Although trying to make this years Blue Water Yacht’s Rendezvous was out of the question, we loved starting the summer off with an extended trip, and were able to make schedules align and do that again this year. Last year it was basically out for a week, home for a couple of days and then out again. This year we did a consecutive 14 days -and were all still talking to each other!
Sun. June 29: Point Roberts - Blakely Island
There was a lot of extra stuff to take care of at the end of this school year, so I was still going at it at 3:30 on Friday. I decided enough was enough, and would go back in and sort some things out after we returned. Rather than scrambling, we opted to take our time prepping and chose to depart on the Sunday; we’re on holidays after all!
We stopped briefly at Blakely Island Marina for fuel on last years trip, and wanted to make a point of including it this years outing. It was a flat day, and a nice couple hour motor down from Point Roberts. We fuelled up upon arrival; having to tie up on the inside of the wharf due to the outside being filled with other vessels. It actually turned out to be better for us, as there were a series of vessels going through Peavine Pass that were quite content to throw up nice big wakes for everyone else to enjoy Although the wharf broke them nicely for us, I was over holding off another unmanned vessel who getting its freeboard scraped up.
We paid for fuel, moorage, and the obligitory ice-cream cones before proceeding in to our slip for the evening. We wandered around on the grounds, amused the marina sea otter for a while, and then had a very enjoyable visit with a retired boater from Montana who keeps his SeaWolf sportfisher (MV Red Wolf) boat slipped at LaConnor and drives out quite regularly to go boating for 2 or 3 days at a time. He had been out 3 of the last 4 weeks. That’s one committed boater. He was planning a trip for him and a few buddies up to Nanaimo, so we pulled out our Gulf Island book and pointed out a few highlights, as well as a few points (like timing Dodds Narrows) to watch out for.
Mon. June 30: Rosario
With the idea of doing a few, shorter hops, we headed up to Rosario, on Orcas Island. It’s one of the‘Destination’ Resort/Marinas that you always hear about, so we decided to treat ourselves for the night. It was another windless day, so the motor made short work of the 4 mi. trip up into East Sound. The wind began to pick up a little while we were approaching the marina, but too late to bother with the sails. Besides, when the girls read in Wagoneers that there were three pools, there was no delaying our arrival. I only wish that the harbourmaster realized their urgency. We were put on hold for about 15 min. outside of the marina awaiting instructions & a slip assignment. One would have thought that they were extremely busy, but afterwards it became readily apparent that it was more a case of inefficient Rosario role-playing. We were finally hailed in and directed to a slip, and prepared for a port tie while underway. As we approached our assigned slip, we spotted the reason for the traffic delays; 4 dock hands were waiting for us, all decked out in red golf shirts and white pants/shorts, at the head of the slip. You’d think we were bringing in the Queen Mary.
Slipped beside us was a 28’ sailboat with the Master perched in a hammock chair suspended from the jibsheet. He was just sittiing there relaxing, reading a book of some sort, when this hand appeared from the foredeck hatch to present him with a magarita. Now, I have to figure out how to work that one out on BoB! Through a bit of dockside chit-chat it turned out they are also moored at Pnt. Roberts. I also noticed that he had a ROCNA anchor slung from his bow, so it was nice to ask questions to someone who actually uses one, as it is one that I’m seriously considering for BoB. He confirmed/clarified all the specs and questions that I put to him, so I really appreciated his candor and the time he spent with me. I think it will mean having to install a new bow roller and also its reinforcemeant underneath the deck, but the 13 lb danforth w/10’ of chain that came with it would never allow me much sleep on anything but the calmest of nights.
The rest of the day consisted of ‘pool time’, tetherball, rowing around in the dinghy, and just relaxing. At 1700, there was an Organ performance/historical presentation up in the Rosario Mansion. Very informative, entertaining, and we enjoyed it thoroughly.
