Author Archives: Patrick

Our 2 Favorite Anchorages of Clayoquot Sound: Matilda Inlet and Heelboom Bay

August 15, 2015

We were ghosting into the entrance to Matilda Inlet, before the point blocked the remainder of a 5 knot breeze. Fingers of wispy clouds intertwined with the dense evergreen shore. As we lost all wind, a light rain started.

We motored about a mile south, past the tiny town of Ahousat, into the right (west) fork of the inlet. There were no other boats there. We dropped anchor in about 15 feet, the anchor setting easily – a welcome luxury after recent deeper anchorages (we don’t have a powered windlass and it’s a lot of work pulling up 100+ feet of chain later).

Matilda Inlet in the lower right – we anchored in the left fork where I drew a red arrow.
(Note chart not intended for navigation)

After turning off the engine, Natalie said “Do you hear that?”

“What?” I said. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly,” she said. “It’s silent here.”

And it was. We had only the sounds of nature – a couple birds chirping, a slight breeze blowing through the trees.

It seems a silly thing to find notable, but most anchorages we’re used to aren’t that silent – with 4 or 5 other boats present (or 15+ for the big ones), you hear voices, generators, loose lines slapping against rigging, etc.

Matilda Inlet had a magical feel to us. An anchorage so perfect it felt like we had discovered a secret paradise. It’s completely protected inside a mile long inlet, surrounded by lush evergreen forest, and a family of four eagles kept us company soaring majestically over our heads. A man-made bathing pool on the shore is a short dinghy ride away. A rainforest-like hiking trail leads to a beach where you can find a sea cave.

The man-made pool at Matilda Inlet

We liked it so much we stayed a second night. The first night we shared the anchorage with one other sailboat, and the second night had it all to ourselves.

Heelboom Bay

If we had to pick one reason it was worth going to Clayoquot Sound, it’d have to be the empty anchorages. Heelboom Bay was another one we had all to ourselves. Of 6 nights at anchor in Clayoquot, two nights we were alone and three nights we had only one other boat present. Only one anchorage had more than one boat besides ours (Hot Springs Cove).

There’s something really special about having an anchorage all to yourself. It’s a true feeling of seclusion, peace and quiet, and oneness with nature.

Heelboom Bay had the most spectacular sunset of the trip. As the evening progressed, the sunset just got better and better. At 9pm I was thinking “this is a pretty good sunset.” By 9:30 I was thinking “wow, this is the best sunset I’ve ever seen!”

The sunset was reflecting off clouds onto the water in almost a 180 degree arc, with our view out the bay open to the east – looking upon the mountain ranges of Vancouver Island.

Check out my GoPro video on YouTube (turn on HD quality if you’re on decent Internet), which also includes footage from our sail to Bamfield the following week:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsm2kZ2NfNc

Engine Problems in the Strait of Juan de Fuca

August 8, 2015

3 Replies

This might have been the first time I knew real fear. We were having engine problems in the Strait of Juan de Fuca in 4 foot ocean rollers and no wind. Our engine power was dropping randomly, and at this point I had no clue why.

I’m not a person who frightens easily. Rock climbing, mountaineering, auto racing on a track, roller coasters – those things I would hardly even call scary. The only two things I’ve ever really found scary were skydiving and spelunking (caving, but in a random cave in PA where we crawled through tiny shoulder-width passages and the fear of getting trapped was very real).

But with our engine acting up in the Strait and no wind to sail, I began to realize how truly on our own we were. There was no easy rescue. If our engine completely failed we’d be stuck doing 360’s in ocean waves getting seasick for maybe hours before we could get Vessel Assist or a Coast Guard tow.

If you’ve never been out the Strait of Juan de Fuca before, the first thing you need to know about it is that it’s much bigger and more remote than you probably realize. In the whole day we hadn’t seen any other sailboats until the last hour, and there aren’t many safe anchorages you can pull into if something goes wrong.

