Logs are stacked in bundle cradles, two U-shaped holders that stand perpendicular to the shoreline. When the bundle is complete, the logs are wrapped with wire. Then the water-side arms of the cradle are released, and the bundled logs slide into the water with a tremendous splash.

12/22/11: Log dump Preparing the next load. The outer arms, lying flat against the log on the ground, will pop up to create the U-shaped holder when the logs fall into place.

12/22/11: Shipwreck This wood fishing vessel was hard aground along the northwest shore. The boat is big and heavy, so that must have taken some wind.

12/22/11: Surface ice Surface ice stranded by the falling tide.

12/22/11: At anchor, Snug Basin Looking across the surface ice to Dirona at anchor. A gale warning is in effect for the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. The winds currently are 20-30 knots at La Perouse Bank, but calm here.

Winter boating has its challenges, but one of the many rewards are the waterfalls. Flows that might be non-existent or just a trickle in summer gush and roar in winter. Teakearn Arm in Desolation Sound Marine Park is a good example. In the summer one waterfall tumbles lazily over the edge from Cassell Lake. In the winter, two waterfalls pour over the side, filling the basin with spray. The falls at Lucky Creek in Pipestem Inlet are no exception. Summer's gentle flow is a deluge in the winter.

Here's our log from Jarvis Lagoon to Pipestem Inlet, or you can display them on the live map view.

12/19/11: Jarvis Lagoon entry The entry to Jarvis Lagoon is shallow and narrow. We entered on a 9' tide. Depths on the way through were mostly in the 15'-20' range, but we needed a careful bow watch to find them. Fortunately we could see a good 20' down. One of winter boating's many perks is clearer water for this kind of navigation.

12/19/11: Jarvis Lagoon anchorage And this is the reward for that challenging entry--a near landlocked cove where barely a ruffle of wind disturbs the surface.

12/19/11: Jarvis Lagoon by dinghy Out for a dinghy tour. The flotation suits are among our favourite winter boating gear. The suits are similar to ski jumpsuits, but with built-in flotation and extra insulation. We use Mustang 2175s, which are standard issue with the Coast Guard on both sides of the border. We can toss these on over light clothing, add a pair of gloves and perhaps some ear warmers and be instantly warm in the coldest weather.

12/19/11: Nettles Island The Pacific Rim National Park Reserve Warden Station, all closed up for the winter.

12/20/11: Moonrise, Jarvis Lagoon Yesterday's heavy rain clouds are gone, and the sky now is a deep, clear blue. Environment Canada is predicting 35-45-knot winds in two days, but right now the wind is near zero.

12/20/11: Pipestem Inlet anchorage Tucked away behind Refuge Island. Winds are predicted to blow NW 25-30 tonight, so we'll see what we get here.

12/20/11: Lucky Creek falls The falls at Lucky Creek gush out in the winter, compared to summer's gentler flow.

12/20/11: Navigating Lucky Creek We arrived at the creek on a 7' falling tide and barely had depth to get in and out. The channel was less than 2' deep in places, and we needed a dinghy bow watch to find a workable route.

12/20/11: Picnic lunch, Pipestem Inlet A picnic lunch overlooking the anchorage with a view up Pipestem Inlet. With sunshine, no wind, and the temperature around 50F, we were warm enough just wearing light jackets.

12/21/11: Frost at Pipestem Inlet Brrr. It's 33F and frosty this morning. The winds blew NW 25-30 last night at La Perouse Bank, but we barely saw 15.

We first planned a Christmas cruise to Barkley Sound in the fall of 2003. That November, however, we attended a presentation by Cliff Mass on
the difficulties of forecasting northwest weather. Mass gave several examples of major storms that had, with little warning, swept up the
Pacific Coast and pounded Barkley Sound with storm and hurricane force winds. We went to the Broughtons that winter instead. Several times since
we've considered a winter cruise to Barkley Sound, but each time we've remembered that presentation and those storms. This year we finally
made the trip. After passing Barkley Sound en-route between Seattle and Alaska this summer and the last, we really wanted to return. And, we
realized, it's just not that far. The longest leg, 70 miles between Sooke Harbor and the sound, is only a ten-hour journey. We just needed
to be patient and wait for a good weather window.

Here's our log from Seattle to our first Barkley Sound stop, in Effingham Bay. We'll be making live updates to the map view as we go.

12/17/11, 10:20am: Off Sooke Inlet Two tired travellers. James had the helm for six hours between Skunk Bay and Oak Bay, and Spitfire, well, he just sleeps a lot.

12/18/11, 9:00am: Effingham Bay The storm is past, the barometer is back on the rise and the sun is shining. This is the view looking north from the anchorage. We slept so soundly last night that we didn't wake when the generator auto-started early this morning.

12/18/11, 1:15pm: Effingham Bay With sunshine, 49F and a little help from the diesel furnace (we have an outlet plumbed outside under the teak table), we just had to eat outside. The Seahawks game will have to wait.

12/18/11, 2:30pm: Effingham Bay Sea arch on the southwest side of Effingham Island. We circumnaviged the island by dinghy, partly retracing our route in last night. Although the seas have calmed considerably since yesterday, breaking waves still surge and gush through the passage. We actually went through the arch a few years ago, but conditions were too rough today.

12/19/11, 8:30am: Leaving Effingham Bay Enjoying the sunrise as we leave the anchorage.

12/19/11, 8:30am: Sunrise over Effingham Bay The winter sun isn't at the right angle for one of Effingham Bay's fabulous sunsets, but the sunrise made up for it.

On our Prince William Sound trip this summer, we started keeping a live, map-based travel log. We posted updates several times a day during the offshore run there and back, giving our location, sea conditions etc. And we made daily updates while cruising throughout Prince William Sound. Several people commented that the updates were useful, so we've kept them up since returning from the trip.

Over the past few weeks, we've combined the web and blog home pages into a single landing page, and integrated the map log into the page banner. Now when you visit the site, you'll see a banner across the top with our current and recent locations:

The map shows our current location highlighted in red with an associated picture and text on the right. Right of the map is a list of our recent locations. Clicking on an entry in the location list, or on a place mark on the map, will pan the map to that location and update the picture and text:

The page banner map shows only the first few entries in the travel log. Clicking on either "Larger" under the map or "More..." under the location list jumps to a full-paged map showing all the recent locations:

Clicking on an entry in the location list, or a place mark on this map, will pan the map to that location and show an information window with that entry's associated picture and text.

We will periodically post to the blog a digest of these recent locations for our RSS readers.

Last week we gave a presentation on our trip to Prince William Sound to the Seattle Sail and Power Squadron. They meet on the third floor of the Queen City Yacht Club, with a wonderful view across Portage Bay. We had a great time socializing with the group and touring the grounds. For our talk, we described our trip pre-trip preparation, experiences on the offshore run, and highlights of cruising Prince William Sound.

The slides are posted here. We’ll also be presenting on this topic at the Seattle Boat Show in January. The final schedule hasn’t yet been announced, but we’re slotted for January 28th or 29th. Below are our answer to a few questions from the audience on topics we didn't specifically cover in the talk.

What other failures did we have? In the presentation, we mentioned that a sea blubber jellyfish had plugged the generator raw-water strainer and destroyed the impeller. We replaced it, and immediately sucked in anther jellyfish, but this time the impeller wasn't damaged, and we had no further issues. The only other major failure we had was the wing engine. We use it to run our hydraulic thrusters and windlass, and tried to start it as we were approaching the first anchorage after the offshore run. The engine wouldn't start--turns out it was hydro-locked from having water forced down the raw-water exhaust outlet in the rough water. We cleared the engine, changed the oil twice and then ran it under load at anchor to get it good at hot. We got the water out quickly and the wing is undamaged. The most obvious way to avoid this problem is to close the seacock. Unfortunately, PAE doesn’t install a seacock on the generator or wing engine exhaust so that isn’t possible. Believing a seacock is a required safety feature, we have subsequently installed one. However, we like the wing to be available quickly in all conditions, so we prefer not to close the seacock. We instead installed a very large check valve in the exhaust, just inside the seacock, to prevent water inrush and wave action from driving water up the exhaust and into the engine. We believe this one is solved, but won’t know for sure until we experience difficult weather conditions.

How tired were we when we arrived? We were in surprisingly good shape, despite the rough weather. On arriving at that first anchorage and finally stopping, we had no trouble taking on the wing engine issue, and had a nice relaxing dinner afterwards. We did sleep well that night though. This is something we've been finding with the Nordhavn: because travelling is so comfortable, we actually can go further in this boat in a given period of time, both multi-day and local trips, than we could in the previous boat, even though the Nordhavn's top speed is much less. Running faster was more tiring on the previous boat. We'd have to be much more focused at the helm at the higher speeds, and the noise and vibration level, although not particularly bad, were significantly higher.

Were there marked trails? It varied. In some places, such as at Cascade Bay, the trail above the waterfall was well-trod and easy to follow. In others, we could pick our way through open scrub in the general direction of our destination. Because the winter weather is so harsh in Alaska, forests don't grow as thick as we're use to in BC. The many bluffs and open fields in the hills around the anchorages in Prince William Sound provided plenty of opportunities for easy hiking with a view.

What was the average temperature? Low-fifties near the glaciers, and low sixties elsewhere. Several days though, the temperature was into the seventies and was warm enough for us to eat lunch on deck in T-shirts.

How did we arrive at our watchkeeping system? Beth Leonard and the Dashews have good coverage on the topic of two-crew watchkeeping systems. People frequently started at formal two-hour shifts for a 24-hour period, but then evolved to four-hour shifts, only at night, as they gained experience. We figured if we were going to evolve to four hours, we might as well start there. Most couples also seemed to have the person with the most helm experience do the majority of the night shifts. So for the trip to SE Alaska last year, we started out doing formal four-hour shifts at night, with James taking the 8pm-midnight and 4am-8am shifts, and me taking the midnight-4am shift. Days were to be more informal, with James sleeping once or twice during the day. We learned, however, that James doesn't sleep well during the day, and wasn't getting enough sleep. I, on the other hand, can sleep pretty much any time. So we swapped to me taking the first and last night shift, and James doing the middle shift. We found the 4-hour shifts slightly long so switched to 3 hours before settling on 3 ½ hours. I take the 8pm-11:30pm and 3:00am-6:30am shifts, and James takes 11:30pm-3:00am.

One of the reasons we made the offshore run from Seattle to Prince William Sound was to gain experience. A gale in the Gulf of Alaska wasn't exactly the sort of experience we were hoping for. But we did learn that the boat, and our rough-water preparations, could take the conditions. The full log of both offshore runs is at Cruising Prince William Sound.