Tues. July 1: Deer Harbor - Canada Day
Another nice, but windless morning. I guess that this continued May-like weather and its’ cooler temperatures are keeping the morning offshore winds from materializing. As we were wrapping things up in preparing to depart Rosario, I overheard one boater’s disbelief of what it cost him to fuel up... he had just put in 600 gallons at $5.85/gal. Considering that we paid $4.95/gal the day before at Blakely, I’d be more on the livid side. However, considering he had what looked like a new 50-55’ Marquis, I didn’t have too much sympathy
Low tides are getting quite low as the new moon approaches, so right from the beginning of our Rosario/Deer Harbor leg, I kept debating whether or not to take the short cut through the shallow channel between Channel Isl & Orcas Isl as we neared Deer Harbor. Being at a -1.0 ft tide in unfamilar waters, I had ultimately decided to go south of Channel, but as we came up to the turning point I saw several displacement coming out of the chute, so I swung it back to the north and watched my depth gauge. Entering the marina at Deer Harbor surprised me with how fast the water was running. No troubles, but it did call for some adjustments in the approach. The next few boats entering after us seemed to have their hands full with it, and had many neighbouring boats standing nearby to help...(watch out for their own vessels that is).
There were 3 or 4 vessels that we recognized from Rosario that seemed to be doing the same loop that we were. Later on after dinner Lisa & I walked the docks and ended up chatting with the owners of a couple of older Catalina 42s (if I recall correctly) for quite a while. A nice, leisurely evening was had by all.
Wed. July 2: Friday Harbor
And the re-occurring theme again today; no wind. Whether you like or don’t like the bustle of busy Friday Harbor, I am in awe of how the harbormaster handles the huge volume of traffic coming at him/her over the radio. Elsa’s radio etiquette and manners is actually based on it (and that’s a good thing). We were on a mission to complete some tasks that we didn’t complete last time. 1) Most importantly in the girls eyes were to visit the whale museum, which we delayed to near the end of the day. 2) To make use of the West Marine Giftcard we received from Blue Water Yachts when we bought BoB.
We wandered up the main street (Spring St.) and did some window shopping/planning our return for later, as we knew we would have to return directly to the boat to unload after buying out the WM store. Picked up a set of Magma nesting cookware that Lisa says is nicer than what she uses at home; a detailed Maptech waterproof chartbook for the San Juans, as all we previously had was a large scale Puget Sound chart along with some photo copies of relevant pages from our neighbours PS chartbook; finally found a rigging knife that fit my needs, hand, and budget; and most importantly an insulated big based travel mug for my coffee. This pretty much loaded us down for the first trip, so back to the boat we went to unload and have some lunch. After our pit stop we continued back into town for more exploration and window shopping. The kids were being their typical goofy selves and having a great time; they joke about how scary it is the way they get along on when they’re together on the boat... but they really do! It certainly helps to re-affirm what is to me, the best of boatings’ benefits. The next stop was the Whale museum. Right from the early stages of planning this trip, the girls both put this, and seeing Popeye, the harbours’ mascot seal, agreed these were at the top of their to do list. The museum is a small, non-profit presentation center that has a lot of interesting displays, and information to take in. The girls really seemed to enjoy it. Elsa started to just race/glance through things on a surface level, but then went back and started to go deeper into them. We all had a chance to explore at our own pace, and enjoyed it very much. After that, we ended up at the grocery store to re-supply and make sure we had everything for our upcoming weekend at Sucia, where the Munro’s were to meet up with us. Tomorrow we would be at Roche, but we’ve never been there before and not knowing what sort of grocery store they had for provisioning, we elected to do so here.
The blue skies of earlier in the day had been replaced by overcast clouds throughout the afternoon, but now after dinner the clouds were darkening, and it looked the weather was definitely changing. We watched as a couple of nearby sunbridge cruisers began to get their canvas put up, but the skies opened up too quickly and they were pretty wet before they got the covers up. The rain eased off after about half an hour, but then the thunder & lightening began! This was one time the kids were glad we had one of the smallest boats in the marina, as we re-assured them that we were safe amongst all of the higher masted vessels. This was one of the biggest (and closest) lightening storms I’ve experienced for a long time. It did move past us , but continued throughout the night and into the wee hours of the next morning.
Thurs. July 3-5: Sucia (via Roche?)
