On August 26 through September 1 we took a terrific week-long trip to the San Juan Islands. The San Juans are a group of islands (which range in size from dozens of small, exposed lumps rock to the largest of the inhabited islands, San Juan Island) at the northern end of Puget Sound. The islands fill the space between the mainland of Washington State and Canada's Vancouver Island. For the most part the San Juans are protected waterways (no severe weather) but the currents can be tricky, running over three knots in some heavily-traveled places (and seven knots or greater in nearby Deception Pass which was to be our route into the islands). Fog is also common in the islands year-round, although there is substantially less rainfall there than further south in Seattle.

From Seattle there are three ways to get to the San Juan Islands in a boat. The most direct route goes north and west, traveling to the west of Whidbey Island. This route is quickest, but it is quite exposed to any weather and heavy seas coming in from the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The second route (the one we took) goes up the east side of Whidbey, and enters the northern Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands via Deception Pass. This is a good choice if calmer water is the goal, but it's important to arrive at Deception Pass at the right time (slack water) as it's impassable for most boats at other times. A third route avoids Deception Pass by following a dredged channel (the Swinomish Channel) past La Conner and into the Anacortes area.

This was our first multiple-night outing on Akari so we made sure we were over-prepared. We brought anything we could think of to keep Julian from being bored on the trip. We had a laptop computer with his games, we had a portable VCR, and we even arranged to bring along Julian's older cousin Lisa (and her Sony Playstation) for the first two days, which helped to keep him occupied on the long cruise from Seattle.

We left the marina at 1:00 on Sunday and motored north against a light wind. Satomi and I were mostly on deck, but Julian and Lisa were down below the whole time, playing some mindless game on Lisa's Playstation. (How does Julian do that without getting seasick? Lisa had to lay down for a while, even after quaffing some Dramamine.)

We passed Shilshole, Richmond Beach and Edmonds before reaching Whidbey Island.

We considered pulling into Langley for the night, but we were eager to get at least another hour north before stopping. In hindsight this was a mistake; we had plenty of time to get to Deception Pass before the tide would turn and Langley would have been a much more quiet and relaxing place to spend the night. Instead we dropped anchor for the night at Elger Bay, a large indentation on the west side of Camano Island.

At first Elger Bay seemed a fine choice. Winds were light and out of the north so we seemed to be well protected. The water was reasonably calm (only a few boats out in Saratoga Passage) with very little motion at anchor. We had a pizza dinner then watched a movie (I know, we were really roughing it!).

Soon after the movie (Woody Allen’s Sleeper) had started, though, we could hear the wind start picking up. Before long it was fifteen to twenty knots and gusting higher (the rigging was whistling), with the direction shifting around as the winds came over and around the low section of Camano Island that was protecting us. I had to go up and strap the dinghy to the foredeck after it blew up against the mast. The motion of the boat was uncomfortable (too much twisting and turning) so I decided to set a stern anchor to stabilize things a bit. I went up on deck, let out all the chain for the main anchor, threw the Danforth anchor out over the stern with a nylon rode, then took in the chain again to put some scope on the stern anchor. It helped, the boat stopped lurching back and forth with each gust but we were still bouncing around on the chop.

The winds kept up until sometime after midnight when it became dead calm and totally quiet. In the morning I got up as soon as the sun rose (leaving everyone else to sleep in) and got the anchors up. This was a little tricky as there was now a current that was pushing us to one side. To make things more complicated, somehow the stern anchor line had gotten itself wrapped around the rudder. Anyway, after throwing out more anchor line and poking around with a boat hook I managed to get the stern anchor up and stowed, then brought up the bow anchor. As I was bringing up the last thirty feet I found a large starfish clinging to the chain. I gently peeled him off and tossed him onto the overturned dinghy. When I was finished with the anchors and safely underway I put him into a basin with some water to show Julian and Lisa. (We dropped him off later in shallow waters just outside of Deception Pass.)

After raising anchor I started motoring north. Soon a westerly breeze came up and I put up the mainsail, then the jib, and we motorsailed along the west shore of Camano Island and past Hope Island. Satomi, Julian and Lisa stayed in their beds until nearly 10:00, giving me a nice quiet morning. I worked on a crossword puzzle and listened to music (Train and Richard Buckner... sort of an alternative twang theme) while cruising along. The sky was pretty, the water mostly calm with the exception of the occasional too-fast powerboat. It was nice.