Three days out from Prince William Sound, on our way north, the forecast called for 30-knot SE winds and 10-foot seas. Two days out, the forecast had worsened to 40 knots from the SE with 13-foot seas. As we neared, the surface analysis charts showed the low deepening from 998 to 991. Within a day, the barometer fell from 1014 to 1003 and the seas built from calm to 10-12' on the stern quarter. Even with the stabilizers and autopilot working well, the boat motion still was substantial. We had to be careful to have good handholds when moving about--crawling often was easier.

We ended up not using the off-watch berth at all on this trip. Partly because the pitching motion the first few days was enough to make sleeping there difficult, and also because it was easier on the person on watch to not worry about making noise and waking the person who was off-watch.

In the past when we've been in rough water and had difficulty sleeping in the pilothouse berth, the master was comfortable. In this storm, James slept fine in the master berth, but I was having trouble falling asleep because I was sliding around on the bed with the sideways motion. I eventually wedged myself between the bed and the floor, and slept well.

At some point during the storm, the starboard caprail flipped open. It's a big, heavy piece of solid fiberglass--that must have taken some force. Nobody felt inclined to go out and close it though. One more item for the heavy weather preparation list--on the return trip, we ran a bungee from the inside to the outside handle to hold it down.

We hit much worse weather on the return trip. We'd left Prince William Sound as conditions were settling down from a gale the night before. At the Cape Cleare Data Buoy, the wave height had fallen steadily from 20' at 10pm to 11' by 11:50am, and the forecast indicated continued improvement. Another storm was predicted in a few days, and we wanted to get well south before it hit.

Conditions, however, worsened rather than improved. The winds picked up to 30 knots, with gusts to 41 and then to increased to 40 knots with gusts to 59. The seas were 13', about 5 seconds apart, and were breaking above the pilot house roof. Several slammed into the side of the boat at that height--we were glad to have the lexan storm shields on those big salon windows.

This time we were taking the waves on the bow and the pitching motion was severe.  We both got seasick, James for the first time ever. Although it wasn't debilitating, we both put on a scopolamine patch so we could keep food/water down. I'd had no problems with seasickness on the way up--severe pitching generally is what does me in. Spitfire seemed to be nervous, but otherwise did well. He ate lots, slept lots, and occasionally headed down below to use the cat box.

We were through the storm in 36 hours, although it felt a lot longer. We were pretty tired, but the boat handled remarkably well throughout. The furnace plug was torn off during the storm, the wind pressure against the dinghy cover wore a hole through it, and our US flag was slightly shredded, but otherwise we had no issues. The rest of the trip home was amazingly calm--we could run for days or weeks in those conditions.

Seasickness really makes taking video unappealing, but we did shoot some on the trip north as the storm was building. Waves never seems to look as big in pictures as in person, but notice in a few frames the horizon disappears off the top of the screen and then almost under the bow. Those waves are a good 8-10'. You can see the stabilizers working to counteract the rolling motion of the waves. And notice the caprail flipped open in some of the starboard shots.

We were surprised at how quiet the pilothouse is. The salon isn't particularly loud, but the engine noise is more apparent there. We'd never noticed that until put the video together. We have things pinned down pretty well everywhere, so boat is pretty quiet even in some of those big sideways swings.

We've spent the last few days lazing in the the sun in the San Juan Islands after returning from Prince William Sound. Yesterday we anchored in Reid Harbor on Stuart Island. Jose Sousa, who had been following our trip online, stopped by to say hello. His 1999 Lord Nelson Victory Tug 41 Carolina is so well-maintained it looks better than new. Interestingly, his boat was built by South Coast Marine--the same yard that built Dirona. Jose recognized much of the hardware on our boat from the Lord Nelson.

We're now anchored in Roche Harbor, with Nordhavn 62 Gray Matter tied alongside. Christine Guo and Mark Mohler took ownership two weeks ago and are enroute to Sidney, B.C. through the San Juans. We met them in Reid Harbor and decided to raft up for the night.

We all headed in to the pub at Roche Harbor Resort for lunch. The docks were incredibly busy--even the dinghy dock space is packed. We've not been there for a few years--the place has changed quite a bit, with new construction up the hill behind the the resort.

After, we toured English Camp, established over the "Pig War" after Britain and the United States nearly went to war in 1859.  

And now we're settled in for a relaxing evening.

In the early 1900s, nearly 25,000 ounces of gold were extracted from Granite Mine, making it one of the more productive in Prince William Sound. From our anchorage in Bettles Bay (Bing/Google map), we ran the dinghy north to five miles north to Hobo Bay to hike to the mine ruins.

The trail led for a mile across open bog, with nice views into Bettles Bay at the start and across a tidal lagoon into Port Wells on the other side.

Then we picked up the old corduroy road to the mine and started seeing ruins--scattered equipment, collapsed buildings with an old fridge full of rusty tin cans, and even an old shoe. One piece of equipment read "Joshua Hendy Ironworks S.F. CA". (Corduroy roads, with closely-spaced crosslogs, were built over boggy ground so animals and equipment would not sink in.

The stamp mill, where rocks were crushed to extract the gold, was about a half-mile down the corduroy road. It has collapsed a lot since Lethcoe's photograph, but the massive beams supporting the crushers still stand on their concrete footings.

Another half-mile along the road, we found a mine shaft. A drill machine stood along the tracks a short distance in front of the opening. Hydrualic hoses, fittings and various pieces of equipment littered the ground around it.

Trail notes: Land on the sloping black shale beach in the northeast corner of the Hobo Bay, directly north of the buoy charted on 16711 (we didn’t see it), where several stumps stand in a creek delta. The trail isn't visible from the water, but is obvious just south of the creek once you are ashore. The trail runs northeast for a mile across the bog, just east of where the woods thicken and the land slopes upwards. Once you can see the tidal lagoon, the trail continues northwest along the east side of the alder line to a collapsed building, then the corduroy road runs northeast for about a half-mile to the stamp mill. The mine shaft is another half-mile beyond, atop a stable rock pile. Wear waterproof footwear. The trail, particularly the first mile through the bog, is soggy. Note: Lethcoe says the mine is a half-mile walk from Hobo Bay, but it's actually about 1.5 miles to the stamp mill and another half-mile to the mine shaft.

Disk Cove (Bing/Google map) is a sheltered, nearly landlocked cove with mountains all around.

We were out in the dinghy soon after we'd anchored yesterday. Several hills around the cove looked easy to climb, and would have good views. A ten-minute, easy climb from a creek along the east shore brought us to a meadow with a good view of the anchorage below. After the hike, we set off on a tour around Disk Island. At the north end of Foul Pass, a waterfall on Ingot Island spilled down from high above. Foul Pass was complex and interesting to explore, and soon we were almost all the way around. This would have been a nice, easy paddle around the island in the kayaks.

Louis Bay, to the southwest, had even better dinghy territory. At the extreme head of the east arm was a narrow slot with waterfall as backdrop and steep cliffs around--a good place to stern anchor/tie since there wouldn't be wind on the beam. The head of west arm was even more interesting. On the east side was a fairly large and tranquil basin that the dinghy could easily enter on a mid-tide. It looked like a good place to find bears.

On the west side we followed a narrow channel alongside a steep cliff. The channel was deep enough, but the current was strong, so it took a bit of effort to keep the dinghy off the walls. Inside was a tiny tranquil basin with a waterfall behind and cliffs on each side. I went ashore to take some pictures of James in the dinghy, when James yelled "Bear!". A small black bear was lumbering along the waterfall towards the basin. At first we weren't too concerned, as he couldn't reach me by shore, but then we remembered how well bears can swim. I got back in the dinghy pretty quickly after that. The bear didn't seem interested in us though--he clambered up the shore on the other side of the falls and into some shrubs. We could see the bushes shaking for a while after--perhaps it was eating berries.

Two sailboats, Rag Doll of Valdez and Accomplice, already were at opposte sides of the cove inside when we had arrived mid-morning. Later in evening a small cruiser with three boys arrived, avid fisherman all. The three had fishing poles in the water within seconds of the anchor dropping. And after them a large cruiser, Outer Limits, anchored near us with at least five people on board. They worked flat out for at least a couple of hours processing fish. I wonder how much they'd caught?

Anchoring notes: The entrance is tight but doable--we'd comfortably take a larger boat such as a Nordhavn 55 or 63 through. We followed Lethcoe's directions and saw min 20' on a 2' tide, with no current through the entry. We anchored off the east shore in 80' with room for 3:1 scope. The anchor, and chain, came up coated with thick, smelly mud.

View live updates at Bing Maps or Google Maps

We arrived last night in Prince William Sound after seven days at sea. We had a couple of nice days en route, but those were bookended by three days of poor weather at the start, and two days through a gale warning in the Gulf of Alaska at the end. Overall, the boat performed remarkably well throughout.

Here are some trip statistics:

• Total time: 166.7 hours, or 6 days, 22 hours, 40 minutes
• Total distance: 1171 nm
• Fuel consumption: 988.6 gallons
• Average fuel consumption: 5.9 gal/hour
• Average fuel economy: 1.18 nm/gal
• Average speed: 7.03 knots
• Average engine output: 117 hp

We've archived the trip up at Bing/Google and will post our location as we cruise Prince William Sound at Bing/Google.

View live updates at Bing Maps or Google Maps

We are en route to Prince William Sound, returning at the end of August. Earlier this year, we did a minor refit, including installing a KVH TracPhone V7 satellite phone and internet system, and upgrading our TracVision M5 satellite TV system to a TracVision M7. Now that we have offshore connectivity, we'll be updating our location regularly at www.mvdirona.com.

Teakerne Arm Marine Park is a popular summer destination in the Desolation Sound area (map). The main attractions are Cassel Lake and the waterfall draining it that spills over a cliff into a basin at the inlet head. The park is even more spectacular in the winter, when two waterfalls gush from the lake, churning up the basin and filling the air with mist. Our first winter visit there was in 2002, and we returned this winter during our Christmas cruise in the 52.

Mooring there is a challenge, however, as the shore is steep-to all around. Our entry from that 2002 winter trip reads: "We worked really hard to anchor. The first attempt was in 100' with 200' down. We pulled back into the falls, but dragged into 50' depths, so by then were too close to shore. Considered many options--stern tie here and there, perhaps tie bow to ring behind Parks sign and stern to a tree on point east of falls--but didn't want to be sideways to the wind. Eventually we dropped the anchor in 120', put out 350', and pulled back to the point east of the falls. With all this logging equipment around, this would be an ideal place to lose an anchor. We had planned to tie the stern line to a tree up on top of the point, but found a logging ring lower down that was easier and closer. In the end, we spent over an hour getting our spot, but what a spot it was. Gorgeous sunset to the west--the sky suddenly opened just as we were trying to anchor and bathed us in warm sunshine, making it more compelling to stop. The falls are amazing--twins and probably five times the flow of the summer."