Our lives weren’t in any danger. This wasn’t a real crisis compared to the life or death situations some sailors have been through. Yet it was still scary.

With time to think, and a quick check of the engine troubleshooting table in the Don Casey book, it was pretty clear it was probably a clogged fuel filter. But, I couldn’t help worry about all the other things it could maybe be – what if this was some weird, hard to fix issue rather than the fuel filter? What if the engine was actually overheating and our temperature alarm was broken? What if the fuel lift pump was broken? An air leak in the fuel lines? Would we continue on to the outside of Vancouver Island only to find the engine failing again in an even more remote location?

Limping into Neah Bay

We shut down the engine and I did an inspection. With the lack of wind and the 4’ rollers, the boat quickly turned beam to the waves, which made below decks work fairly seasickness inducing.

I really didn’t want to try changing the fuel filter at sea. We restarted the engine, and were able to get it to run fine at a low cruising rpm (1800-1900). We slowly motored the last hour into Neah Bay.

Maybe it was our engine problems, or the gray chilly weather, but we found Neah Bay very glum and depressing

As I motored towards a dilapidated-looking unattended fuel dock, the engine died. Bad timing. Restart engine, died again. Ugh! Okay, what now? We’re 100 feet from the fuel dock, in 15 knots of wind (blowing off dock/land fortunately), gray overcast skies with a gloomy early darkness approaching.

We quickly raise the main halfway, and decide to sail onto anchor. That works surprisingly well. The most stressful part was making sure we got the anchor well set on the first try, since I didn’t want to have to do it all over again. Plus we only had the wind to set / test the anchor, and I didn’t want us blowing onto the rock jetty across the harbor in the middle of the night.

Fixing The Problem

We had 15-20 knot winds in the anchorage all night, which coupled with worrying about the engine and the anchor holding, made for a restless night.

Fortunately the primary fuel filter (a Racor) was the problem, and replacing it with one of the two spares I had fixed the issue. But I was still paranoid maybe that wasn’t truly the cause, or maybe there was another secondary problem. I replaced the Yanmar fuel filter (on engine) too just in case.

In a way I felt stupid worrying so much about a fuel filter clog. Fuel filter clogs are mundane, routine stuff for people who cruise in Mexico and other areas with dirty fuel. But this was the first time Violet Hour had really let us down (in reality it was Yamagachi, the name we gave our engine, who let us down). And I had realized how truly dependent we were on engine power when in a strait with no wind.

The Lovely Smell of Diesel in the Morning

The fun wasn’t over yet though – the secondary filter (on the Yanmar) leaked fuel for the next four days. So I was mopping up diesel from the bilge and under floor panels every evening.

Yeah, this first week was pretty tough.

The Yanmar fuel filter has a metal collar with slightly raised nubs and screws on to attach the filter housing. Fuel was slowly leaking from here whenever the engine was on. I tried tightening it as much as possible by hand, and eventually with a ViseGrip wrench (that was the only thing I could get a decent grip on it with). That still didn’t fix it. Eventually I tried replacing the rubber gasket inside the housing, even though it looked fine, with a spare I had onboard (fortunately). That worked!

Marinating chicken in the cockpit since the swell in the Strait was too rolly to work below.

West Coast Vancouver Island – Trip Summary

August 3, 2015

3 Replies

Last week we got back from our 4-week trip out the Strait of Juan de Fuca, up the west coast of Vancouver Island to Barkley and Clayoquot Sounds, back through the Strait to Victoria, around the Gulf Islands a couple days, and then back to Seattle.

This was about 600 nautical miles, but that’s just the straight line distance – with tacking and jibing when we were sailing, we probably did closer to 800.

Overall route (not all circles represent stops, those are just the points where I needed to change the route line direction)

Detailed route of Barkley and Clayoquot Sounds.

As cruisers often say, the highs were very high and the lows very low. Cruising is often more intense, in both the good and the bad, than land life. Our two biggest problems were mechanical – the fuel filter clogging in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the transmission progressively failing. There were human challenges too – dealing with very tiring passages, mild seasickness, difficulties in confused ocean waves, challenges controlling the sails in high winds, and almost swinging into rocks at anchor.