We arrived in the vicinity of Deception Pass nearly one hour before slack tide. We could see that there were still whitecaps in the pass, and the only boats going through were powerboats. So we sailed around Cornet Bay for thirty minutes until it looked calmer, then motored through against the remaining current. A large Island County Sheriff boat followed right behind us (expecting us to get into trouble, perhaps? Actually, he seemed to be checking up on the many fishermen standing on the shoreline.)

Out in Rosario Strait conditions were good for sailing, so we had the sails up on a nice beam reach over to Thatcher Pass, the main entrance to the interior of the San Juans (and the route that the ferries take from Anacortes).

We passed between Blakely and Decatur Islands, then between Orcas and Lopez before entering San Juan Channel. I called Friday Harbor marina and we were assigned a slip right away. We were tied up to the dock before 3:00 and had time to wander around town, have dinner (at the Front Street Ale House) and catch some shrimp before putting Lisa on the ferry to Anacortes.

Satomi, Julian and I had a nice, quiet evening at Friday Harbor marina. We used the showers, fished for more shrimp with Julian’s little net and got to bed early.

On Tuesday morning we walked up to town and wandered through the shops. We had a snack at a small bakery, walked to the library (I confess... it was so I could check email) and bought a few things at the grocery store. At 1:00 we started up Akari, slipped the lines and headed north to Sucia Island.

The cruise to Sucia Island took us about three hours. Again we motored the whole way (didn’t even bother with the sail this time). The wind was virtually non-existent and when there was wind it was always on our nose. Fortunately we had caught the flood current and we made good time.

At Sucia Island we found a nice spot to anchor, near the shore on the north side of the large bay (Echo Bay). Sucia Island is shaped like a horseshoe, with a number of smaller islands scattered in and around its east-facing open end. This creates a perfect anchorage with calm water and pretty views, and room for lots of boats. When we arrived the bay looked crowded, but in fact there was plenty of room for everyone. And the spot we anchored (we actually moved closer to shore after another boat anchored too close to us) was terrific; the view of the island’s sandstone bluffs and madrona forests was unobstructed, and the island (we could choose from any of three or four rocky beaches) was a quick paddle away in the dinghy.

We stayed two nights at Sucia Island, enjoying the evening views, the morning fog, the leaping seals (there were at least three in the bay at any given time, and they would often flip their tails noisily into the water, "kerwopsh!"), and the hiking trails. Mostly we just relaxed on the boat, reading books or (in my case) doing boat projects. The first night we had baked salmon and boxed macaroni and cheese, and on the second night we made spaghetti. Here are a variety of snapshots from the two days...

On our final trip back from shore, after a long walk Julian insisted on rowing the dinghy. With only a little verbal coaching he managed to row us all the way back to Akari. (The wind helped a little but he was rowing fine, and for the most part in a straight line. Satomi had tried to row us from shore earlier, and she freely admits that Julian is better at it.)

On our first morning at Sucia we had thick fog until nearly noon. I was a little worried about leaving on the second morning in fog like that, so I spent some time raising the radar reflector and plotting a course through the small islands north of Orcas Island before we went to bed. But when I woke up in the morning (just after sunrise) I was happy to find clear skies over the island. Once again I let Satomi and Julian sleep and got us started early, raising the anchor and setting sail to the southwest before 7:00 AM.

Soon after leaving Sucia Island, however, I saw that there was thick fog over Rosario Channel, and it was heading our way -- time to try some serious navigation. I set a course between Barnes Island and Orcas (both of which were now becoming obscured by fog) and cross-checked it with the GPS as we motorsailed along. This was my first time navigating blind and I was a bit nervous; the GPS was nice to have. (The boat has a GPS with chartplotter but -- and I'm a computer-literate guy so this is funny -- I don't have the patience to learn its inscrutable user interface. Instead I just use the GPS to get the latitude and longitude, and the course and speed "made good" (over the ground, rather than according to the the boatspeed and heading), then work from the paper chart, marking pencil marks. I could do this with any el-cheapo GPS receiver, and in fact having a little handheld GPS would be easier because I could set it right on the chart rather than run back and forth to the helm-mounted display. Akari also has a radar, and that device was more useful that the chartplotter for cross-checking where various chunks of land should be as well as watching for other boats.)

As soon as we entered Rosario Channel and were clear of Orcas Island the wind picked up dramatically, and so did the swells. A gust pushed us over to a severe angle and I heard things falling down belowdecks. I went down the companionway, grabbed the TV/VCR combo and handed it back to Satomi, who was crawling out of bed wondering what was going on. (I was impressed; rather than say "What's going on, why are we leaning so much?" she simply said, "I'll get dressed and help...")