Anchoring on this past trip was no easier. To keep things simple, we decided to just anchor where we had in 2002. But the anchor dragged when we tested the set, and again when we tried setting farther out. We brought the anchor all the way up to make sure it wasn't fouled. The Rocna 70 was packed with mud, rock and branches, plus a steel cable was wrapped around the flukes. No wonder it was dragging.

The cable was under tension, and we could see something large hanging from it several feet below the surface. We weren't going to be able to flip the cable off with a boat hook or anything lightweight. This was a good opportunity to test our Ultra trip hook, unused so far in the bow locker. We caught the cable with the trip hook, tied the hook's main line to a cleat on deck, and lowered the anchor out of the way. With the trip hook now holding the cable's weight, we pulled on the trip line. The cable, and whatever was weighing it down, disappeared into the murky depths.

With that problem solved, the anchor readily set on our next attempt. The final stage was running the stern-tie line, another piece of equipment we'd not yet tested. We stern-tie with a messenger. For the 52, Dave White of Whitefab had built us custom reels to mount on the center swimstep staple.

 The system worked perfectly on the first attempt, and we soon were stern-tied to the logging ring on the point.

And, finally, we could go have some fun.

We've never seen so many boats in Liberty Bay. Easily a thousand vessels filled the anchorage, by some counts two or three thousand. This was our first time attending Poulsbo's Third of July Independence Celebration, and the event clearly was popular. We'd been anchored at Nisqually Flats that morning when we read in the Three Sheets Northwest summary of July 4th boat-accessible fireworks displays that Poulsbo would once again have a July 3rd fireworks display. We love fireworks displays, and usually find a good place to watch onboard. But with July 4th being on a "school night", our only likely choice was from our slip at Bell Harbor Marina. As soon as we learned about the Poulsbo display, we weighed anchor and got underway.

We were expecting a big turnout, but were amazed at the number of boats when we arrived around noon. The anchorage was filled from end to end, with many rafts of boats tied together. Rafts of four and five boats were commonplace, many contained at least ten boats, and some groups had formed circular rafts of more than twenty boats--that takes some organization and skill. At the bottom row in the following photos are the large circular rafts of Everett (left) and the Roche Harbor Yacht clubs.

Extreme tidal ranges often seem to occur on summer long weekends, and with a -2.5-foot low tide, this one was no exception. Nearby, a couple of boats were caught in the extensive Poulsbo shallows. With over an hour to go before low tide, one boat was keeled dangerously over to one side. The other sat upright in the mud, and the occupants "made lemonade" by taking the opportunity to clean their hull. Both boats eventually floated off several hours later when the tide came back up.

The fireworks barge arrived in the early afternoon, with workers on board preparing the pyrotechnics for tonight's show.

The barge actually was two barges tied together, with a tug pushing. The tug captain somehow had to make his way to the head of the bay through the crowd of anchored boats. With help from the Poulsbo police boat and others who pushed boats out of the way to clear a path, the tug captain was able to work the barges through the boats and over to the head.

A steady stream of boats arrived all afternoon and evening until the fireworks started. Some anchored on their own, while others joined existing rafts. We found a spot at the southwest corner, on the edge of the shallows, and mostly stayed out of the craziness in the middle, where boats were anchored almost on top of each other. Our radar image below, taken shortly after we arrived, gives you feel for how full the bay already was. The open area in the northwest side is where the fireworks barge was positioned--the police kept it clear of boats.

We had a great afternoon watching all the activity and then sat back to enjoy the fireworks display. Happy 4th of July everyone, and thanks to Three Sheets Northwest for alerting us to the event at Poulsbo.

After a day at Margerie Glacier, we returned down Tarr Inlet to overnight at Reid Inlet. The anchorage there is close to where Tarr and John Hopkins Inlets join Glacier Bay, and is convenient for visiting the glaciers at their heads. Reid Glacier in Reid Harbor also is one of the few shore-accessible glaciers in the park. Like most glacial-carved inlets, Reid Inlet is generally deep throughout. Most boaters anchor in the northwest corner at the inlet mouth, where a spit provides shelter from northerly winds and and reasonable anchoring depths of 20-30 feet. We instead dropped the hook near the head, in 147 feet, for a close-up view of the glacier.

Read more ...

Tramp Harbor is an unusual anchorage on the east side of Vashon Island. The harbor is mentioned in the cruising guides, but not with a glowing recommendation. The anchorage is open to the north and southeast, but makes a good stop when winds are calm or from the west. Southwest winds can blow over the isthmus between Maury and Vashon Islands, but the anchorage is so close to shore that the fetch is minimal and the boat simply moves a bit at anchor. We’ve overnighted there comfortably during gale-force southwest gusts.

Our first few visits were in the winter, when winds are generally from the south, so we originally anchored close to southwest shore. Low tide there brings the residents out to beach-comb and horse-back ride. Recently we've been visiting in the summer, and anchor off the northwest shore, with better protection from the prevailing summer northerly winds. The nearby fish haven attracts scuba divers, who arrive in groups on charter boats to explore underwater.

The area around the narrow strip of land between Vashon and Maury islands is called Portage. Before the land-to-land connection was built, the neck carried water-to-water traffic between Tramp Harbor and Quartermaster Harbor on the other side. The distinctive two-story building visible ashore is the now-closed Portage Store. The store was established in 1903 and operated for a century.

The charted pilings in front of the store are the remains of the old dock where the Mosquito Fleet landed. These ships supplied regular passenger and freight service to Puget Sound communities from 1850 to the 1930s. Reminiscent of those historic vessels, the Royal Argosy on occasion makes a long slow pass through the harbor and around our anchored boat.

Nearby is what we have dubbed the “Portage Fitness Club.” When we last visited the area, old broken-down exercise equipment was strung along the road facing Tramp Harbor. You won’t get much exercise, but you couldn’t ask for a workout with a finer view.

Just south of the fishing pier, a walled abutment makes a good dinghy landing point. We've taken the bikes ashore there for an island tour.

The anchorage is a light show in the evening: against a backdrop of light from Vashon Island and the mainland, six different radio towers on Vashon Island flash within sight and a constant stream of planes land and take off at Sea-Tac airport across East Passage.

Anchoring notes: For good southwest protection, anchor in 3-5 fathoms directly north of the three King radio towers shown on Chart 18448. Better northerly protection is in 6-8 fathoms south of Point Heyer and west of the fish haven.

At the turn of the 19th century, the US government built six forts to protect the Puget Sound and the naval shipyard at Bremerton from water-based attack. All have since been decommissioned and sold to the State of Washington, and five are now state parks. The three heavy batteries at the entrance to Admiralty Inlet are perhaps the most well-known: Fort Worden near Port Townsend, Fort Flagler on Marrowstone Island and Fort Casey, midway along the west shore of Whidbey Island. Middle Point (now Manchester State Park) and Fort Ward, also popular destinations on opposite sides of Rich Passage, provided extra protection for the naval shipyard. (Map of area).

The sixth fortification, Fort Whitman on Goat Island in Skagit Bay, guarded the entrance to Puget Sound through Deception Pass and along the east shore of Whidbey Island. Goat Island is part of the Skagit Wildlife Area rather than a state park, and further differs from the others in being accessible only by water. The fort also is relatively unknown, despite the thousands of boaters that pass close by each year en route through Swinomish Channel. Fort Whitman, like many batteries of the period, is completely invisible from the water. Even though we've been ashore there, when we passed Goat Island on our way to and from TrawlerFest in Anacortes last weekend, we could see no evidence of the fort. The only clue to its existence is the decaying dock along the north side of the island.

The Battery Harrison gun emplacement, with mounts for four six-inch disappearing guns and supporting buildings, form the majority of the fort. When we last visited in 2007, the battery was in good condition, with relatively little graffiti compared to some others we've seen. Even though we were expecting the battery, it's a bit of a shock to find such huge infrastructure tucked away in the woods out of sight.

The remains of a mine field control and observation post are down the road beyond the battery, on the western tip of the island. They were more overgrown than the battery.

If you go: It's an easy dinghy ride or paddle from the Deception Pass area to visit Fort Whitman. The trail to the fort starts along the north shore, behind and about halfway along the dock. The trail head is difficult to spot from the water, but was reasonably obvious once we were ashore. When we were last there, a log was strapped straight up onto another one at the trail head. The going is steep for a short distance, then becomes wide and easy when the trail joins the road to the fort.

When we awoke at Russell Island after our first day in Glacier Bay, AIS showed the pocket cruise ship Safari Explorer anchored out of sight at the north end of the island. They left about 5:30am, heading up Tarr Inlet to Margerie Glacier, and we did the same about 15 minutes later. We were a little disappointed, as we had hoped that by getting up early we'd have some time alone at the glacier. But in the end, we had the place to ourselves for hours. Because its so popular, we were expecting Glacier Bay to be crowded, similar to Desolation Sound Marine Park. But the Glacier Bay comprises 950 square miles of marine waters compared to 32-square-mile Desolation Sound, and the seasonal permit restrictions limit the number of boats per day to at most 2 cruise ships, 3 tour vessels, 6 charter vessels, 1 passenger ferry and 25 private vessels. We were alone more often than not.

We moor most of the time at Bell Harbor Marina in downtown Seattle. About a third of the marina's slips are available for monthly moorage over the winter, and the remainder are for transient moorage only. We enjoy the continually changing scene as boats come and go. Some weekdays the marina will be almost empty, and other times a yacht club will secure every available spot, even med-mooring at times to fit everyone in.

And at the marina's charter dock and the adjacent Terminal 66 Cruise Facility, some of our transient neighbors can be quite large. From May through September, we can step outside at dawn with a cup of coffee and watch a cruise ship slowly approach, make a wide turn and dock a few hundred feet from our boat. Navy ships also frequent that dock--besides the US navy, we've seen French, Canadian, and Russian ships moored there.

Ships on the charter dock have included the refurbished ferry that is the floating sales office for the Point Ruston condo project, the Canadian Forces Auxiliary Vessels Glendale and Glendyne, the Seaspan Monarch.