We awoke to cloudy but improving conditions, and everyone talking about the previous nights light show. Fourth of July seemed to have come early. There was a nearby coffee shop with internet access, so Lisa & I left the kids asleep on the boat, and headed over for our early morning coffee and to catch up on email. Then it was back up to the grocery store to grab the last of the provisions we couldn’t carry down the night before, and get things ready to go. We did need to fuel up before departing, and I recalled the fuel docks being very busy last time, and wanted to get in there before the neg. low tide got too close. We hadn’t called ahead for reservations at Roche, so we opted to head out a litlle bit earlier to make sure we could get in. We figured stay the night and get over to Sucia early Fri. for the long weekend, as all of Sucia is first come first served. The trip from Friday Harbor to Roche was uneventful enough, but we were shocked by how packed and busy Roche already was at 11:00am! I had my hands full trying to find my way through the chocked full harbor, let alone try to get into the harbormaster on the VHF. Bottom line was that they were full and would make up a waiting list; call back in @ 1500 when they would begin that process. Well, we weren’t that comfortable with that process and figured with this type of chaos here, we’d be better off securing a spot at Sucia before the same sort of crowds begin to spill over to there. But we did need to pick up milk & ice, something that we wanted to wait until Friday -our intended Sucia departure day. Anyway, as we tried to pull in to the fuel docks, it became readily apparent that that was not the place to try to tie up. So I made an executive decision and headed for an empty slip at the guest dock and Lisa was ready to make a run for the wherever the nearest store was. We hadn’t even tied up and two dock hands were on us informing us we couldn’t do that. Pleading our case of a 5 Min. stop, they allowed us to remain tied up as long as it was only Lisa going up. We got what we needed, then got out of Dodge. We agreed we wanted to come here, but not for the 4th of July! After a lot of work for milk, and a lot of miles for the detour, we were on our way to Sucia; one day early.
Other than the extra gas & time we took to get there, the trip to Sucia was straight forward. The weather had improved enough as we were coming into Roche that we had completely removed the vertical canvas & windows of the enclosure, and pulled back the bimini to enjoy the improving weather. As we cleared Spieden Island we were watching the closing skies, and by Flattop Isl., we were buttoning up the enclosure once again to protect us from the rain that had begun. It certainly is easier to do at the docks than underway. We got into Fossil Bay around 1330 and tied up at the inside end of Dock 1 and carefully checked our depth to compare it to the tide tables, as we knew there was a pending -3 ft tide the next day.
Sucia was surprisingly quiet. In fact, there remained dockspace most of the weekend, and there were always at least a couple of mooring buoys free. On Friday we went back and revisited China caves. Elsa & Megan found some geo-cache boxes in and around the cave site. We didn’t go away for too long, as the afternoon tide was they lowest of this lunar cycle at -3.3 ft. The minimum depth we ever had under bottom was slightly less than 4 ft. Elsa the ‘Dinghy Girl’ expanded her title to include ‘Sounder Girl’, as she found a straight stick about 7 ft. long and would check the water depth every 20 min. or so. In fact, that stick came in handy, when a sailboat coming in to raft next to the boat behind us questioned the depth below. Elsa ran and grabbed her stick, took a measurement, went to the end of the dock and held up the stick to show them.... ‘about this much’.
Friday we went for a trek out to the end of the eastern point of Fossil Bay. This trail is a little narrower than the main trails on Sucia and changes elevation a bit more as well. There are a couple of short, steep inclines, but other than that is a nice couple of mile hike. On our return we looked out and saw 2 or 3 sports fishing boats waited too late, and were trying to get out of Fox Bay without enough water. Although they had raised the leg of their nice big outboards, I still hate to think about how much sediment they were sucking through their impellers. In the early evening a park ranger came by the docks came by to make sure we knew about going over to the south shore of Fox Point to watch the fireworks being set off over at North Beach on Orcas Island. There ended up being a group of about 20-30 campers and boaters over there watching. Someone had a ghetto blaster playing a Beattles CD, so we had our own little Symphony of Fire right there.
Saturday we took it easy and didn’t head off too far, not being sure when to expect the Munros. As it turns out they had engine trouble with their boat the previous weekend, so were not able to make it. The kids were naturally disappointed, but we still had lots of fun. The dock was chocked full of pups, so Elsa was in seventh heaven. I think her favourite new friend was a Russell Terrier X that was on a Macgregor 26X that was already tied up at the foot of the dock when we arrived... ‘See dad, one of these would fit on our boat!’ Friday we filled the shower bag, so Sat. afternoon was hair washing day. I don’t know if were ready to be live-aboarders yet, but we’re getting there.
