Summary
Having spent last summer on an epic journey and needing to juggle work commitments, we decided to spend this summer much more local. To that note, we left for the San Juans at the end of June planning to spend a little less than 3 weeks exploring the smaller islands we haven’t seen yet.
6/29/2024
We spent a few hours on Friday juggling cars so that we had a vehicle in Anacortes in case we needed it. After getting back to Seattle late, we decided to spend the night on the boat Friday night - partly so we could get an early start on Saturday and partly so we could feel like our vacation was starting a little earlier. We departed early in the morning on 6/29 - targeting either Port Ludlow or Port Townsend for the night.
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The day was mostly uneventful, but we did decide to take the inside route to Port Townsend avoid some wind waves. The bridge is 58 feet high (at high tide) and our boat’s mast is 50 feet tall - obviously we were going to clear it, but that didn’t stop me from sweating for a minute!
We stayed in the Port Townsend marina for the night and decided we would rather anchor out next time - the marina is so far from town and there is a beautiful anchorage closer to town where we can easily dinghy in. We spent the night mostly on the boat relaxing and getting ready for our trip.
6/30/2024
We left early the following morning - hoping to get the pull through Admiralty inlet and then the push through cattle pass as the tide flipped. The straits were calm and beautiful - not much sailing, but we motored across pretty quickly - with a 2 knt pull through the inlet and then a 4+ knt push through cattle pass. Sara got excited as we passed into the San Juans and started to take pictures of all of the islands and the sea life (we saw some porpoises).
We made it into Friday Harbor in the late morning, right behind a line of Seattle yacht club boats. We were worried about not getting a slip, but they all anchored out (despite slips being open). We were able to grab a spot and discovered that everyone was waiting until the next day so that they could keep their slips through the 4th of July (you can only stay at the outstation for 4 consecutive days). Worked out well for us!
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7/1/2024
Angela and Sara spent the following morning puttering around Friday harbor, doing a bit of shopping and provisioning for the next week or so. I, on the other hand, had to work and got the chance to try out our Starlink setup for the first time. It worked great - just as fast as our home internet. I finished up work mid-afternoon and we all loaded up to make our way to Sucia island. None of us have been to this island before, but Angela has wanted to go there since she was a kid - so there was a lot of excitement in the air. It was a short trip and it really felt like we were on vacation now - so we basically goofed off the whole way…
We grabbed a mooring ball in a small bay called “Snoring bay” which was right next to Fossil bay. It could really only fit two boats, as opposed to Fossil bay which probably had 30 boats - so it ended up being a pretty quiet spot. We spent the rest of the afternoon just hanging around, making dinner, and playing board games. We went on a quick walk on shore, but decided to save most of our hiking for the following day.
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7/2/2024
I had to work again today, but I ended up taking Angela and Sara over to Orcas island mid morning so they could do some exploring and pickup some supplies we missed the day before. It was a quick trip for me - about 20 min there, drop the dinghy, and then 20 min back. This was my first time grabbing a mooring ball solo - it didn’t end up being super challenging, but it did take me a couple of passes before I was able to line things up correctly (it’s a lot harder without Angela on the front of the boat providing me with hand and arm signals!).
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I ended up working most of the day on an empty boat and then headed over in the mid-afternoon (my job is on east coast time, so I usually wrap everything up around 2-3p) to pick them up. We came back and decided to move to the bigger/more popular Echo bay so we were more centrally located for hiking on Sucia. Sara and I went on a quick hike over to shallow bay on the other side of the island just to see it.
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We headed back to have a delicious dinner on the boat.
7/3/2024
The following morning we woke up to a beautiful, calm bay. The bay is big, but more well protected than snoring bay so we slept really well. We did an early morning walk around on shore and some beach combing before I headed off to work for the day. Sara and Angela did some more beach combing after I left and did a dinghy trip around the bay. They came back toting about river otters - bummer I didn’t get to see them!
I was able to finish up a bit early today given it was the day before the 4th and brought some picnic stuff and went ashore for a dinner. It was a beautiful evening, and we weren’t the only ones who thought so. We ended up watching a wedding on shore as we took the dinghy back to the boat.