Recently, the fishing vessel Aquila spent several days on the charter dock. We usually walk down to check out these boats, and were particularly curious about the Aquila. It looked similar to the crab fishing boats we see on Deadliest Catch, and we were wondering why it had come into the marina. Usually boats of that size will moor on the outside pier rather than work their way into the marina.

The Aquila, it turned out, not only was a former Alaska crab fishing boat, but it was a chase boat for the previous Deadliest Catch season. Owner/operators Kale and Angela Garcia had chartered it to Applied Signal Technology, a company that Raytheon had recently purchased. Applied Signal Technology was demonstrating their HD sonar technology to prospective customers throughout the week. That's why the Auqila was inside the marine--the outer dock has much stricter security.

In the pictures below, the large yellow box on deck is the sonar, and the pole attached to the side of the Aquila is used to track the sonar's location. An image taken that day of a wreck off the Elliott Bay sea floor near West Seattle was so clear it looked almost like a photograph.

The Aquila was at Bell Harbor Marina for a week, leaving each afternoon and returning each evening. Kale Garcia is amazingly competent with that boat. The entrance to Bell Harbor Marine is about 75 feet wide and requires a blind, 120 degree turn to port shortly inside, with about 200 feet between the end of the pier and the shore. Below is a video of our entry last week. We find it tight in our 52' boat, with it's 16' 1" beam, particularly if much wind is blowing.

The Aquila is 150' long with a 40' beam--we have no idea how Kale managed to get that boat in and out each day. The first time they arrived, he did a U-turn to come onto the commercial dock. Later in the week, they were backed in, and left by backing out. Whenever that boat was underway, we sat on deck and enjoyed the show. We felt like applauding each time--that was some impressive boat handling.

Glacier Bay has long been high on our list of places to visit. And after nearly a week cruising southeast Alaska, the first day of our permit to enter finally had arrived. We'd technically been in the park for two nights already, as Dundas Bay is inside Glacier Bay National Park, but doesn't require a permit. Glacier Bay proper, however, was the goal--that's where the larger glaciers are. We would stay there for five nights, and spend hours taking in the spectacular rivers of rock and ice.

Read more ...

On our Christmas trip to Desolation Sound this year, we were looking forward to testing the boat in some rough winter weather. We've been out in a few gale warnings, and the boat has handled well, but we wanted something more serious.

We got our chance one morning on a trip from Gorge Harbor to Grace Harbor (map of area). A major SE winter storm was underway, so we set off at first light to check out the conditions. The Strait of Georgia has a reputation for nasty weather year-round, but the north end is particularly bad during southeast winter storms, due to the long fetch and generally stronger winter winds. And opposing current through Discovery Passage and Sutil Channel can make conditions there downright hazardous. We've seen conditions so rough in Sutil Channel that the tough little BC Ferry Tenaka, was tacking on the route between Whaletown and Heriot Bay. And many boats have gone down in the tide rips off Cape Mudge. And the "occasional" bit of wood can appear in the area too. Below are a shots from our approach to Heriot Bay a few days later:

As we exited Gorge Harbor that morning, three-to-four-foot waves were blowing into the entry channel with four-to-six-foot waves just outside. The winds were blowing steady in the forties on our nose from the southeast. We started seeing gusts over fifty knots as we approached Sutil Point, where the waves were about ten feet high and closely packed. Fortunately, there wasn't much wood in the water en route. In the picture below, you can see waves hitting the the back of the boat hard enough to spray up high and pour into the cockpit.

We were heading to Baker Passage north of Hernando Island. We couldn't just turn east once clear of Sutil Point and put those big seas on our beam. So our plan was to continue on a southeast course towards the northwest end of Hernando Island, then turn northeast to enter the channel. And wouldn't you know it, the only other boat out there for miles was heading to exactly the same place. The Alaska Titan, barge in tow, was on an easterly course towards Baker Channel as we headed south. The captain radioed us to ask our intentions. We told him that we were a little constrained by conditions and asked if he could take our stern as he proceeded across our course, then we'd turn up the channel and follow him through the the passage. 

Once the tug had passed behind, we found a relatively calm set of waves to turn 90-degrees to the northeast and head up into Baker Passage. Conditions were calm in the lee of Hernando, then kicked up again as we exited Baker Passage. But they weren't as bad they had been on the first leg, and we have an uneventful remainder of the trip to Grace Harbor.

In the screen shot below, the Alaska Titan is the green triangle on the lower left as we are off Sutil Point. The picture on the right was taken just after we'd turned northeast. The barge is visible in the distance, with the tug almost disappearing off the edge of the window.

We'd been out in similar conditions in the 4087, and were wondering how the 52 would compare, particularly when the waves tried to twist the boat sideways. It might seem silly to imagine that the 4087 possibly could do better, but with two 270HP engines, the 4087 was surprisingly capable in big seas. Putting one engine full forward and the other in full reverse would generally bring the boat around pretty quickly when needed. With only a single 266HP engine, we thought the 52 might be less maneuverable. But the boat's weight and that big rudder seemed to make up for the difference in engine configuration. We had no trouble with the waves twisting the boat around, nor with making the 90-degree turn from southeast to northeast off Hernando Island. And another big plus was that we were able to run on autopilot the whole way. The autopilot on the 4087 couldn't keep up with big seas like that, so we'd have to steer manually, which required much effort at the helm. On the 52, we could just sit back in the pilot house and mostly take in the show.

Here's some video footage we shot along the way:

Two weeks ago, while anchored off Blake Island, a Defender Class Coast Guard boat approached. Rare before 9/11, we now frequently see these boats around Elliott Bay, accompanying ferries, patrolling the shoreline, or passing through Bell Harbor Marina where we often keep our boat. This one approached unusually close, and the crew indicated that they wanted to board us.

As they approached Dirona from the swimstep, a crewman at the bow counted down the feet between the two boats so the helmsman could stop their vessel just shy of contact. Then three of the five heavily-armed crew came aboard to inspect the boat, while the other two stayed aboard a short distance away.

The boarding crew introduced themselves and explained the process. The first question was if we had any firearms on board. Then they asked to see our identification and proof of ownership/registration. The next item was checking for sufficient lifejackets. We carry 2 Mustang MD3183 inflatables, 2 Mustang 2175 flotation suits, a Mustang Floation Bomber Jacket, 2 offshore lifejackets, 2 Stearns 29-79 Type III vests, 2 Stearns waist-pouch inflatables, and 6 near-shore Type IIs.

After the lifejackets, they asked about pyros. I wondered to myself why they would care if we had pyrometers on board, but it was pyrotechnics (flares) they were after. The final concern was that black water didn't discharge overboard, and then we were done. The boarding crew was polite and efficient--the whole process took less than 15 minutes.

Since we're out on the water so much over the past decade and the Coast Guard has never boarded any of our boats, we felt due. Most boardings we're familiar with have, however, been of vessels underway. The weather that day might have been part of the reason for the at-anchor boarding--it had been foggy earlier that morning. The boarding crew told us that they were out boarding boats and were worried there wouldn't be any out there in the fog.

We spent Christmas this year in Desolation Sound (map of area). The area is so popular in the summer that Kenmore Air has regular float-plane service to one of the anchorages there at Prideaux Haven (pictured above). That's way too busy for us--we prefer the winter, when we can have it all to ourselves. We made our initial Christmas trip there in 2002 in the 4087, but this was our first visit in the new boat.

Desolation Sound is about 200 miles from Seattle and would take about 25 hours of running at eight knots, or nearly 3 days if we didn't run at night (we barely get 8 hours of daylight in the winter). We decided to run 24x7 to get there, partly because we are time-constrained, and partly to gain more experience in running overnight. Besides this being a much shorter run than the one to Alaska, we expected to encounter more traffic and more wood in the water. And we would need to clear Customs to enter Canada.

We left Seattle around 6pm. I had the helm while James finished off some work until we reached Port Townsend at 10pm. The next leg was to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca and clear customs in Oak Bay, where we expected to arrive about 2:30am. Because the trip would only be a night or so, we didn't bother establishing regular shifts, and just tried to get sleep where we could. On the first night of a trip, James usually needs a while to relax before sleeping, and I can sleep pretty much anytime. So I slept until about midnight with James at the helm, then we switched until about a half-hour before reaching Oak Bay.

Conditions were reasonable across the Strait, although they kicked up a bit (as they always seem to) off Oak Bay. We'd not seen much traffic on the way up, but a couple of large ships were in the traffic lanes off Victoria. We could see them clearly via AIS and radar though, and could learn about them on the VTS channel. We also ended up participating in VTS ourselves pretty much the whole way to Desolation Sound. Dirona is under 20 meters long, so we aren't required to participate, but Traffic often contacts us because they can see us on AIS. As we exited the lanes in the Strait of Juan de Fuca around midnight, Seattle Traffic had asked our destination and then later had handed us off to Victoria Traffic, who presumed we were participating and requested we call in at various points. We didn't mind, as it increased our "visibility" to other vessels, even though most could see us in AIS anyway.

We are NEXUS card holders and can clear into Canada or the US over the phone. On the US side, once cleared you can go where you want, but Canada Customs still requires boaters to present themselves for possible inspection at one of several designated docks. We like to clear in Oak Bay, as it's right at the border and doesn't take us too far out of our way. We'd entered Oak Bay many times before during the day, but were surprised how difficult it was at night--the channel felt half the size that we remembered. Entry requires a bit of a dogleg around the breakwater, and the starboard buoy just inside appeared to be right in the middle of the channel. The overhead spotlight helped, but it still felt pretty tight. We generally don't like entering new harbors at night, and entering this familiar harbor only emphasized that feeling.

James took the helm for a few hours until the south end of Sidney Island while I slept, then I took over and brought us through Active Pass while James slept. We saw a bit more traffic en route, mostly ferries, but again all were clearly visible on AIS. And we didn't see much wood in the water, which was a real surprise, and one of our concerns running at night through the inside passage. The wood part did change as we got further north though. One thing we had done since the last overnight run was to get a proper-sized fitted sheet for the off-watch berth, plus a sleeping pad. This helped tremendously--the bed was much more comfortable.

We popped out in the Strait of Georgia around 8am and continued north as the sun rose. We realized then that we'd beaten the 4087 again. In the 4087, had we left Seattle the night before, we likely have stopped at Port Townsend that night and crossed the Strait of Juan de Fuca early the next morning. There would have been no point in running across overnight, as we'd need to refuel, and the fuel dock wouldn't open until at least 8am. We would need another 3-4 hours to reach the east entrance to Active Pass from Oak Bay, and probably wouldn't reach there until at least noon.