Despite the challenges, I feel we did quite well. We didn’t have any failures of seamanship – no groundings, no navigational mistakes, no anchor dragging, no poor timing of weather, no docking mishaps.

There were hard times, but for this post I want to focus on the fun times – all the amazing experiences and especially the great photos I got.

Stream-fed bathing pool at Matilda Inlet

Anchored in Matilda Inlet (our favorite anchorage of the trip)

Wildlife

The trip was not a roadside safari, yet we saw plenty of wildlife.

Whales – a gray whale while we were sailing south of Hot Springs Cove in large, confused seas, and a small whale near Effingham Bay that actually breached (jumped out of the water)!
Bears – two separate sightings of black bears on Vancouver Island from Clayoquot Sound.
Orcas – multiple groups in one sighting in Becher Bay near Victoria. There were several whale watching boats following them.
Pregnant sea otter? Offshore of Barkley Sound we saw a sea otter curled into a fetal position on her back, feet sticking straight into the air – we thought she must either be giving birth, or sick. It was the oddest sight, randomly a couple miles offshore in ocean waves.
Lots and lots of eagles. My favorite was in Tofino when a male bald eagle carrying a salmon head in his claws flew right in front of me only about 15 feet away.

Seals (of course).
A raccoon just a few feet off the trail on Portland Island.

Great Hikes

Portland Island (aka Princess Margaret island, part of the Gulf Islands national park) – this was probably our favorite sailboat-accessed hike yet – about a 6 km trail running around the island that had great views the whole way and interesting vegetation and scenery – lots of photo ops.

Portland Island

Effingham Bay – I did this hike twice, once with Natalie and once with Kristina and Scott from Seattle. It’s an easy hike with a great beach, and when Natalie and I did it we went to the sea cave. The cave would be fun to explore further with a flashlight.

The sea cave at Effingham Island

Hot Springs Cove – this is an easy hike on a boardwalk, with a natural hot springs at the end as reward!

Hiking to the hot springs

Bamfield Boardwalk – it’s a stretch to call this a hike, but Bamfield was super cute – especially the dogs!

Arrived in Victoria and docked in front of the Empress Hotel

Our last day – with a failing transmission but a 12 knot wind at our backs, I pointed the bow pointed at Mount Rainier and we sailed home.

When Your Motor Can’t Go Forward, Drive in Reverse

August 1, 2015

6 Replies

There we were in the Gulf Islands, drifting between Sidney Spit and several threatening rocks on flat, windless water. We were motoring backwards with our mainsail up. Other boats must have thought we were completely crazy. While sailboats around us were motoring like normal, we were traveling in reverse.

Our transmission was failing – the forward gear would no longer engage. But reverse worked just fine – meaning we could motor in reverse, but in forward could only go about ½ a knot – the speed gained from the prop spinning at about 500 rpm with the clutch slipping; and that would only work in windless, waveless conditions.

A failing transmission was a giant kink in our plans – everything became more difficult. Getting into marinas without forward power was scary, so we avoided marinas except for one stop in Ganges to get a mechanic to check out the transmission. Sailboats don’t drive well in reverse (the rudder isn’t designed to work that way), but we could motor that way at 2-3 knots a short while if we needed to get out of trouble or to some wind.

HBW150V_250

Luckily sailboats have two means of propulsion – the engine, and the sails. So we took light air sailing to new levels – sailing in 2 knot winds where every other sailboat was motoring. There are a few sailboats that sail across oceans with no engine, but those sailors are by far a tiny, minuscule minority. I don’t know how they do it, and have tremendous respect for someone who could. Sailing without a motor is an exercise in frustration when wind can be absent for hours, or days, at a time.