7/4/2024
I was itching to explore on the 4th given how cooped up I had been for the first half of the week, and so I managed to get the family off the boat pretty early in the morning for what turned into a monumental hike around Sucia island - almost 9 miles in total. We started off with a hike around the Southern half of the island, which included Fossil bay, shallow bay, and the two southern fingers and several cool points where we could stop and overlook the channel and Orcas island. The entirety of Sucia is a Washington state park (which we knew), but what we didn’t know is that it was purchased by a bunch of Puget sound boating clubs and then donated to the state to create a boaters “paradise”. There were several plaques around the island commemorating this.
We finished up the first part of the hike and had short lunch at the head of Fossil bay before making our way back to Echo bay. I was eager to continue the hike out to the northern finger and Ewing cove, but Angela was done hiking for the day. I fully expected Sara to head back to the boat with Angela, but her FOMO kicked in at the last minute and she decided to come with me up to the northern finger. It was a longer hike than I expected (about 4 mi round trip) but Sara was lively and eager the whole way. We spent almost the entire trip trying to make up rock-paper-scissors like games that made more sense than rock-paper-scissors (since paper can’t really beat rock). I don’t know that we actually came up with anything better, but we tried for several hours!
Here’s the map of our whole route:
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We headed back to the boat late that evening very tired and hungry. Angela made a delicious meal and we ate to our hearts content. We played some games after dinner and went out on deck to see if we could see any fireworks (which we could not) before heading off to bed.
7/5/2024
Another work day for me, but we decided to make the move back to Friday harbor to do another quick refit (we have been out for a week, hard to believe!) and spend the night before we try something new.
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7/6/2024
We decided to checkout Eastsound and spend the night on anchor - which is a place Angela has frequented over the years but I had never been. We first stopped at Rosario resort to get some fuel and then we made our way up to Ship Bay to drop anchor.
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There was only one other boat in the bay and it was only a 5 min dinghy ride into down. It was a pretty comfortable anchorage overall (with the exception of some kids racing their little fishing skiffs around the bay at around 7p). We dropped the dinghy and headed into town - spotting some huge egg-yolk jellyfish on the way, bit enough to go back for a second pass and some pictures.
Eastsound was lovely - Angela/Sara had already experienced it on this trip but it was my first time. We got some ice cream (some of the best of my life) and picked up our commemorative magnet - we have a tradition to purchase magnets from every where we go started on our trip to Alaska. Sara did a number on a chocolate ice cream…
We headed back to the boat to get a good nights sleep before we headed back to Friday harbor the next day.
7/7/2024
The grandparents were flying into Friday harbor today, so we headed out fairly early to make our way back there (and then hike to the Friday harbor airport, which was not close). About 10 min into our trip, guess who we ran into? The schooner Zodiac! This was the boat we got married on…
The rest of the trip back to Friday was uneventful. I unfortunately forgot to stop the chart-plotter track, so this map includes the following day’s trip to Henry island.
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It was a 20-30 min walk to the airport, but it was really hot so it took a bit more out of us than it would have otherwise. The sidewalks disappear a little ways into the trip as well, so it wasn’t a particularly nice hike either. Oh well. We picked up the grandparents and made our way to San Juan Brewing company for dinner - which I always love!
We dropped the grandparents off at their hotel (with Sara) and made our way back to the boat. Hopefully Sara doesn’t give them too much trouble!
7/8/2024
Today was another work day for me, so I got my coffee/computer/starlink setup and started my day on the boat. Angela headed off to meet my parents and Sara and found them excitedly watching the float planes land in the harbor.
As I continued to work, they found whe whale museum and learned all about the Orcas up here as well as doing some crafting…
Around 3p, we all met up at the boat and started to get ready for our departure. Angela and I were invited over to a fellow SYC boat - the 72 foot “Sight unseen” - named because it was purchased literally sight unseen during the pandemic - crazy! We finished our short trip up to Henry island (see map above) and grabbed a slip before taking a dinghy ride to drop my parents and Sara (I guess she was pretty easy the night before) off at their hotel.
7/9/2024
This was another work day for me, so I sent Angela off in the Dinghy to pickup my parents while I got settled in at yet a new work location. The crew did a bit of exploring around Roche harbor as well as some kayaking/hiking on Henry.
I finished up around 3p again and we headed off on a longer hike around Henry island and up to the nature preserve. We have done this hike several times before and it’s always fun.
The crew picked up some bbq stuff and we had hot dogs/hamburgers on the grills at Henry island.