Last weekend we presented at the Seattle Boat Show on our 24x7 run to Alaska.  The slides are posted at Hamilton_SBS11_Alaska24x7.pdf.  A couple of questions we were asked that weren't covered in the presentation were on seasickness and how Spitfire did on the trip.

Seasickness generally isn't a problem for James, but I will get seasick if the conditions are rough enough. I'm still functional when I'm seasick, but I just can't hold down any food or even liquid. Normally this isn't a big deal, and I don't bother taking any medication, as its generally only a problem for a few hours until we reach shelter. But on this trip, that wasn't going to be an option. So I got a prescription for "the patch" (Transderm Scop patch) to use in case I needed it. On the first night of the trip up to Alaska, we went through the Strait of Juan de Fuca during a gale warning (trip map). The wind was on our bow against the current, and the waves were steep and tightly packed. I actually was fine that night, perhaps because I was either at the helm or sleeping most of the time. But the next day conditions were still pretty rough and, while alert and functioning, I couldn't keep down any food. That night I applied a patch and it helped substantially. I did have some side-effects though: dilated pupils, a bad taste in my mouth and I was quite drowsy the first night I used it. But that was better than the alternatives--and I was able to eat most foods. I used the patch for the remainder of the trip up. You can see it behind my right ear in the picture below.

On the return trip, conditions were fine the first night, but we hit a gale warning the second night through Hecate Strait. The wind again was on our bow, also with steep, tightly-packed waves. I got seasick, so I wore the patch just until conditions settled down about 24 hours later. I was fine the rest of the trip down the west coast of Vancouver Island without it.

Spitfire mostly did quite well on the trip. When the water is really rough and the boat is moving a lot, he can get scared. Usually he settles down if we get a towel or blanket for him to wrap himself up in and hide (using the "If I can't see it then it can't see me" approach to scary situations).  He can get seasick too, so we control his food intake and only give him small amounts throughout the day. He did lose his kibbles in the Strait of Juan de Fuca that first night out, partly because he'd had a full meal earlier, but was fine after that. The boat motion was severe enough at some points that we felt safer moving around by crawling, and Spitfire adapted to that too. He'd sleep with one paw sticking out, like an outrigger, to stabilize himself. And he adopted a method of going down stairs we called "Front, front, hinds." Normally he runs down stairs with only one paw hitting a given step. But in the rough water, he'd carefully bring one front paw down, then the next to join it, then his hind paws, and then move to the next step.  

And once conditions settled down, Spitfire had a great time. He especially liked to "work" the graveyard shift with James. In foggy conditions, we turned on a large floodlight mounted high on the stack. Our experience with fishing boats is that the spotlight is visible from much greater distances in the fog than the navigation lights. Particularly when the floodlight was on, seabirds buzzed the boat and Spitfire charged back and forth along the dash top chasing them. And he likes to sleep in unusual places sometimes, so he adapted to the ocean swell by finding spots he could wedge himself into.

The seminar schedule for the 2011 Seattle Boat Show has been posted. This year we’ll be presenting on Saturday Jan. 22nd at 11:30am on our trip to Alaska this summer.

We'll be describe our 5-day, 2-crew, 24x7 offshore run from Seattle directly to SE Alaska, and share highlights of our visit. We'll also discuss how we've rigged Dirona for this and similar trips, and any lessons learned regarding equipment and other choices we've made.

After the astonishing view to Mt. La Perouse in Dundas Bay West Arm, we didn't think the north arm could compare. But we were wrong--we liked the north arm even better. The head of the bay felt almost land-locked, with steep mountains all around. In the calm, glacial green waters, we felt as if we'd anchored in Lake Louise. Plus the area was rife with bluffs for a hike with a view.  (Map of area.)

Read more ...

Nope--these pictures were taken in the south Puget Sound earlier today. We're out on a Thanksgiving cruise, and were anchored last night in the cove behind Raft Island (map of area). Temperatures were slightly above freezing yesterday, with a light snowfall. This morning we woke to a layer of snow on deck and a temperature of 29F. By the time we raised anchor, a good 4 inches had accumulated. Freezing temperatures in November are rare in the Puget Sound. According to SeaTac airport records, the high has been 32F or less in November only 14 days since 1945.

We cruised south to tie off at Penrose Park Marine park and walk ashore in the snow. A layer of ice covered the surface there and pushed against us as we moved towards the dock.

The park looked beautiful in the snow. No other footprints marked the surface--we apparently were the first ones there that day.

We couldn't stay the night, as the water level at the dock was 9' and the tide was going to drop in 11' to -2.1' that night. As we prepared to leave, a pair of ducks cut a path through the ice, perhaps to show us how easy it was.

We're now anchored in Filucy Bay as a major storm system is moving through. The temperature at 27F and falling, and we've seen wind gusts to 35 so far as the storm approaches. The system apparently is much stronger than the models predicted, and likely will bring more snow. It will be interesting to see what we wake up to tomorrow.

Porcupine Bay was our last stop on the west side of Chichagof Island--we would spend the next week in Glacier Bay National Park. We still had two more days before we could enter the permit-only portion of the park, but we planned to spend a night or two in Dundas Bay first. (Dundas Bay is in the park, but is outside the restricted area.) We weren't really sure what to expect there, from either an anchorage or a scenery perspective, but the area turned out to be excellent on both measures.

Read more ...

From Klag Bay, we toured north along the west shore of Chichagof Island, overnighting at Kimshan Bay and Porcupine Cove. We could easily have spent days in the area--the charts show a complex shoreline ideal for exploration by dinghy or kayak, along with several sheltered anchorages (map of area).

Read more ...

When we planned the offshore run directly from Seattle to Alaska, we'd allowed ourselves a day or so to recuperate and several days for weather delays before our permit entry date for Glacier Bay. We decided to spend a few days exploring the outer coast of Chichagof Island if we arrived early. We ended up not needing any of those buffer days, so had five nights before we were scheduled to enter Glacier Bay. Our first anchorage was at Klag Bay, about 65 miles north of Sitka (map of area). Sheltered anchorage is at the head, and ashore are the ruins of the abandoned mining town of Chichagof.

Read more ...

Our Alaska trip was simply amazing. The glaciers and mountain scenery were incredible—we spent over a week in Glacier Bay National Park and several days in Tracy and Endicott Arms (trip map). We also cruised the complex outer coasts of Chichagof, Baranof and Prince of Wales Island, but barely scratched the surface there. The outer coast wildlife was particularly impressive—we saw hundreds of sea otters, pods of humpback whales, and coves so thick with salmon that you could walk across the surface on the protruding fins.

We ran 24x7 directly from Seattle along the west coast of Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands, and reached the Glacier Bay area in 5 days. The total distance to our first anchorage was about 875 nautical miles. As is often the case for us, the worse conditions we hit were close to home. We left Seattle in the early evening and near midnight reached the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where the traffic lanes converge for all vessels moving in and out of the Puget Sound, Victoria and Vancouver. There, a westerly near-gale blowing against an ebb current was producing steep and closely-packed waves. Traffic was heavy and a thick fog reduced visibility to less than a half-mile. With the wind and waves on our bow, we slogged through that overnight and into the next morning, at times slowing down to 4.5 knots to reduce boat motion. The seas settled down as we exited the strait.

The rest of the run north was mostly uneventful. We ran about 50 miles offshore all the way, and encountered little traffic beyond the south end of Vancouver Island. The wind often blew 20-25 knots from the northwest and the waves sometimes were quite large. At times we could look straight out the pilot house to the wave tips (pictured below), but they weren’t tightly packed as in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. With the active stabilizers on, the ride was reasonably comfortable, although moving about inside the boat required care. Frequent thick fog limited visibility, but this didn’t pose much of a concern either with so little traffic. Overall, Dirona handled the trip with ease. Thanks to PAE and South Coast Marine for building a strong and capable boat, and to Emerald Harbor Marine for a high-quality commissioning.

In planning the route, we originally had considered clearing Canadian Customs in Victoria, then heading up the west coast of Vancouver Island and passing east of the Queen Charlotte Islands, through Hecate Strait, to clear U.S. Customs in Ketchikan. But the more we learned about Hecate Strait, the less appealing that plan became. The waterway is relatively shallow throughout, a few hundred feet at best, with only tens of feet at the north end. Southerly winds funnel through and steep seas develop quickly. One of our favorite local weather books, the now out-of-print Marine Weather Hazards Manual, says of Hecate Strait: “Because of the speed that the winds and seas can change, it has been said that Hecate Strait is the fourth most dangerous body of water in the world.” So we decided to just run offshore the whole way and perhaps clear in Sitka rather than in Ketchikan. Clearing customs, however, takes time in having to divert our course to an appropriate reporting station, and we’d have to deal with food and alcohol restrictions. Canada Customs said they had no policy on allowing alcohol beyond a very small amount to be carried through by boat, although an officer could choose to allow it. To be on the safe side, we’d need to stick to the limits and stock up when we cleared back into the US, costing more time. We weren’t planning to stop in Canada anyway, so we decided not to clear customs, saving many hours. If we did have to stop for safety reasons, we were told we could clear over the phone via Nexus, but they might send the RCMP out to inspect us as there are no reporting stations on the west coast of Vancouver Island or the Queen Charlotte Islands.

Alaska is a trip that we’ve wanted to make for a number of years, but you really need 3 months to do it right, and 2 months at a minimum. A large chunk of that time is spent just covering the 600 miles to the Alaska border, plus another 350 to reach Glacier Bay proper. We’ve never had more than four weeks off at a time, so the trip just didn’t seem feasible. But what we have been finding with the new boat is that, rather than the slower speed restricting where we can go compared the previous boat, we actually are travelling farther.

We were able to reach the Glacier Bay area in 5 days running 24x7. Reaching the same area in the previous faster boat, a Bayliner 4087, would have taken longer. To travel longer distances in the 4087, say 400 miles from Seattle to Queen Charlotte Sound, we typically ran from dawn to dusk, or about 14 hours per day. We cruised at about 14 knots, but often would average about 12 with wind and current. At that rate, we’d need to replenish our 220-gallon diesel supply daily, costing up to two hours to divert to a fuel dock and fill, and we’d likely have to slow down to manage our fuel consumption as fuel docks aren’t very frequent north of Vancouver island. So at best we could cover about 150 miles per day. In perfect conditions, it would take about 6 days to cover the same 875-mile distance to the Glacier Bay area, plus another half day to clear customs in Ketchikan and stock up on anything we couldn’t bring through Canada. In that period, however, there’d almost certainly be a weather delay, so the total trip likely would take more than a week. And we’d be tired at the end of that run. The 4087 wasn’t particularly loud, but the interior noise and vibration from the engines is substantial, and running at 14 knots requires a fair amount of focus at the helm.