Sun./Mon. July 6 & 7: Roche Harbor
Knowing boaters would be making their way home to prepare for work Monday, we set off back to Roche. It was a cloudy morning, but the skies slowly cleared and by the afternoon it was sunny. With the barometer rising, it looked like the sunny weather was finally returning. Service at the docks was great. The dockhands were helpful and always nearby, but never in the way. The first chuckle we had was how we had to step up onto the docks to get out of our boats; the deck of the dock was actually a couple of inches above BoB’s rub rail. Looking around, we weren’t the only boat in this predicament, but we definitely were in the minority; this was big boat country!
We got settled in and services connected then went up the wharf to deal with the most urgent of needs; laundry and lunch! We lucked out and got 2 empty washers right away (like winning the lottery!) then ordered lunch right on the wharf. Everyone enjoyed their meals, and started to plan the rest of our day. There’s a lot to wander around and enjoy at Roche; a small number of nice shops, marina amenities, as well as the grounds themselves. While continuing with laundry duties, we checked in & out of some of the nearby shops & kiosks. Lisa’s been keeping an eye out for a new swimsuit, and found a really nice one that was actually very well priced. We enjoyed the artisian kiosks and succumbed to the ice-cream stand as well. There were Sunday afternoon music shows happening by the flagmast, and we recognized the familiar sounds of Dave Calhoun, a solo singer/guitar + backing track act in the style of Jimmy Buffet. We thoroughly enjoyed his music at last years BWY rendezvous, so we went over to listen for a while.
Once all our chores were done we walked over toward the recreation area to check out the pool, playground and tennis courts. We wandered around a little bit, but were surprised at how long it took us to get everything done earlier, and dinner was already going to be late tonight; in fact we had barely finished dinner when the 10 min. warning for Colors (lowering of the flags) came across the PA. Without having had a chance to do the other things that we had heard about at Roche, we knew we would be staying another day.
We had read about a field of outdoor art in Wagoneers, so headed over towards that after we got our morning chores & rituals out of the way. I thought it was an interesting concept but to be honest, I probably would have passed on it had the rest of the family not been so keen to check it out. Would I have missed out! This was a great experience that we got increasingly into as we went through it. There’s about a 6-7 acre field across which about 50 pieces of outdoor art -in a variety of media- are installed. Part of the fun is find the works (there is a walking map, but some of the works may be installed overhead in trees, for example), some is in interpreting them, another is when you just step back and look over the expanse and calm of the field. Although Wagoneers noted that that 1/2 hour that they spent here was not enough, the 2 hours we spent there flew by. There is an unmanned kiosk at the entrance and the admission box was on the honour system. Well worth the time, and it would have been a shame to have not gone.
As if we hadn’t done enough walking after that, we decided to follow the roadsigns to main center, thinking that it may lead us to a more ‘non-boater’ oriented part of Roche. It actually only took us around through the housing/vacation development that is well underway behind the marina, but we did take a road to the north that branched off and took us up towards an area of older development, a working boatyard, etc. From there, we returned to the marina via a walking trail that led us back to the marina.
The day was getting warm, but the girls really wanted to play tennis, so we (Elsa) rowed us across the rec. area and we played tennis (okay, we chased a ball around) for awhile before hitting the pool. Both were lots of fun. Both areas were great, and the pool temperature was just right. For some reason, the pool was closing earlier that night (6:00pm), so we stayed until just before the closing rush, and headed back for dinner. After our late dinner -that included boiling up all the corn (we got for when we were supposed to meet up with the Munros)- we headed out to find the Masonic Museulium, designated as an American National Historic Site. It was approaching sunset, so it was becoming a little darker amongst the the tall trees of this forested area, and Elsa did start to get a little anxious as we followed the marked trail up through the cemetary. But it was another site that we would not have wanted to miss. What struck me about it was how recent of history was included in the tomb, as the last entry was from 1984. There remained one empty ‘spot’ at the table, but that spot also aligned with a ‘broken’, incomplete pillar that rings the table. Historically, I don’t know enough about this to hazard a guess, but it was a fascinating place to visit.