Fortunately the transmission magically popped into forward after 2 ½ hours waiting, and we slammed it into full power for 10 hours from the Gulf Islands to Port Townsend, crossing a glassy, windless Haro Strait and a windless eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca. We had to exit Cattle Pass against current, but with the motor finally in gear there was no way we were turning it off – if we throttled down too much the clutch could slip and we’d lose forward gear again.

This was like our own version of the 90’s movie ‘Speed’ where they’re on a speeding bus that they can’t slow down.

A dead transmission is not a problem we could fix underway. No one I’ve heard of carries spare transmission parts with them, and repairing it requires removing the transmission from the prop shaft – this model, a Hurth v-drive, is not easily opened up.

And we don’t know what caused it – as far as I know, we didn’t do anything wrong that would contribute to the transmission issue. The mechanics we’ve talked to so far thought most likely it was just old and gradually wearing out.

A makeshift oil funnel I made out of a beer box because the engine oil funnels I had were too big to fit the transmission. The oil looked okay, but I topped it up since we didn’t have any other ideas.

Perhaps what scared me even more than whether or not we’d be able to get home was that this could have happened anywhere. If we decided to sail to Mexico someday, this could’ve happened 50 miles offshore of the Oregon coast. Then we’d be in ocean waves (possibly with no wind) and no power. We’d be far from rescue, and far from any ports that could repair the issue. And there’d be nothing we could do to fix the problem ourselves – unlike most other boats problems where we could have jury rigged a solution.

Even if the transmission had kicked the bucket when we were on the west coast of Vancouver Island we would’ve been pretty screwed. There are no major marine ports like Port Townsend there, probably few if any mechanics experienced in marine transmissions, and the boat would’ve been stuck there for months while we tried to fly parts in.

After anchoring overnight at Port Townsend, we sailed all the way back to Seattle the next day, having a wonderful downwind sail with blessedly consistent 10-12 knot winds. Then came our last challenge – getting into Elliott Bay Marina without forward gear and a 12 knot wind blowing through the entrances! We could sail in, but sailing a 38 foot, 18,000 pound displacement boat into a marina you’ve never entered before is not so easy, nor necessarily a good idea when there are breakwater rocks and million dollar powerboats. After an hour of getting pushed by wind and current, when we were just about to try reversing in, the clutch miraculously engaged in forward and we made it in!

Violet Hour is out of commission now for at least a month, all of August which is prime sailing season in Seattle. And will cost many boat bucks to repair. So this is a disappointing end to our trip, but there were many great moments before this – more to come soon!

Taking off for a month on the Vancouver Island coast

July 3, 2015

1 Reply

Tomorrow we take off for the west coast of Vancouver Island. I had my last day of work on Wednesday until August! It’s a little weird since I’ve never taken this much time off, ever. We have a pretty great adventure planned and will be going out the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the rugged, remote Vancouver Island coast along the Pacific Ocean.

This is sort of a test – a test to see if we like real cruising. Not vacation cruising where you hurriedly jump from one destination to another, but cruising in the true meaning of the word – where you go at a sustainable pace living a mostly normal life, just one spent on the water.

VancouverIsland

Our itinerary (tentative, since the goal is to remain flexible) looks roughly like:

July 4-6 – Seattle – Sequim bay – Neah Bay – Ucluelet
July 7-8 – Barkley Sound
July 9-10 – Tofino and Matilda Inlet
July 11 – Hot Springs Cove
July 12-14 – Hesquiat Harbour and to Nookta Sound
July 15-19 – Return south to Tofino (includes buffer days)
July 19 – Meet crew while Natalie flies back to work for the week, cruise Barkley Sound.
July 23-24 – Bamfield – Port Renfrew – Victoria
July 25 – Victoria rest day
July 26 – July 30 – Gulf Islands and maybe the last day or two in the San Juans
July 31 – Aug 1 – Return to Seattle via Port Townsend

We’ll probably try to post some updates of our progress as we make our way along.