That the 52 is so much quieter and comfortable underway is one of the reasons we’ve been finding that we can cover more ground. After our 5-day, 875-mile 24x7 run, we arrived at our first anchorage in surprisingly good shape. We certainly slept well that first night, but first we had dinner on deck and a relaxing evening.

The fridge and freezer are filled, and the dry goods and spares are stowed. Tonight we set off for Alaska.

Most summers we spend a bit of time between the northern tip of Vancouver island and the Alaska border. This year is a little different for two reasons. First, we’re heading further north than in the past and will spend some time in Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve. The second thing that makes this trip a bit different is, weather permitting, we’ll be making the nearly thousand-mile one-way trip as an offshore crossing. It’ll take roughly 5 days to cover the distance running 24x7 off the coast of British Columbia and Alaska.

You might ask why we would want to make the trip running 24x7 offshore when the shoreline of BC is one of the most beautiful in the world. It truly is wonderful and we do love the area. We’ve even written a book about it (Cruising the Secret Coast). We’re skipping the coast and heading directly to Alaska as a way to enjoy Alaska by boat when we really can’t get enough time off work to do the trip at a more conventional, relaxed pace. The other reason to run directly there is it’s a chance to try running 24x7 and see how it goes. Think of it as an ocean crossing with training wheels. If it gets unpleasant, we can always turn right and head to BC. And, it will be an adventure.

We’ll be back the first week of September. Have a good rest of your summer.

We spent the July 4th Independence Day weekend anchored at the head of the Hood Canal (route map). We went mainly because we’d not anchored there before, and were planning to stay only for the 3rd. This, however, turned out to be a great place to watch fireworks. Private displays are illegal in most cities in the region, such as Seattle and Bellevue. But we’ve discovered that they are legal in unincorporated regions, and everyone seems to set them off. Last year we anchored off Penrose Point Marine Park, in unincorporated Pierce County, and enjoyed great local displays and distant public ones such as Tacoma's.

At the head of the Hood Canal, in unincorporated Mason County, the “pre-displays” on the 3rd were so good that we stayed for the next night. And wow, were we impressed—this was easily the best private display we’ve seen. The head appears almost land-locked at night, and houses ring the shore. It seemed that everyone was setting off some fairly high-end fireworks—the effect was a near 360-degree constant display. We’ll definitely be back.  

We’ve anchored in the Hood Canal a number of times, but mainly nearer to the mouth and always before the Great Bend. We’d travelled to the head at speed once on a day trip in the previous boat a almost a decade ago, but had never anchored there. The head is a just a long way—about 90 miles from Seattle. You have to travel 30 miles north to Port Ludlow and then 60 miles south all the way to the head. At this point, less than two miles of land separates the head of the Hood Canal from the head of Case Inlet in the south Puget Sound, but Case Inlet is only about 55 miles by boat from Seattle.

Surprisingly, we’re finding our short-term cruising range has increased with the 52 rather than decreased, even though it runs a good 5 knots slower. The difference between 14 knots and 8 knots is really not that huge anyway, in terms of distance possible in a day. The big factor is that the 52 is so much more comfortable to run for longer periods of time that we travel farther, and still arrive more relaxed and refreshed than before. Reaching the head of the Hood Canal felt like an easy run.

The week before last, our home was up in the air next to Emerald Harbor Marine's shop at Canal Boatyard in Ballard. Although we're happy to be back at Bell Harbor, we had a good week. Living aboard in the yard was an adventure, and we enjoyed exploring Ballard and visiting its many pubs. We'd lived on the 4087 while it was in the yard last fall, but the 52 is so much nicer. Grey water tanks make a major difference--we can shower on the boat and live almost normally so long as we minimize the waste water.

The boatyard is on freshwater behind the Ballard Locks. Our initial plan was to go through on Sunday night in preparation for a haul-out on Monday. But we decided to go early and spend the weekend on Lake Washington instead. Because locking through is a bit of a hassle and a time-burner, we don't go through very often.

We arrived at the locks late Friday evening (trip route). Depending on traffic, boats are directed into the small lock (30 x 150 ft, 8.5 x 45.7 meter) or the large (80 x 825 ft, 24.4 x 251.5 meter). We were travelling against the flow--boaters who keep their vessels on freshwater pour out on Friday night and return on Sunday. On busy weekends, passing through can take a while. The large lock had a full load of boats exiting, so we went directly into the small locks. The small lock is easier to manage for two reasons. Unlike the large lock, the guide walls in the small lock float, so lines don't have to be tended as the water level changes. The other, more important reason, is that fewer boats can fit inside the small lock. With our 16' beam, rafting is less likely with the roughly 12' left beside us. In the large lock, boats of all sizes are rafted 4 and 5 deep. It can get pretty hairy in there as everyone tries to navigate the confined and sometimes turbulent waters.

We're often asked how the 52's deeper draft has impacted our cruising, and in particular whether we'd still enter the many shallow-entry anchorages we describe in Cruising the Secret Coast. The deeper draft would only preclude entry from perhaps a half-dozen of them, and some we weren't keen to re-enter even in the 4087. So far, however, water draft hasn't been much of a concern, it's the roughly 30' air draft we've had to pay more attention to. This definitely was the case entering Lake Washington. Seven bridges cross the route from saltwater to Lake Washington, and another two cross the lake itself. We could safely pass under all but one, but most were close enough to warrant a careful look.

The first bridge we passed under was the Salmon Bay Bridge, just before the locks, with a 41' clearance. After the locks is the Ballard Bridge (44' clearance), the Fremont Bridge (30'), the Aurora Bridge (135'), the Ship Canal Bridge (127'), the University Bridge (42') and the Montlake Bridge (46'). The the Aurora and Ship Canal Bridges are fixed, and the rest are drawbridges. Running across Lake Washington are the SR-520 Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, with a clearance of 45' at the west end and 75' at the east end; and the I-90 floating bridge, with a vertical clearance of 35' at the west end and 33' feet at the east end. The Waggoner Cruising Guide has an excellent map of the route with the bridge clearances clearly indicated.

Pictured below are the Salmon Bay Bridge on the left and the Fremont Bridge on the right. Depending on the water level, we might have just squeeked under the Fremont Bridge, but a sailboat was already waiting for it to open so we went through with them. One long and one short horn blast is the signal to open the bridge--the bridge tender responds in kind if the bridge can be opened, or with 5 short blasts if not. The large bridge visible beyond the Fremont Bridge is the fixed-span Aurora Bridge, the last bridge before entering Lake Union. When the bridge was opened in 1932, it completed the final link of U.S. Highway 99 between Canada and Mexico. The bridge was built to allow large ships to pass through, but not the commercial sailing ships of the previous era. A locally famous picture shows one of the last tall ships to exit Lake Union, the Monongahela, before the final span was put in place. The Aurora Bridge also is home to the Fremont Troll.

The Lake Washington Ship Canal connects the Ballard Locks with Lake Washington. The first leg, the Fremont Cut, runs from the locks to Lake Union. The Fremont Cut has a long tradition of maritime industry. Fisherman's Terminal there is home to most of Seattle's commercial fishing fleet, including boats from The Deadliest Catch. Foss Maritime's headquarters are nearby. Just beyond our eventual destination, Canal Boatyard, is Kvichak Marine Industries. Docked outside their facility were three beautiful pilot boats bound for The Netherlands. The capable-looking craft are powered by twin Cat C32 ACERT 12-cylinder 1,300 HP engines and have top speeds of 28.5 knots fully-loaded.

East of the Aurora Bridge, the Fremont Cut ends at Lake Union. The lake is wringed with parks, float homes, marinas and restaurants and has wonderful city views. (The picture at the top of this blog entry is looking south across Lake Union to downtown Seattle.) The lake also is home to Kenmore Air, with floatplane service throughout Washington State and southern B.C.

From Lake Union, we passed under Ship Canal Bridge and the University Bridge into Portage Bay. The final bridge on our route that day, the Montlake Bridge, spans Montlake Cut, the last leg of the Lake Washington Ship Canal. On the first Saturday in May, the waterways and streets surrounding the cut are packed with attendees and participants in Seattle Yacht Club's Opening Day Parade and the Windemere Cup rowing regatta. Regatta crews traditionally paint their team's names along the cut walls.

Spitfire kept a careful watch as we ran through the cut. We passed by, but not under, the SR-520 Evergreen Point floating bridge. The city of Bellevue is visible in the distance behind the bridge.

We anchored for the night in Cozy Cove near Kirkland, off the east shore of the lake. Multi-million dollar houses wring the shore there, but are far enough away that we still had plenty of privacy. On Hunts's Point to our east, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, singer Kenny G and cellular phone pioneer Craig McGraw own adjacent estates. The bottom left shot is the view looking north from our anchorage in the evening and the bottom right was taken late the next morning. Evenings typically are quiet on Lake Washington, but during the day boats of all sizes ply the waters. Water skiing and jet skis are popular.

Saturday was warm and sunny, ideal for a lake cruise. We'd not navigated from the fly bridge much yet, so this also was a good chance to test the equipment. Although the pilot house definitely has the best setup, we've setup the fly bridge to have much the same functionality available. In addition to basic controls and equipment, we have a Maretron DSM-250 display, and a Furuno MFD8 display that hooks into the NavNet 3D system and is a backup server for the Furuno BlackBox down below. Everything worked well, and we had a great time cruising up top.

We'd did a slow tour to the north end of the lake, then turned south and passed under the SR-520 bridge and along the east side of Mercer Island. The I-90 fixed bridge there, pictured above, has a 200' clearance. Coming back along the west side of Mercer Island, we considered anchoring in Andrew's Bay off the west shore, but it was literally packed with boats. We instead continued north and passed under east part of the floating portion of I-90 bridge, where the clearance is 33'. We anchored for the night off Luther Burbank Park at the northeast tip of Mercer Island. It felt a little exposed, but is the same as Andrews Bay with respect to the prevailing northerly winds, and we had it all to ourselves.

OOn Sunday, we passed under the west side of the SR-520 floating bridge, with 35' of clearance, and reversed our path back through the Lake Washington Ship Canal to the boatyard. Traffic through Montlake Cut was a lot heavier than when we'd come through on Friday night, but was typical for a sunny summer day.

Lynwood Center, tucked into the corner at the west end of Rich Passage, has become one of our close-to-home favorites. It's nearness to the ferry routes and other traffic in Rich Passage make it an unusual anchorage. When we first stopped there, we expected that ferry wakes in particular would toss the boat a fair bit, but the anchorage is surprisingly calm (we surmise through a combination of the ferries slowing to take the corner and their east-west wake cancelling out the north-south wake.)

