July 31st – August 6th Carl’s brother Jim joins us for an island hopping tour

July 31^st – August 6^th Carl’s brother Jim joins us for an island hopping tour

 This will be a bit longer than most as we have not had wifi nor cell signal for most of this week.

We are in an odd cycle of currents and tides making midday runs rather than O dark thirty runs.  We plan a 1230 departure so with a free morning on my hands and fresh water hauled from the state park I set about doing the laundry in buckets, taking advantage of the lone picnic table on the dock.   

Hung to dry on the lifelines and later moved inside to finish as we weigh anchor around 1230 for our run across the Straits towards Aleck Bay.

After threading our way back out of Sequim Bay through the narrow switchback to avoid sand spits we motor/sail just short of 5 hours to cross 25 miles of open water through the bull’s-eye of the Seattle traffic lanes for large ships.  Thankfully no Fog this time!  We have given the auto pilot a good test as well.  We had a red rock crab go wild on us in the cockpit and he latched onto the low hanging wire for the auto pilot, giving it a good crimp before he finally let go.  Thankfully it does not seem to have broken the wire.

We set anchor in Aleck Bay on the southern tip of Lopez Island in the San Juans, where first we anchored with Walt and Odile when they helped us bring ExTerra up the coast for our maiden voyage in 2013. 

The next morning we depart at 0700 hoping to get some decent current in our favor.  Alas, for whatever reason this year’s current table and atlas are not that accurate and we are slowed down a bit again.  We choose to travel along the outside edge of San Juan Island in hopes of seeing Orca.  We had a wonderful show last time we came here but today, there are none to be seen.  We do get to sail a bit though and make it to our destination, Prevost Harbor on Stuart Island around 1:30.This is usually a busy harbour and is again today.  Lots of boats on anchor, tied to floats or tied to the dock.  We anchor out and dinghy ashore for our planned afternoon activity, a hike to the Turn Point Lighthouse.  

 This (poorly marked) trail takes us up and down hills, over logs and through the salal patch to the Stuart Island schoolhouse.  We purchase (on the honor system, please send a check later) a recently published book, “The History of Stuart Island.” 

We poke around the “Teacherage” Museum, nicely done with displays about the life on the island.  School was in session on the island from 1894 to 1904 in shacks and barns, then in the “new school house” from 1904-1969, then again in the newer “new” school building from 1980-2008.  It is currently closed. 

After catching up on history we are on the county ‘road’ (wider dirt track) for the rest of our nearly 3 mile (one way) hike to the lighthouse.  

We arrive unfortunately about 20 minutes after the small museum has closed but we sit on the nice wide covered porch, eat our trail mix, and gawk at the excellent view across Haro Strait and into the Gulf Islands of Canada.

On our return hike we browse the wares at one of the islands two honor system “Boundary Pass Traders” Treasure Chests, purchasing one set (please send a check later) of impressionist note cards depicting local birds.   

We are lazy bums again the next day with an 1100 departure to Pender Harbour to check into customs.  “Mr. Corey, is your wife Pam with you again this year?”  “Yes, and my brother Jim, but he will only be with us for four days in Canada.”  “What, you are going to throw him off in just four days?”  And so it goes, we are once again cleared to enter Canada.

We visit the Secretary Islands, anchoring one night in the small nook between islands.  Tides are not low enough this year for us to walk the shoreline nor allow the playful raccoons that we saw last year to wander around flipping oysters.  Fishing is successful and we limit out on rockfish since the catch and keep is one fish only.  Three smaller copper, one greenling and a small flounder make a nice fresh fish dinner for the three of us.  

Then it is popcorn and a movie on our “big screen” 9” tablet.  Please note the nicely tied bowline know that helps suspend it from our fishing pole holder.

Next we anchor in James Bay on Prevost Island with good holding and a nice open view north to other small islands and the Trincomali Channel.  Friends Gina and Kevin had mentioned the Fernwood community dock to us but it was completely full when we went by.  Their next recommendation was Portland Island which turned out to be quite nice.  We anchored twice.  Once on the south side alongside the Pellow Islets for the afternoon then around to the west side of Chad Island for the night.  From the Pellow anchorage we took ET, our trusty dinghy ashore.  As Gina and Kevin mentioned there was great hiking on Portland Island.  We logged about 3 ½ miles through lush forest on well maintained trails before returning to the boat to move it for the night. 

Fishing in ET was productive although it was all catch and release since we had plenty of fresh cooked crab already on the evening menu.  Very playful seals kept jumping, diving and chatting as they came in close to watch the dinghy fishermen.  Once the ferry service stopped for the evening the view out the stern of our boat made us feel like we were in some distant wilderness, gently rocking on the peaceful expanse of water with mountains and islands in the background.

Tonight finds us in the exact opposite….tied up at the very nice, large Van Isle Marina in Sidney, surrounded by mega yachts of all shapes and sizes.  Boat chores done, we then scouted out the bus route so we can get Jim onto the bus in the morning.  He will ride about an hour to Victoria by bus then hop the Coho ferry to ride across the Straits of Juan de Fuca to Port Angeles where his truck is waiting for him at the boat basin.  We have sure enjoyed having him along with us for the week and hope he enjoyed a quick tour of some of the San Juans and the Gulf Islands.