Pacific-Rim

A Review of Fishermen’s Terminal Marina

June 22, 2015

1 Reply

With our departure for Vancouver Island coming up in 2 weeks, we likely won’t be returning to Fishermen’s Terminal marina, our boat’s home for the last 4 months. When we get back in August it’ll be to Elliott Bay marina, and eventually Shilshole. Shilshole has a 10 month wait list, so we’ll be waiting till the winter for that.

But Fishermen’s Terminal has treated us well, and we will miss it.

Here’s what we liked about Fishermen’s Terminal:

Great location in Ballard that is a quicker commute from work+home than Elliott Bay marina or Shilshole. Easily bikeable.
A great pub – the Highliner – at the marina. Shilshole doesn’t have anything like that – the nearest is Ray’s a half mile away. Highliner has at least 10 good beers on tap all the time and some really good food (try the black cod, fish tacos, mussels, clams, nachos, pulled pork mac+cheese). We enjoyed many happy hours and dinners there after a sail or a project day.

The special this week at the Highliner – salmon cooked to a perfect medium rare, with a pesto sauce and pasta in a cream sauce.

Big wide slips with nice concrete docks, and very sheltered from wind and waves.
Fresh water, so your hull bottom stays super clean! When we hauled out in June, the bottom was cleaner than it was in January in Vancouver.
Cheaper moorage than Shilshole or Elliott Bay.

What we didn’t like:

Going through the Locks to get out to the Sound. This took longer and was more stressful than expected, enough so that it deterred us from sailing in the Sound more frequently and going to Lake Union instead.
Being disconnected from the sailing community. There are only about a dozen sailboats at Fishermen’s Terminal, and about 40 recreational powerboats. Compared to the probably 1000+ sailboats at Shilshole, this isn’t much. The few sailboats that are at Fishermen’s Terminal are mostly inactive – their owners are just storing them there, or working on them. In the 4 months we were there, I never once saw a sailboat enter or leave the marina. There was one trimaran I saw go out. Because there’s not much sailing activity, we missed out on some of the impromptu dock chats and learning that can happen with other sailors.
Not many marina amenities. No storage bins, no WiFi, the bathrooms get locked at 9pm, and we never did figure out how we would get into the showers + laundry, given the marina office changes the code daily (but we didn’t end up needing them).

What we worried about but wasn’t an issue:

No gates for the docks, so not as secure as other marinas.

Overall Fishermen’s Terminal is a great marina and we might return someday – it would be ideal for a few months in the winter when we won’t be sailing as much.

fishermansterminal

A Flurry of Projects During Haul-Out

June 15, 2015

1 Reply

With boatyards you pay for “lay days”, which are the days your boat is laying on the hard (on dry land instead of water). About $40/day for our size boat. So this meant haul-out time is work as fast as you can to get as much work done as possible. In July we’re planning a 1-month cruise up the west coast of Vancouver Island, so there were a number of projects that had to get done.

hauloutLift

For 1 week I got into a routine of going to Canal boatyard every day. On weekdays I woke up at 7am, went to work from 8am-4:15pm, and then started my second shift of the day at the boatyard from 5pm to 10 or 11pm.

Counting my day job I basically worked a 90 hour week. I don’t think that’s something to brag about, rather it’s a consequence of my relative amateur skills at boat repair, and poor job at estimating task size.

It was exhausting but I learned a ton in a week and got an amazing amount done.

Projects Completed:

Removed old broken speed transducer and installed new one.
Serviced all 9 seacocks – disassembling the bronze ones and lubing.
Did some draining of a weeping rudder and then epoxy + 4200 patched, painted.
Installed new cockpit scuppers and hose.
Installed new hose for toilet raw water intake.
Touched up bottom paint for the transducer, keel and rudder.
Cleaned prop shaft and installed new aluminum anode (replacing a zinc, to supplement existing 2 zincs which were still 80% intact. Aluminum because we’re in fresh water currently).

Getting the old speed transducer out of the hull was one of the toughest jobs

Yeah, this is why the scupper hoses needed replacing – a whole bunch of junk had clogged them up!