Things settled down a bit after I double-reefed the mainsail and partially furled the headsail. We entered the channel and turned south, more directly into the wind, at the point I'd plotted the previous day. The fog soon cleared so we could make a run west across the channel to Obstruction Pass, south of Orcas Island. (I didn't have the courage to try that pass in fog, so I was happy that it was clear by then.)

By this time Julian was up and he ate strawberry yogurt while sitting in the cockpit in his pajamas, a fleece-lined coat and a lifejacket. When we entered Obstruction Pass the water flattened, the wind died away and we had a peaceful cruise to Rosario Resort where we planned to stay the night in the marina.

We pulled up to the fuel dock and I pumped Akari full of diesel (and twisted my ankle when I jumped down to the dock -- it hurt for two days). The lady at the cash register was painfully slow and couldn't seem to get the bill right ($120 for 20 gallons? I don't think so!). As for staying the night, there were no slips available but there were plenty of mooring bouys. When we looked at the resort from a distance, however, we couldn't see anything worth staying for. The Moran mansion was interesting looking, but it was surrounded by ugly condo units, there was little life evident and no town nearby. I said, "Well, we could go anchor at Spencer Spit and play on the beach, or we could go back to Friday Harbor..."

The decision was unanimous: back to Friday Harbor we would go. Winds were light, fickle and constantly shifting so we motored for an hour and a half, arriving at the Friday Harbor marina at around 2:00 in the afternoon. Again we were assigned a slip with no waiting and pulled right in. We ate in the same place (Front Street Ale House) where once again the beer was good, the food was predictably bland but we knew Julian would eat well. We visited the Whale Museum, and I hobbled up the street to check email at the library again (big mistake... I was feeling quite relaxed until doing that and getting two or three stress-inducing messages from Australia). Julian netted some more shrimp (and fell off the dock into the water in the process, fully clothed), we watched some videos... and we fell asleep early, tired from a busy day.

On Friday we found out that we wouldn't be going back home right away. Our arrangement to have someone else pick up the boat in Anacortes fell apart (for one day) so we decided to stay another night right where we were. First we went into town for some lunch (and found an Internet connection much closer than the library, allowing me to deal with the earlier stress-inducing emails by countering them with stress-inducing emails of my own...), then we decided to take Akari out for a "whale hunting" expedition in Haro Strait. It was a five hour cruise, during which we tried flying the spinnaker (note to self: do not attempt to use the chute in 18 knots of breeze, in rough water, with inexperienced crew... now I know what a near-broach feels like... and Satomi has no interest in seeing that sail again anytime soon!)

We failed to find any whales, but we did cruise past Roche Harbor (which we like to call "Cockroach Harbor" after having stayed there ourselves some years ago) and we probably entered Canadian waters without the proper papers (ha ha).

Back in Friday Harbor that evening, we went into town and got Julian a better shrimp net, got some food to prepare on the boat (salad and pasta, and a bottle of local wine -- and ooh, was that a tart Chardonnay!) and again snuck in for an email quickie.

On Saturday morning, after a slow morning of shrimp-catching (and releasing -- it was just for fun) and general cleanup we untied Akari and motored out of the harbor, bound for Anacortes. The weather overnight had been wet (it was raining quite hard before we got up) but by mid-morning the front had passed and the skies were clearing. (And that quick shower did a great job of cleaning a week's worth of grime from the top of the hull and the decks.) Winds were moderately strong and at our backs most of the way to Anacortes, so we sailed a good part of the way, taking four hours for the trip.

At Anacortes marina we pumped out the very full holding tank (yuck) then pulled into the very skinny guest slip that we had been assigned over the radio. Jumping down to the dock with the stern line as the boat pulled in, Satomi tripped (the dock was low, and very narrow) and scraped up her foot pretty badly. (We'll cross Anacortes off our list in the future.)

We had about an hour available before our relief skipper (Charles, from Elliott Bay Yachting Center, who needed no arm-twisting to agree to take Akari for two days) was due to arrive with our truck. We packed up our amazing collection of stuff, did some cleaning and let Julian play a computer game (some Microsoft educational thing) while we worked. Charles arrived right on time with his wife and a friend, they put aboard their own amazing amount of stuff (for two nights?) and helped us load up our truck.

When we got back to Kirkland we went immediately to Coyote Creek pizza, where the guy who took our order didn't even ask what we wanted ("um, lemme see... that will be a large coop salad, no onions, walnuts on the side, right?")

Julian was in a bouyant mood, talking non-stop while we ate. We were in bouyant moods also, but in a different way. Our bodies were still rocking as if we were sitting on Akari as she cut through the waves. Satomi doesn't much like the feeling, but to me it feels great.