The wind forecast for tomorrow for late morning gale force winds, so we went to bed planning to depart as early as the fuel docks would allow in the morning. More photos
Sun. June 29: Point Roberts - Blakely Island
There was a lot of extra stuff to take care of at the end of this school year, so I was still going at it at 3:30 on Friday. I decided enough was enough, and would go back in and sort some things out after we returned. Rather than scrambling, we opted to take our time prepping and chose to depart on the Sunday; we’re on holidays after all!
We stopped briefly at Blakely Island Marina for fuel on last years trip, and wanted to make a point of including it this years outing. It was a flat day, and a nice couple hour motor down from Point Roberts. We fuelled up upon arrival; having to tie up on the inside of the wharf due to the outside being filled with other vessels. It actually turned out to be better for us, as there were a series of vessels going through Peavine Pass that were quite content to throw up nice big wakes for everyone else to enjoy Although the wharf broke them nicely for us, I was over holding off another unmanned vessel who getting its freeboard scraped up.
We paid for fuel, moorage, and the obligitory ice-cream cones before proceeding in to our slip for the evening. We wandered around on the grounds, amused the marina sea otter for a while, and then had a very enjoyable visit with a retired boater from Montana who keeps his SeaWolf sportfisher (MV Red Wolf) boat slipped at LaConnor and drives out quite regularly to go boating for 2 or 3 days at a time. He had been out 3 of the last 4 weeks. That’s one committed boater. He was planning a trip for him and a few buddies up to Nanaimo, so we pulled out our Gulf Island book and pointed out a few highlights, as well as a few points (like timing Dodds Narrows) to watch out for.
Mon. June 30: Rosario
With the idea of doing a few, shorter hops, we headed up to Rosario, on Orcas Island. It’s one of the‘Destination’ Resort/Marinas that you always hear about, so we decided to treat ourselves for the night. It was another windless day, so the motor made short work of the 4 mi. trip up into East Sound. The wind began to pick up a little while we were approaching the marina, but too late to bother with the sails. Besides, when the girls read in Wagoneers that there were three pools, there was no delaying our arrival. I only wish that the harbourmaster realized their urgency. We were put on hold for about 15 min. outside of the marina awaiting instructions & a slip assignment. One would have thought that they were extremely busy, but afterwards it became readily apparent that it was more a case of inefficient Rosario role-playing. We were finally hailed in and directed to a slip, and prepared for a port tie while underway. As we approached our assigned slip, we spotted the reason for the traffic delays; 4 dock hands were waiting for us, all decked out in red golf shirts and white pants/shorts, at the head of the slip. You’d think we were bringing in the Queen Mary.
Slipped beside us was a 28’ sailboat with the Master perched in a hammock chair suspended from the jibsheet. He was just sittiing there relaxing, reading a book of some sort, when this hand appeared from the foredeck hatch to present him with a magarita. Now, I have to figure out how to work that one out on BoB! Through a bit of dockside chit-chat it turned out they are also moored at Pnt. Roberts. I also noticed that he had a ROCNA anchor slung from his bow, so it was nice to ask questions to someone who actually uses one, as it is one that I’m seriously considering for BoB. He confirmed/clarified all the specs and questions that I put to him, so I really appreciated his candor and the time he spent with me. I think it will mean having to install a new bow roller and also its reinforcemeant underneath the deck, but the 13 lb danforth w/10’ of chain that came with it would never allow me much sleep on anything but the calmest of nights.
The rest of the day consisted of ‘pool time’, tetherball, rowing around in the dinghy, and just relaxing. At 1700, there was an Organ performance/historical presentation up in the Rosario Mansion. Very informative, entertaining, and we enjoyed it thoroughly.