Diving birds provide constant entertainment, and on clear days the anchorage has a great view to Mount Rainier, but we especially enjoy watching the traffic through Rich Passage. Most memorable was a navy submarine that passed through from Bremerton with an impressive escort of two Coast Guard cutters, three high-speed Coast Guard RIBs and two large Navy tugs.

Public shore access is close by at the Schel-chelb Estuary, owned by the Bainbridge Island Parks and Recreation District. You can land there and walk a short distance to Lynwood Center. We stopped once at the bright and airy Treehouse Café for an excellent thin-crust pizza with a microbrew on tap. Lynwood Center also has a small grocery store, a movie theatre and a couple of other restaurants. Returning, we discovered that the tide comes in a long way. James had to wade out in his jeans, in cold winter weather, to rescue our stranded dinghy.

Last weekend we anchored there in the new boat for the first time. We had expected the 52 to roll significantly more than the hard-chined 4087 when a wake did come through, but so far we've been pleasantly surprised.

Anchoring notes: Anchor in 3-4 fathoms in the bight along the north shore at the west end of Rich Passage. North and southeast wind protection is good, but southwest winds blowing across Port Orchard can force substantial waves into Rich Passage. The Schel-chelb Estuary (see http://www.ci.bainbridge-isl.wa.us/shoreline_access_guidebook.aspx) is at the north corner where the road passes over a culvert.

We spent the final two nights of our mid-March shakedown cruise in Hammersley Inlet. Shelton and the Oakland Bay Marina are at the elbow of Hammersley Inlet, where it bends into Oakland Bay. We've anchored in the area many nights, and spent hours exploring the area by dinghy and on foot. We enjoy the industry: the timber mill off Shelton, Taylor Shellfish Farms, and a complex gravel mine conveyer and barge-loading system that moves the barge back and forth rather than the conveyor. We even enjoy seeing the trucks full of logs pass on nearby State Route 3 on their way to the mill. And at night, the sky glows in the distance from the mill lights. There's also plenty of nature to enjoy, particularly at high tide when a dinghy can reach into deep into the drying heads.

We rarely see other boats at anchor in the area. A major reason is navigating Hammersley Inlet. The waterway looks difficult on Chart 18547 (and even harder on a smaller-scale chart), but is generally wide and reasonably deep. Only a few tight spots require careful course selection. The main navigation challenge is oncoming traffic, particularly tugboats with barges. In that case, the tugboat operator selects their course, and you take what is left. We didn't encounter any tug traffic this trip, and visibility was much better than on some of our previous visits, when the fog was so thick we could hardly see the shore on either side.

We travelled to Hammersley Inlet from Stretch Island Marine Park at the north end of Case Inlet  (route details). The most direct route there is through Pickering Passage along the west side of Harstene Island. Halfway along is the Harstene Island bridge, with a clearance of 31 feet at mean high water. The tide level was 13 feet and mean high water there is 24 feet. With our estimated air draft of 30 feet (we'd not yet measured it) there should be ten feet between the bridge and the top of our the stack. We approached slowly, judged we had sufficient room, then carefully worked our way through. We had plenty of room, although the clearance seemed more like five feet than ten.

Given the clearance appeared closer than documented, we wanted a way to precisely check the close ones. So we measured our air draft with a Fluke 411D laser distance meter and got 30.5' feet from the waterline to the top of the stack. We then measured the distance from a fixed point on the bow to the waterline and got 7.1'. That means we would need 23.4' (30.5'-7.1') above the bow in order to clear a bridge.

Now when we approached a bridge, we can put just poke the bow under, and measure the distance to the bridge with the laser meter. If we have at least 23.4 feet, then we can clear.

A major spring storm was forecast to hit the Puget Sound on Friday. A 972-mb low over southern Vancouver Island would generate storm-force winds along the  Washington state coast. A gale warning was in effect for the more-protected Puget Sound, and winds there were forecast to reach 30-40 knots, with wind waves of 5-7 feet. Perfect. We'd get a chance to test the new boat in rough waters.

The storm was at its worst when we left Bell Harbor Marina Friday afternoon. Winds at nearby West Point were southerly 37 knots, gusting to 41. The main fairway out of the Bell Harbor Marina runs alongside a sloping rock wall--the lower the tide, the smaller the fairway. We left on a zero-foot low tide, with the wall to port and a boat on the end of the dock to starboard. This gave us about 30 feet of usable fairway, or only about 8 feet on either side of our 16' beam. This sounds like plenty, but with a new boat and a strong wind, it actually was tighter than it sounds . The east-west channel from the marina into Elliott Bay also is narrow, and waves were breaking across the entrance. But we had no trouble navigating the fairway or exiting the marina. The boat felt solid and stable.

Outside, large waves swept across Elliott Bay and broke high up on the bow of the 650-foot freighter Westwood Columbia as it approached Seattle from the northwest.

Conditions were rough but tolerable. We ran at 8 knots about halfway across Elliott Bay, on a southwesterly course for Yukon Harbor. This put the waves pretty much on our nose. After burying the bow a few times, we pulled off some speed to reduce the motion. We ran most of the way without the stabilizers, to see how the boat felt, and found it pretty comfortable.

According to Cliff Mass' Storm Review, the maximum gusts at West Point reached 53 knots that afternoon. Conditions probably were in the top ten for worse that we've experienced on the previous boat. We normally would have been worn-out after arriving, but the 52 handled the conditions with ease. Everything stayed put and we arrived at Yukon Harbor fairly relaxed and comfortable. One thing we've done to prepare for rough water in both boats is to have a way to secure everything, inside and out. Even with no safety risk, having things moving is distracting and disconcerting. Offshore sailors reported that loose items shifting and falling reduces a crew’s confidence in their vessel’s safety. On the 52, we've installed D-rings in the cockpit and boat deck and use ratchet straps to secure everything on deck.

Yukon Harbor is another one of our unusual anchorages. The bay is exposed to the north, but has good holding and excellent southwest protection. We overnight there a lot, particularly in the winter when prevailing winds are from the south. Safely at anchor, we fired up the barbecue and had a relaxing steak dinner.

From Eagle Island, we made a short trip to another favorite anchorage at Nisqually Flats. The anchorage is a bit unusual, but we love the mountain views in both directions. Conditions generally are calm unless the winds pick up from the north, so even on overcast days, its a good anchorage. Mount Rainier wasn't quite as visible as at Eagle Island yesterday, although still was dramatic, but the Olympics were very clear. And we were happy to hear the piper as she walked along the shore.

We spent a couple of days at Nisqually, unpacking our endless pile of boxes and testing out the various systems. The warm weather continued, and the temperature was warm enough that we could have a morning coffee break outside on the boat deck.

The boat deck on the 52 is 2 feet longer than the 47, giving us plenty of space for a table. But that extended deck, plus a deeper swim platform, made launching the dinghy from stern a challenge. The capability to launch to all three locations--port starboard and stern--was important to us though. To accommodate a stern launch, we upgraded the davit from a Steelhead SM1500R with a 12' reach to a custom Steelhead ES1100 with a 16' reach, and moved the standpipe aft 1'3". This has worked out well--we can launch the dinghy single-handed to all three positions.

We also tested out deploying the flopper stopper, which was relatively straightforward. Conditions were so calm that we couldn't gauge how well it would work though. Since the stack on the 52 has been moved aft compared to the 47, we moved the whisker pole mount aft a similar amount, so that the topping lift would connect directly above the pole on the exhaust stack.

Friday afternoon we cruised south from Bell Harbor Marina for a week-long shakedown cruise in the South (Puget) Sound. We visit there frequently--it's easily accessible from Seattle and has excellent anchorages, many with views to Mount Rainier and the Olympic Mountains. Relatively few boaters visit however, compared to the cruising grounds to the north, such as the San Juan Islands.  We know many people who have cruised the Pacific Northwest for years, but have never visited the South Sound.

Definitions of the South Sound vary, but we never feel officially there until we've passed under the Tacoma Narrows Bridges.

The weather was clear and at 59°F, unseasonably warm for March in the Pacific Northwest, with great mountain views. Below are the snow-covered Olympic Mountains viewed over the Fox Island bridge.

That night we stopped at Eagle Island Marine State Park, a long-time favorite of ours.  Mount Rainer was out in fully glory, with a colorul sunrise the next morning.

While underway yesterday, we received an email from Paul & Linda Dugger, saying "What a beautiful craft. Your new boat is glistening in the morning sun." They had noticed Dirona at anchor and sent some pictures taken from the deck of their house on Anderson Island. What an amazing view they must have from their deck, and we sure appreciate them sending us the pictures.

One of the many advantages of boating in the Pacific Northwest is that we can cruise year-round. While many boaters here do winterize their boats, they typically don’t have to do as much work as northeast coast boaters. Seaworthy, the BoatUS Marine Insurance & Damage Avoidance Report, often carries stories of winter damage claims where ice and snow-covered boats either sunk at the dock or were seriously damaged. These boats typically are in the central and northeastern United States, where winters are cold and long with plenty of snow. In Who Needs to Winterize?, however, they report that state with the their highest number of freezing-related claims was California. Because winters aren’t as harsh, people don’t take winter preparations as seriously, so cold snaps and storms pose a greater risk.

The article provides tips for winterizing a boat and concludes with a recommendation to stow or remove biminis over the winter. The bimini provides no protection, and can be destroyed or age prematurely. This is good advice to follow no matter where you keep your boat. An extended bimini acts like a sail in strong winds. A few years back, a winter storm destroyed the bimini of the boat moored next to us at Elliott Bay Marina, and we’ve seen others damaged as well.

Seaworthy documents real claims and discusses how they might be prevented, in order to improve boating safety. Like Safety Digest, it is a publication every boater should read. Learning from the mistakes of others is much cheaper and safer than learning from your own.

Nisqually Flats is an Unusual Puget Sound Anchorage along the south shore of Nisqually Reach, halfway between Tolmie Marine State Park and Nisqually Head (map of area). We first stopped there on a clear, calm spring day because we couldn’t decide which mountain view we preferred, Mount Rainier or the Olympics, and this anchorage gave us both. At night, water slapped gently against the hull and reflected the lights from the nearby hillside community of Beachcrest. Our log for that stop reads “This is what it’s all about.”

We’ve returned several times, and have found plenty to do. The deteriorating wreck of the Tsar, a WWII-era wooden tug, lies off tiny Beachcrest marina, accessible only on higher tides.