Corroded hose clamp that snapped as soon as I tried to unscrew it!

Things that didn’t go well:

I was unsuccessful at unseizing the head sink seacock. I tried about 10 different things but nothing worked, and I wasn’t willing to move on to destructive methods (because that would require replacing the seacock, backing plate, and possibly thru-hull – which I didn’t have time for).
Mixing bottom paint by hand with a paint stirrer is trickier than I thought, and messy.
I did a bit of a messy job with the transducer thruhull, since I cut through the gelcoat a bit when trying to remove the old one. I covered it with a coat of epoxy though for good measure, and the hull is solid fiberglass in this area.

Mixing a quart of bottom paint ($80 for this liquid gold!)

It’s hard to say which job was the hardest, because all of them were hard in some ways.

Lubing up the seacocks. It’s a dirty job but somebody’s gotta do it!

I think I should start measuring project sizes in the number of paper towel rolls they require. This 1-week haul-out was a 3 paper towel roll job. Cleaning one seacock uses about 3 sheets (and there were 9 of them) and epoxying and painting also uses up a fair number.

A Weeping Rudder

The water in the rudder was the unpleasant surprise of the haul-out. We hadn’t found that during the survey in February, but that had just been a short haul-out. I emailed the surveyor and he assured me water in rudders is a very common issue, and I should be okay putting off a true fix until a fall haul-out. That will require dropping the rudder, dremeling out about a ¼ inch around the rudder shaft, and filling that with epoxy or 5200.

To investigate the issue and temporarily dry it out I drilled a few 1/4″ holes and let it drip for 4 days, then sealed up with thickened epoxy and 4200.

rudderWeep rudderCore

A Moment of Panic

When we relaunched a week later on Friday I had an “oh sh*t” moment as I checked the seacocks for leaks. The 3 engine area seacocks all were dripping. Slow drips, but I was a little panicked as I couldn’t tell yet how serious the leaks were and whether I’d need to rehaul, ruining our weekend plans and adding another big expense.

Both cockpit scuppers were leaking at the elbow joint fitting to the seacock, so I just closed those valves. The engine intake seacock was more worrying because it was dripping from the seacock tapered barrel itself. I had cleaned and lubed this seacock, so I don’t know why the fitting wasn’t tight enough – it may need lapping (polishing to improve the metal-to-metal fit). I tightened it up a bit and the leak slowed to about what it was before haul-out – I had slow leaks on at least 2 of these before anyway. I’m going to work on them some more, but fortunately the leaks slowed down to almost non-existent.

After a long day’s work in a sea of powerboats.

Rebuilding Marine Head Plumbing

June 9, 2015

6 Replies

Project Summary:

Time: About 8 hours + research time
Cost: $100
Knowing your toilet won’t clog: Priceless

On our Memorial Day cruise the head (marine toilet) got clogged. Really totally blocked up – the pump wouldn’t move without a lot of pressure, and forcing it too much caused air / liquid to hiss out of a hose clamp.

So once back in Seattle we disassembled it. Needless to say, this is a messy job – quite literally a shitty job. Pulling hoses off hose barbs is actually really hard. It required a lot of muscle power in tiny tight spaces under the sink, all while knowing as soon as the hose popped off I might have a river of sludge flowing onto my hands and into the cabinet where it would be hard to clean up. We used garbage bags and large Ziplock bags as catch sheets wherever possible.

The holding tank under the nav seat, with the inlet fitting opened and a new hose lying on top.

The holding tank under the nav seat, with the inlet fitting opened and a new Trident 102 hose lying on top.

Inside the 90 degree PVC elbow that connects to the holding tank, we found petrified poop completely blocking the pipe. It had dried into a solid rock plug. It’s actually amazing liquids were still making it past. This had probably been developing for years, from the prior owner’s time, mainly caused by using the toilet without flushing enough water through the system to get the material all the way into the holding tank.