Tues. July 1: Deer Harbor - Canada Day
Another nice, but windless morning. I guess that this continued May-like weather and its’ cooler temperatures are keeping the morning offshore winds from materializing. As we were wrapping things up in preparing to depart Rosario, I overheard one boater’s disbelief of what it cost him to fuel up... he had just put in 600 gallons at $5.85/gal. Considering that we paid $4.95/gal the day before at Blakely, I’d be more on the livid side. However, considering he had what looked like a new 50-55’ Marquis, I didn’t have too much sympathy
Low tides are getting quite low as the new moon approaches, so right from the beginning of our Rosario/Deer Harbor leg, I kept debating whether or not to take the short cut through the shallow channel between Channel Isl & Orcas Isl as we neared Deer Harbor. Being at a -1.0 ft tide in unfamilar waters, I had ultimately decided to go south of Channel, but as we came up to the turning point I saw several displacement coming out of the chute, so I swung it back to the north and watched my depth gauge. Entering the marina at Deer Harbor surprised me with how fast the water was running. No troubles, but it did call for some adjustments in the approach. The next few boats entering after us seemed to have their hands full with it, and had many neighbouring boats standing nearby to help...(watch out for their own vessels that is).
There were 3 or 4 vessels that we recognized from Rosario that seemed to be doing the same loop that we were. Later on after dinner Lisa & I walked the docks and ended up chatting with the owners of a couple of older Catalina 42s (if I recall correctly) for quite a while. A nice, leisurely evening was had by all.
Wed. July 2: Friday Harbor
And the re-occurring theme again today; no wind. Whether you like or don’t like the bustle of busy Friday Harbor, I am in awe of how the harbormaster handles the huge volume of traffic coming at him/her over the radio. Elsa’s radio etiquette and manners is actually based on it (and that’s a good thing). We were on a mission to complete some tasks that we didn’t complete last time. 1) Most importantly in the girls eyes were to visit the whale museum, which we delayed to near the end of the day. 2) To make use of the West Marine Giftcard we received from Blue Water Yachts when we bought BoB.
We wandered up the main street (Spring St.) and did some window shopping/planning our return for later, as we knew we would have to return directly to the boat to unload after buying out the WM store. Picked up a set of Magma nesting cookware that Lisa says is nicer than what she uses at home; a detailed Maptech waterproof chartbook for the San Juans, as all we previously had was a large scale Puget Sound chart along with some photo copies of relevant pages from our neighbours PS chartbook; finally found a rigging knife that fit my needs, hand, and budget; and most importantly an insulated big based travel mug for my coffee. This pretty much loaded us down for the first trip, so back to the boat we went to unload and have some lunch. After our pit stop we continued back into town for more exploration and window shopping. The kids were being their typical goofy selves and having a great time; they joke about how scary it is the way they get along on when they’re together on the boat... but they really do! It certainly helps to re-affirm what is to me, the best of boatings’ benefits. The next stop was the Whale museum. Right from the early stages of planning this trip, the girls both put this, and seeing Popeye, the harbours’ mascot seal, agreed these were at the top of their to do list. The museum is a small, non-profit presentation center that has a lot of interesting displays, and information to take in. The girls really seemed to enjoy it. Elsa started to just race/glance through things on a surface level, but then went back and started to go deeper into them. We all had a chance to explore at our own pace, and enjoyed it very much. After that, we ended up at the grocery store to re-supply and make sure we had everything for our upcoming weekend at Sucia, where the Munro’s were to meet up with us. Tomorrow we would be at Roche, but we’ve never been there before and not knowing what sort of grocery store they had for provisioning, we elected to do so here.
The blue skies of earlier in the day had been replaced by overcast clouds throughout the afternoon, but now after dinner the clouds were darkening, and it looked the weather was definitely changing. We watched as a couple of nearby sunbridge cruisers began to get their canvas put up, but the skies opened up too quickly and they were pretty wet before they got the covers up. The rain eased off after about half an hour, but then the thunder & lightening began! This was one time the kids were glad we had one of the smallest boats in the marina, as we re-assured them that we were safe amongst all of the higher masted vessels. This was one of the biggest (and closest) lightening storms I’ve experienced for a long time. It did move past us , but continued throughout the night and into the wee hours of the next morning.
Thurs. July 3-5: Sucia (via Roche?)