Boats frequently are underway to and from an active oyster farm southwest of the anchorage.

The Nisqually Reach Nature Center at Nisqually Head is effectively a small museum that described the history, ecology and biology of the Nisqually Delta.

McAllister Creek and Nisqually River form the Nisqually Delta, which is protected as the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. The waterways are excellent dinghy territory, and popular with kayakers and canoeists. The channels are peaceful and protected, with quite a different feel from the more open outside saltwater. Waterfowl abound, and bits of the old dike and old buildings are along shore.  We’ve travelled south through both waterways well beyond I-5.

The anchorage also is a short dinghy ride away from Andrew Anderson Marine Park and Tolmie Marine State Park. Perhaps the most delightful aspect of this anchorage, however, is the piper. She has walked the beach every morning we’ve visited, sending the mournful notes of her bagpipe far across the sea.

Anchoring and other notes: Anchor in the 3-fathom finger southeast of buoy G “3” on Chart 18448. Chart 18448 has good detail of the delta area. A marked channel (not charted) leads to the Luhr Beach boat ramp at Nisqually Head and the mouth of McAllister Creek. The entrance to the Nisqually River is almost directly south of /font> buoy G1 on chart 18448 or 18445 and can be reached by following the shoreline from the McAllister Creek mouth. CCaution: Southerly or westerly winds can generate significant chop at the mouths of the Nisqually River in particular. Motorized boats are permitted in the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge, but cannot exceed 5mph. Boat are not allowed inside the Brown Farm Dike (map of refuge). No landing or shore access is permitted anywhere in the refuge. The refuge is undergoing extensive renovations; which might impact where boats can enter in the future.

We spent July 4th this year at the Tacoma Freedom Fair. This was the first time we'd attended--it was a huge affair. The fair extended over two miles along the waterfront adjacent to Ruston Way with all kinds of booths and exhibits along the way.

We landed the dinghy and climbed ashore at the Fantasy World Hobbies track. Scale model cars whipped around a small track. The drivers controlled their cars via radio from the top of an adjacent school bus. Surrounding the track were pit areas where the drivers worked on their cars, making adjustments and fixing any broken parts. The cars themselves were complex, some electric and some gasoline powered, and used surprisingly similar technology as real race cars. They had fully adjustable anti-roll bars, shock absorbers and suspensions, and people were applying traction compounds to the tires. All the same chassis tuning rules apply as would to a full-sized race car. We spent quite a while watching the races and talking to various enthusiasts. Most were hobbyists, but at least one was a professional who was paid to drive.

One of the reasons we'd come to the fair was to watch the air show. We lucked out and selected a great spot to watch from that was right where the planed flew the lowest. Navy planes included an F/A-18C Hornet, an AV-8 Harrier, a lumbering C-17 and A/OA-10 Thunderbolt II. We particularly enjoyed the acrobatics of Tim Weber in the GEICO Extra 300 S. 

Vendors, exhibits and various bands were setup all along the waterway, including a high-jump exhibit. Big groups had come for the day, equipped with full-sized barbecues and tents. The crowds were thick along the shore--the organizers claim 150,000 attend, but because the road was closed to traffic, moving around was easy.

We had anchored off Neill Point on the south end of Vashon Island and brought the dinghy over, but there was plenty of room on the log boom during the day, although lots of boats were anchored off inside the boom. It seemed to have less of the party atmosphere than we were expecting, except for one large tug. Those big black boxes mounted on deck in the right hand picture below are speakers.

The grand final of the day was the an impressive fireworks display. We watched on deck from Neill Point, and got a bonus display from Quartermaster Harbor. Quartermaster Harbor used to have a big display, but it had stopped a few years back. It would seem they've started up again.

We'd originally been planning to spend July 4th at Penrose Point Marine Park, as we'd done last year. There aren't any major displays there, but all of Case Inlet is part of unincorporated Pierce County. Fireworks seem not only allowed there, but encouraged. Everyone was setting them off and we had a great time lying on the bow and watching fireworks in every direction. This year, a few private displays were set off on Vashon Island near our anchorage, but mostly the two big public displays at Tacoma and Quartermaster. Next year, we might anchor inside Quartermaster and enjoy their display up close.

We often get asked, why do you boat or what do you do out there?  Our answers revolve around experiencing nature and exploring new areas. We enjoy talking about what we have found in our book, Cruising the Secret Coast, and in the blog we maintain.

Recently John Marshall, who owns Nordhavn 55 Serendipity, posted one of best answers we’ve seen to “why we cruise?”  With John’s permission, it follows.

The remarkable thing about cruising on a boat like this is that we can go to truly isolated places and enjoy nature in its rawest and most primal (and beautiful) form, and still have every comfort of home.

Sometimes when I step outside the warm, bright confines of the boat at night and stand out there just listening to the wild, with the boat completely silent, the contrast gives me goose bumps. Inside is 5-star elegance. Outside is wild, cold, primal, uncompromising wilderness. It's a very bizarre but wonderful kind of transition that occurs in seconds, allowing me as much of either as suits my mood at the moment.

I've turned off the TV after watching a movie with the HD plasma screen and sound system delivering a performance that's as good as any theater, and then stepped outside the boat to find myself standing in the absolutely silent wilderness, without another human being around for tens of miles. A largely untouched wildness of wolves and bears and nature at its finest.

The closest equivalent would be a cabin in the deep woods or high on a mountain side in a wild area. Except you can't build cabins in places like national parks or many other wilderness areas, and you can't push a button and move them to someplace else.

Anyway, it’s a mix of perceptions and images and sensations that carry me away every day we're out. I've journeyed many places in the world, lived in far-away lands for many years, traveled in RV's, backpacked through the Rockies, climbed many peaks in my younger years, and the closest analogy to this feeling is when I was an avid backpacker and could carry my "house on my back". A snug tent and warm sleeping bag.

Inside my tent, reading a book with a flashlight, I was largely protected from the elements that might be raging outside. Yet one step outside my tent, and the wilderness I had to walk through to get back to civilization was uncompromising. There was no 9-11 to call if I got in trouble.

This boat in Alaska or northern BC is kind of a 5-star equivalent of that. What is common to my backpacking, however, is that despite all the comforts and the gadgets, you can't let yourself forget that you are on a little boat in a big sea and a deep wilderness far from anyone who could help you, and that piece of chain that leads to the bottom is never completely secure.

That's where the comparison to a 5-star hotel or cabin in the woods breaks down. On a boat, we are always voyaging, even when we're anchored in a snug cove. We might turn off the DVD and shut down the cappuccino maker and go to the comfort of our warm bed, crawling under the down blankets, but toss in 40 knots of unexpected wind, fog and driving rain in the middle of the night, and combine that with a dragging anchor, and that DVD and the plasma TV and the surround sound are suddenly completely meaningless toys.

Now its engines and rudders and windlasses and working on deck in the violent conditions and you are suddenly a seaman fighting the cruel sea for your very survival, just as sailors have had to do for millennium.

You have awoken from being cradled in 21st century luxury to find yourself in the midst of an adventure, and only your own skills and those of your mate or crew will take you to safety.

I truly believe that its adventures and unexpected challenges like this that keep us alive and young at heart.

Eagle Island Marine State Park has long been one of our South Sound favorites. The park has everything we look for in a destination—solitude, wildlife, interesting dinghy territory, and dramatic views. The island—tucked between McNeil and Anderson islands in Balch Passage off the southeast tip of Key Peninsula—is accessible only by boat and is day-use ashore. Except for a handful of boats moored overnight, few people are about by dusk.

Evenings, however, are not always quiet. Seals frequent the area in large numbers, and snort, splash, and cavort well after sunset. During the day when the tide is low, they often congregate ashore to warm themselves in the sun.

Eagle Island itself is tiny, barely 300 yards long and 150 yards wide. The island practically doubles and halves in size on large exchanges as the wide sandy beach that surrounds it appears and disappears. The beach is ideal for lazy walking, and overgrown trails also cross the island. Along one trail is an old shelter, perhaps from some long past caretaker or squatter.

Nearby Anderson Island is easy to circumnavigate in a motorized dinghy. Or take a kayak along the west shore. Several lagoons are accessible at high tide in shallow-draft craft. The two lagoons directly southwest of Otso Pt. are Higgins Cove and Miller Cove. A collapsed 1940s-era boathouse is on the spit at secluded Higgins Cove, where on very high tides the waterway extends a fair distance inshore. Miller Cove is larger, with a house or two, and a narrow foot bridge that joins the island to the spit. Amsterdam Bay is interesting to tour by small craft, and might be deep enough for anchoring with care, but is heavily populated and not very private. The charted lagoon south of Treble Pt. is freshwater Carlson Bay, part of Andrew Anderson Marine Park (also known as Andy’s Marine Park.) The beautiful sand beach that borders the lagoon provides the only public saltwater shore access on the island.

Despite its other attractions, what first drew us to Eagle Island, and what brings us back, are its amazing mountain views. The west side faces the Olympic Mountains for fabulous sunsets, and Mt. Rainier dominates the skyline to the east. If we’re in luck, we’ll snag the single eastern buoy and have that side all to ourselves. Well, to ourselves and the seals.

Thanks to Elizabeth Galentine, author of Images of America Anderson Island (Arcadia Publishing, 2006), Sarah Garmire and Donna Golden for help with Anderson Island names and lore.

We had just crossed Rosario Strait in 4-5 feet seas, with 40-knot winds from the southeast. Conditions weren’t ideal, but the boat handled fine with the seas slightly on the bow quarter rather than the beam. The winds intensity picked up as we approached Fidalgo Bay, and 2- to 3-foot breakers were rolling north as we exited Guemes Channel. This was unusual, given the short fetch there. Visibility dropped soon after, and we were pelted with snow, followed by thunder and cracks of lightning. The conditions were degrading in a hurry.

That all-weather protection makes Tod Inlet a lovely, snug winter anchorage. Few boaters are about, although we’ve still never managed to anchor there alone. While the Butchart Gardens fireworks show doesn’t run in the winter, there’s an even better attraction: the Christmas light display. The gardens are lighted at night in the summer, but this pales in comparison. Elaborate displays throughout the park include waterfalls of light and sets depicting each verse of the Twelve Days of Christmas. It’s just amazing.  If the Cirque du Soleil folks were asked to produce a light display, you’d expect something like this.

Update: Graham Bell, of Butchart Gardens Public Relations, tells us that that the dinghy dock is in fact open during the winter. Visitors are discouraged from using the dock after dark during the Christmas season, however, because the Japanese Garden is not lit as part of the Christmas display and visitors must wait for an escort to pass through.