We decided to replace the old hose since it’d be easier to replace with new hose than trying to salvage, and we really don’t want to have to do this again soon. So starting fresh ensures we have new hose with no buildup or scale on the walls.

The Y valve below the vented loop

It turns out there are several types of sanitation hose vastly superior to the rigid white vinyl stuff we had in the boat. For some reason most boats have that unflexible white hose, and it’s the only kind of hose stocked onsite at the local West Marine and some other marine stores. This hose may be the cheapest, but it’s just stupid that so many people still use it – is it worth saving $50 on a head rebuild by using cheap hose? I don’t think so, since we really don’t want to have to do this again anytime soon.

Standard PVC hose

Raritan Sani/Flex hose

This unflexible hose is a giant pain to install or remove from tight spaces. Since it doesn’t bend much if you need to go around a corner you need to splice in a PVC or Marelon elbow joint. We wanted to minimize elbow joints since they can increase the chances of a clog – you don’t want flat spots or upslopes in the system where sludge can sit and dry.

Premium hose like Trident 102 (which we ended up buying from Fisheries Supply) is better because it’s easy to bend, yet still very strong and odor proof. Raritan Sani/Flex hose is also supposed to be very good, although it’s one of the most expensive ($17/ft list, $14/ft at Defender). Also Maine Sail (a well known boat maintenance writer whose opinion I trust) recommends Trident 102, and says the old PVC hose should basically die a horrible death.

This job ended up being the toughest we’ve done so far. It’s surprisingly difficult to get hoses off hose barbs in tight spaces. It makes you wonder why so many people would ever worry about double-clamping hoses. The hoses in our head plumbing, after removing the hose clamps, probably wouldn’t have come apart even if a giant sat on them. I’ll still do it for below waterline fittings, but probably not above waterline.

Anyway, we’re very happy to have a clog free head now, and looking forward to not doing that again anytime soon! On the plus side, after disassembling holding tank hoses, all other boat jobs seem pretty pleasant in comparison.

You can read more on hoses here:

Trip Report: The San Juans for Memorial Day Weekend – Part 2

May 28, 2015

1 Reply

Continued from Part 1 of the trip report.

Day 3 (Saturday) – Decatur Island to Spencer Spit

In the morning we set up our new PortaBote dinghy on deck, lowered it into the water with a very improvised and sketchy 3-point sling attached to the spinnaker halyard, and rowed ashore for a bit of exploring. We saw an eagle sitting in a tree only about 50 ft away above us, watching us closely.

PortaBote successfully setup and in water

At some point, we noticed the toilet seemed clogged. The pump had a lot of resistance and wouldn’t pump anything out anymore. Unable to fix it, we had to switch over to peeing in a bucket.

The day was overcast with no wind, so we motored an hour over to Spencer Spit and snagged a mooring ball along the beach. This was also the closest place with restrooms, which we could use for #2’s. Since we had to dinghy in, we had to all get on the same schedule.

Peekaboo view of our boat while hiking above Spencer Spit

Both our sailboat and PortaBote dinghy visible in one shot! Low tide at Spencer Spit.

Day 4 (Sunday) – Lopez Island to Port Townsend

Spencer Spit is pretty exposed to the south since only a low beach protects the anchorage, and we had a nice south breeze picking up in the morning. So we were able to sail off our mooring ball (first time doing that!) without turning on the motor – just raised the main, slipped the mooring line, unfurled the genoa, and sailed around the other two sailboats that were moored around us. As a true fan of sailing over motoring, the joy of taking off in the morning without the noise of the motor was pure fun!

We had a south current in Rosario Strait and a south wind (about 10 knots) so we headed out close hauled the whole way. Fortunately there were no tide rips or bad waves in the strait from the current opposing wind.

It was surprising how many sailboats out were choosing not to sail. With the good wind we were doing 6 knots and having a lot of fun. I can understand not wanting to sail upwind if you have to go a long way on a schedule, but we even saw some sailboats motoring downwind. If you’re not going to sail downwind, what did you get a sailboat for??