We awoke to cloudy but improving conditions, and everyone talking about the previous nights light show. Fourth of July seemed to have come early. There was a nearby coffee shop with internet access, so Lisa & I left the kids asleep on the boat, and headed over for our early morning coffee and to catch up on email. Then it was back up to the grocery store to grab the last of the provisions we couldn’t carry down the night before, and get things ready to go. We did need to fuel up before departing, and I recalled the fuel docks being very busy last time, and wanted to get in there before the neg. low tide got too close. We hadn’t called ahead for reservations at Roche, so we opted to head out a litlle bit earlier to make sure we could get in. We figured stay the night and get over to Sucia early Fri. for the long weekend, as all of Sucia is first come first served. The trip from Friday Harbor to Roche was uneventful enough, but we were shocked by how packed and busy Roche already was at 11:00am! I had my hands full trying to find my way through the chocked full harbor, let alone try to get into the harbormaster on the VHF. Bottom line was that they were full and would make up a waiting list; call back in @ 1500 when they would begin that process. Well, we weren’t that comfortable with that process and figured with this type of chaos here, we’d be better off securing a spot at Sucia before the same sort of crowds begin to spill over to there. But we did need to pick up milk & ice, something that we wanted to wait until Friday -our intended Sucia departure day. Anyway, as we tried to pull in to the fuel docks, it became readily apparent that that was not the place to try to tie up. So I made an executive decision and headed for an empty slip at the guest dock and Lisa was ready to make a run for the wherever the nearest store was. We hadn’t even tied up and two dock hands were on us informing us we couldn’t do that. Pleading our case of a 5 Min. stop, they allowed us to remain tied up as long as it was only Lisa going up. We got what we needed, then got out of Dodge. We agreed we wanted to come here, but not for the 4th of July! After a lot of work for milk, and a lot of miles for the detour, we were on our way to Sucia; one day early.
Other than the extra gas & time we took to get there, the trip to Sucia was straight forward. The weather had improved enough as we were coming into Roche that we had completely removed the vertical canvas & windows of the enclosure, and pulled back the bimini to enjoy the improving weather. As we cleared Spieden Island we were watching the closing skies, and by Flattop Isl., we were buttoning up the enclosure once again to protect us from the rain that had begun. It certainly is easier to do at the docks than underway. We got into Fossil Bay around 1330 and tied up at the inside end of Dock 1 and carefully checked our depth to compare it to the tide tables, as we knew there was a pending -3 ft tide the next day.
Sucia was surprisingly quiet. In fact, there remained dockspace most of the weekend, and there were always at least a couple of mooring buoys free. On Friday we went back and revisited China caves. Elsa & Megan found some geo-cache boxes in and around the cave site. We didn’t go away for too long, as the afternoon tide was they lowest of this lunar cycle at -3.3 ft. The minimum depth we ever had under bottom was slightly less than 4 ft. Elsa the ‘Dinghy Girl’ expanded her title to include ‘Sounder Girl’, as she found a straight stick about 7 ft. long and would check the water depth every 20 min. or so. In fact, that stick came in handy, when a sailboat coming in to raft next to the boat behind us questioned the depth below. Elsa ran and grabbed her stick, took a measurement, went to the end of the dock and held up the stick to show them.... ‘about this much’.
Friday we went for a trek out to the end of the eastern point of Fossil Bay. This trail is a little narrower than the main trails on Sucia and changes elevation a bit more as well. There are a couple of short, steep inclines, but other than that is a nice couple of mile hike. On our return we looked out and saw 2 or 3 sports fishing boats waited too late, and were trying to get out of Fox Bay without enough water. Although they had raised the leg of their nice big outboards, I still hate to think about how much sediment they were sucking through their impellers. In the early evening a park ranger came by the docks came by to make sure we knew about going over to the south shore of Fox Point to watch the fireworks being set off over at North Beach on Orcas Island. There ended up being a group of about 20-30 campers and boaters over there watching. Someone had a ghetto blaster playing a Beattles CD, so we had our own little Symphony of Fire right there.
Saturday we took it easy and didn’t head off too far, not being sure when to expect the Munros. As it turns out they had engine trouble with their boat the previous weekend, so were not able to make it. The kids were naturally disappointed, but we still had lots of fun. The dock was chocked full of pups, so Elsa was in seventh heaven. I think her favourite new friend was a Russell Terrier X that was on a Macgregor 26X that was already tied up at the foot of the dock when we arrived... ‘See dad, one of these would fit on our boat!’ Friday we filled the shower bag, so Sat. afternoon was hair washing day. I don’t know if were ready to be live-aboarders yet, but we’re getting there.