7/10/2024
I was able to take the day off today, so we were able to have a bit of a bigger adventure by heading across the Speiden channel and up to Stuart island. I’ve been wanted to go here for a long time and I was excited to finally make it. This is the furthest north you can go in the San Juan islands before you enter Canada and there is a state park here, although it only covers a small part of the whole island. The rest of the island is private and all off grid and, as you would expect, there were houses of all shapes and sizes from the massive to the shack built by someone’s bare hands.
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We decided to take the hike out to the Turn point lighthouse - about 6.5 miles. There was a possibility of seeing Orcas there, but there was also a treasure chest mentioned in the guidebook which we had to go find. The hike was pretty fun - we did not see Orcas but we learned alot about the history of the island which was pretty interesting.
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About halfway through the hike we found the treasure chest - which was an honor system pop-up shop with some assorted “stuart island” shirts and a coloring book for Sara. I think everyone in the party got something. There was also a museum about some of the homesteaders that lived here back in the day - as well as some information about the island being used for bootlegging during the prohibition. There was also an outdoor theater (don’t know how often it was used, but I certainly would want to come see a show someday). We also walked past the private airstrip before making it to the lighthouse.
We were able to get a tour of the lighthouse from the docent and we explored the history of the lighthouse over time. There was a concerted effort to preserve this one, which I don’t think it true of most of the lighthouses in the PNW. The trip back was starting to get hot, but fortunately we survived. We made it back to the boat and untied from the mooring to head back to Henry. Pulling out of the bay, we saw Orcas! I didn’t have my DSLR with me so the pictures from my cell phone do them no justice…
We followed them for a bit (along with a half dozen whale watching boats) before we turned back to head across the Speiden channel and back to Henry island.
7/11/2024
I had to work once again today, but I had a late start so we decided to spend the first hour of the morning heading over to Jones island to grab a morning. The plan was for the crew to head ashore while I setup starlink and worked off the mooring ball for the day. The crew went on a fairly long hike before heading back to the boat for lunch.
I ended up wrapping up my work a bit later today (just before 4p) and we had to race off the mooring ball to catch the tide heading back through the Speiden channel. We spotted some whale watching boats on AIS and thought we might be able to spot some whales if we took the long way around Speiden island. Unfortunately, no whales to be seen but we did two different species of the exotic animals that Speiden island is known for - the sika deer from Japan and the Mouflon sheep from the middle east. The island is private and back in the 70s and early 80s they imported animals from all over the world to hunt them - a few of them got away and now call the island home.
We pulled back into Henry island fairly late (6ish). Here’s the map of our day.
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We grabbed some dinner at Roche harbor and Angela got to work on a new puzzle - which was obsessively worked on and finished up the following day.
7/12/2024
Today was drop-off day and we made our way back to Friday harbor starting in the early morning. We dropped anchor in Deer harbor and took the dinghy ashore which was a new stop for us. There wasn’t a lot there, but the marina had a small breakfast shop and we did a little bit of walking around before heading back to the boat. I forgot to take pictures at Deer harbor, but here it is from the back of our boat as we were leaving.
We pulled into Friday harbor around noon, plenty of time to finish up the puzzle and walk my parents back to the airport.
After dropping my parents off, we headed back for showers and then off to our very fancy dinner that Angela booked for us earlier in the week. The restaurant was called Walden and they had just opened earlier this year. We were a bit worried about a 7 course meal with Sara getting bored, but she did great and enjoyed herself richly. We would definitely go back for another special occasion. The meal ended with a little quote from the book Walden - inspiring me to download the audio book for a later read.
We headed out on Saturday morning to make our way back to Seattle. We had to leave early, pulled out at 5:30a, to time the tides right, and we made it across the Strait of Juan de Fuca without any issues. We had heard bad things about going west of Smith island (big kelp fields), but we decided to chance it this time and we were richly rewarded. There was a bit kelp field, but it was easily avoidable and we saw Puffins! Apparently it’s the only place in the Puget sound where you can see them with any frequency and Angela was super excited. If you remember, Puffins was the #1 item on her list for Glacier bay - turns out she didn’t need to go nearly that far to see them.
As we were passing into Admiralty inlet, we saw Orcas! Again, no DSLR so the pictures do no justice. We stuck around for about an hour watching them before heading on. Our boat buddies (Lara & Micheal) were right behind us and it was most of the folks on that boat’s first time seeing Orcas - super exciting.
We stopped in Port Madison for the evening, mostly just no wanting the vacation to end, and then headed home early the next morning. Here’s the map of the final two days:
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What a great trip - hopefully we can do some more short trips this summer, we didn’t want this one to end!