Delicious black cod and regular cod tacos for dinner

Day 5 (Monday) – Port Townsend to Seattle, with Orcas!

“I just saw a whale!” Micol shouted. I quickly looked to port and saw an unusual looking wave. “Are you sure it wasn’t just a wave?” we all said. “No it was definitely a whale” she replied. And then a minute later we all saw a big orca surface only a couple hundred feet from our boat (possibly within the 200 yard “no-go” zone for distance to orcas in Washington regulations – but we can’t help it if the orca approaches *us* first). We saw the solo orca surface a few more times heading south (near Edmonds). Later we saw 3 more orcas also heading south, around Kingston.

We had an informal race (the saying is that if two sailboats are going in the same direction, it’s automatically a race) with a Catalina 37 (being singlehanded) who happened to be going upwind on the same tacks only a bit ahead of us. We almost caught up, but he was able to point better. As much as I played with the trim, we had more speed but he could point higher. I blame it on our 10-year old cruiser sails.

Going back through the Ballard Locks was stressful as usual. With the holiday weekend there were dozens of boats going through the locks. We were third or fourth to the line, but most of the motor boats arriving after us pushed their way to the front. The small locks opened but only 4 or 5 of the 15 boats waiting could fit. The large locks was closed and already processing a large group of boats, so we had close to an hour wait.

In the end it worked out fine though. I’m gradually learning the intricacies of the locks – like how most boats use the railroad bridge as a current shield, sitting behind the bridge trestle where the current is less strong. And once past the railroad bridge, sitting in the lower current zone closer to the small locks.

In the large locks rafted to a very big motor boat

Trip Report: San Juans for Memorial Day Weekend

May 28, 2015

Stats	Usage	Remarks
Water usage	20 gallons (67% of capacity)	This was much higher than I expected, considering none was used for showering, little was used for cooking, and only 1 person (me) was using tank water for drinking (there’s a slight chlorine taste still lingering since we cleaned the tanks and don’t have a water filter yet – I don’t mind it but others preferred bottled water). So most of this usage was from dish washing, brushing teeth, and washing hands. We’ll have to get more efficient with washing dishes.
Fuel usage	⅛ tank / ~2.5 gallons	I’m not yet sure if the fuel gauge is accurate. I opened the fuel tank port twice to check how much we had left, because we haven’t had to fuel up since February.
Engine Hours	~10	At least 2 hrs were at near idle speed for transiting the Ballard locks. We only had 1-2 hours motoring per day, which I’m pretty happy with – that’s a lot lower than many other sailboats we saw out.
Electricity Usage	Low. About 13-15 Amp hours per day	Most of this was regenerated by 1 to 2 hours of motoring each day.
Top Speed	10.2 knots (GPS)	Motor sailing with 2-3 knots of current push in Admiralty Inlet.

S/V Violet Hour

Sailing adventures in the Pacific Northwest

Author Archives: Patrick

Our 2 Favorite Anchorages of Clayoquot Sound: Matilda Inlet and Heelboom Bay

Heelboom Bay

Engine Problems in the Strait of Juan de Fuca

Limping into Neah Bay

Fixing The Problem

The Lovely Smell of Diesel in the Morning

West Coast Vancouver Island – Trip Summary

When Your Motor Can’t Go Forward, Drive in Reverse

Taking off for a month on the Vancouver Island coast

A Review of Fishermen’s Terminal Marina

A Flurry of Projects During Haul-Out

A Weeping Rudder

A Moment of Panic

Rebuilding Marine Head Plumbing

Project Summary:

Trip Report: The San Juans for Memorial Day Weekend – Part 2

Day 3 (Saturday) – Decatur Island to Spencer Spit

Day 4 (Sunday) – Lopez Island to Port Townsend

Day 5 (Monday) – Port Townsend to Seattle, with Orcas!

Trip Report: San Juans for Memorial Day Weekend