Sun./Mon. July 6 & 7: Roche Harbor
Knowing boaters would be making their way home to prepare for work Monday, we set off back to Roche. It was a cloudy morning, but the skies slowly cleared and by the afternoon it was sunny. With the barometer rising, it looked like the sunny weather was finally returning. Service at the docks was great. The dockhands were helpful and always nearby, but never in the way. The first chuckle we had was how we had to step up onto the docks to get out of our boats; the deck of the dock was actually a couple of inches above BoB’s rub rail. Looking around, we weren’t the only boat in this predicament, but we definitely were in the minority; this was big boat country!
We got settled in and services connected then went up the wharf to deal with the most urgent of needs; laundry and lunch! We lucked out and got 2 empty washers right away (like winning the lottery!) then ordered lunch right on the wharf. Everyone enjoyed their meals, and started to plan the rest of our day. There’s a lot to wander around and enjoy at Roche; a small number of nice shops, marina amenities, as well as the grounds themselves. While continuing with laundry duties, we checked in & out of some of the nearby shops & kiosks. Lisa’s been keeping an eye out for a new swimsuit, and found a really nice one that was actually very well priced. We enjoyed the artisian kiosks and succumbed to the ice-cream stand as well. There were Sunday afternoon music shows happening by the flagmast, and we recognized the familiar sounds of Dave Calhoun, a solo singer/guitar + backing track act in the style of Jimmy Buffet. We thoroughly enjoyed his music at last years BWY rendezvous, so we went over to listen for a while.
Once all our chores were done we walked over toward the recreation area to check out the pool, playground and tennis courts. We wandered around a little bit, but were surprised at how long it took us to get everything done earlier, and dinner was already going to be late tonight; in fact we had barely finished dinner when the 10 min. warning for Colors (lowering of the flags) came across the PA. Without having had a chance to do the other things that we had heard about at Roche, we knew we would be staying another day.
We had read about a field of outdoor art in Wagoneers, so headed over towards that after we got our morning chores & rituals out of the way. I thought it was an interesting concept but to be honest, I probably would have passed on it had the rest of the family not been so keen to check it out. Would I have missed out! This was a great experience that we got increasingly into as we went through it. There’s about a 6-7 acre field across which about 50 pieces of outdoor art -in a variety of media- are installed. Part of the fun is find the works (there is a walking map, but some of the works may be installed overhead in trees, for example), some is in interpreting them, another is when you just step back and look over the expanse and calm of the field. Although Wagoneers noted that that 1/2 hour that they spent here was not enough, the 2 hours we spent there flew by. There is an unmanned kiosk at the entrance and the admission box was on the honour system. Well worth the time, and it would have been a shame to have not gone.
As if we hadn’t done enough walking after that, we decided to follow the roadsigns to main center, thinking that it may lead us to a more ‘non-boater’ oriented part of Roche. It actually only took us around through the housing/vacation development that is well underway behind the marina, but we did take a road to the north that branched off and took us up towards an area of older development, a working boatyard, etc. From there, we returned to the marina via a walking trail that led us back to the marina.
The day was getting warm, but the girls really wanted to play tennis, so we (Elsa) rowed us across the rec. area and we played tennis (okay, we chased a ball around) for awhile before hitting the pool. Both were lots of fun. Both areas were great, and the pool temperature was just right. For some reason, the pool was closing earlier that night (6:00pm), so we stayed until just before the closing rush, and headed back for dinner. After our late dinner -that included boiling up all the corn (we got for when we were supposed to meet up with the Munros)- we headed out to find the Masonic Museulium, designated as an American National Historic Site. It was approaching sunset, so it was becoming a little darker amongst the the tall trees of this forested area, and Elsa did start to get a little anxious as we followed the marked trail up through the cemetary. But it was another site that we would not have wanted to miss. What struck me about it was how recent of history was included in the tomb, as the last entry was from 1984. There remained one empty ‘spot’ at the table, but that spot also aligned with a ‘broken’, incomplete pillar that rings the table. Historically, I don’t know enough about this to hazard a guess, but it was a fascinating place to visit.
The wind forecast for tomorrow for late morning gale force winds, so we went to bed planning to depart as early as the fuel docks would allow in the morning. More photos