fractalphreak
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2018
- Messages
- 318
- Location
- United States
- Vessel Name
- Northwest Dream
- Vessel Make
- Davis Vashon 42 Trawler (Defever design)
The past two weeks we finally took a vacation cruise. Not much of one, but it was grand to finally get away, and the beginning of what we hope will be a long series of grand adventures.
We bought the boat last August, in fact our survey/sea trial was last August 15. This year we left for vacation on August 12 and were out until the 23rd (25th actually, but I'll get to that!)
Josh and I finished the installation of the new battery boxes and the upgraded house bank (8 GC-2 batteries) and a Victron battery monitor the week prior to the 12th. I had work commitments that weekend, keeping us from leaving until Monday. We were also completing the installation of some new sanitation plumbing for the aft holding tank which kept us from leaving the dock first thing; so Monday was a short trip from our home port in Shelter Bay, Laconner north to a favorite local anchorage in Eagle Harbor, Cypress Island. Here are a few photos and the story enroute:
Just outside our marina, and heading north in the Swinomish Channel, about to pass under the iconic (but somewhat faded) rainbow bridge
Now at the north end of the Swinomish Channel, starting to see the islands. While not considered the San Juans, these are the first of the islands we come to, from right to left are Hat (Saddlebag and Dot Is are hiding behind it), Huckleberry, and Guemes. The tallest island in the distance straight ahead is Lummi, up near Bellingham. The land to the left of the channel is part of Fidalgo Island - its an island because of the channel cutting it off from the mainland.
Heading up the east side of Guemes Island, heading for Eagle Harbor. We realized the ship under command is not flying its flag. Josh went back to take care of that for me! Many boats heading out into the San Juans take Guemes Channel then cross Rosario Strait, which is a fine way to go, and can be a more direct route depending on your destination, but we find that sometimes the currents are more favorable to take the east side of Guemes then cross Rosario, or take the north side of Orcas Island across - especially if the wind is up on an ebb, it makes for a much more comfortable ride. And its beautiful and a route much less traveled, too.
The Admiral at her best. Unless its a picture of her here, its probably a photo that she took.
...and she caught me! Note that she is always surrounded by our small herd of boater-collies!
We'd gotten out late a few times this year, and anchored in the dark. I promised the Admiral we'd stop doing this. And we did. Eagle Harbor has mooring buoys. Here we are crossing Bellingham Channel just at the north end of Guemes Island.
All was well and good, and we tied up to a buoy in the dusk, until it came time for bed and we realized we had forgotten several key items needed for our trip; we could eek it out for the night, but not for two weeks. I initially planned an early morning trip in the dink to Anacortes, and an Uber or family ride home to Mount Vernon for the supplies, until I realized that not only was the dinghy fuel low, we had also forgotten its spare fuel (and even forgotten to fill it!)
Sooooooooooo................
Back to Anacortes. We filled up the dinghy, and Josh made and epic run back to our dock in Shelter Bay, drove home and got everything we needed.
While in Anacortes, we made the best of it, and double checked everything else. I found a couple supplies I could use at the hardware store (who couldn't use some extra quick set epoxy on a boat? More on THAT later too!) and we grabbed some extra snacks at the Safeway that would pass muster at the border. This is what it looks like when boater-collies are waiting for mom to come back out of the store...
We timed it and took off from the dock in Anacortes, headed back north and did a live pick up of Josh and the dinghy near the north end of Guemes Island. He covered a lot of dang miles in that Avon 310 RIB that morning, oh to be 19 again! It was a good exercise because we were able to accurately measure on the plotter the distance/time he traveled vs the fuel he used and get the dinghy wide open fuel burn data.
It was beginning to look like we'd blown our original plans - leave Eagle Harbor in time to get across the border, clear customs, get some fresh food, and get into an anchorage all on Tuesday. It just didn't look like it was going to happen, and it didn't. We're committed to running the boat between 6.25 and 7 kts, closer to 6.25(1300-1400 RPM), we are not speed or fuel demons. We made Bedwell after customs closed, which is no big deal as they have their phones on the dock. We cleared in fine, and were thinking of trying for Ganges as their stores were still going to be open, but then that left us anchoring there for the night. Before we had it figured out, here comes a trawler up to the customs dock flying a familiar pennant on her bow....
It was Cheechako from here on TF and his wife on Synergy, and it turns out they keep their boat in Laconner as well, at the county marina. We'd never met until that day on the dock. We talked boats for a while, and they went to anchor out in Bedwell. We did a horrible and didn't get ANY pictures!
We tossed the Ganges idea and opted to go anchor out in Port Browning, planning on shopping in the morning before heading to Winter Cove. Here is one final shot of the Admiral and Josh getting ready to set anchor (I swear its not dark!) in Port Browning....
We bought the boat last August, in fact our survey/sea trial was last August 15. This year we left for vacation on August 12 and were out until the 23rd (25th actually, but I'll get to that!)
Josh and I finished the installation of the new battery boxes and the upgraded house bank (8 GC-2 batteries) and a Victron battery monitor the week prior to the 12th. I had work commitments that weekend, keeping us from leaving until Monday. We were also completing the installation of some new sanitation plumbing for the aft holding tank which kept us from leaving the dock first thing; so Monday was a short trip from our home port in Shelter Bay, Laconner north to a favorite local anchorage in Eagle Harbor, Cypress Island. Here are a few photos and the story enroute:
Just outside our marina, and heading north in the Swinomish Channel, about to pass under the iconic (but somewhat faded) rainbow bridge
Now at the north end of the Swinomish Channel, starting to see the islands. While not considered the San Juans, these are the first of the islands we come to, from right to left are Hat (Saddlebag and Dot Is are hiding behind it), Huckleberry, and Guemes. The tallest island in the distance straight ahead is Lummi, up near Bellingham. The land to the left of the channel is part of Fidalgo Island - its an island because of the channel cutting it off from the mainland.
Heading up the east side of Guemes Island, heading for Eagle Harbor. We realized the ship under command is not flying its flag. Josh went back to take care of that for me! Many boats heading out into the San Juans take Guemes Channel then cross Rosario Strait, which is a fine way to go, and can be a more direct route depending on your destination, but we find that sometimes the currents are more favorable to take the east side of Guemes then cross Rosario, or take the north side of Orcas Island across - especially if the wind is up on an ebb, it makes for a much more comfortable ride. And its beautiful and a route much less traveled, too.
The Admiral at her best. Unless its a picture of her here, its probably a photo that she took.
...and she caught me! Note that she is always surrounded by our small herd of boater-collies!
We'd gotten out late a few times this year, and anchored in the dark. I promised the Admiral we'd stop doing this. And we did. Eagle Harbor has mooring buoys. Here we are crossing Bellingham Channel just at the north end of Guemes Island.
All was well and good, and we tied up to a buoy in the dusk, until it came time for bed and we realized we had forgotten several key items needed for our trip; we could eek it out for the night, but not for two weeks. I initially planned an early morning trip in the dink to Anacortes, and an Uber or family ride home to Mount Vernon for the supplies, until I realized that not only was the dinghy fuel low, we had also forgotten its spare fuel (and even forgotten to fill it!)
Sooooooooooo................
Back to Anacortes. We filled up the dinghy, and Josh made and epic run back to our dock in Shelter Bay, drove home and got everything we needed.
While in Anacortes, we made the best of it, and double checked everything else. I found a couple supplies I could use at the hardware store (who couldn't use some extra quick set epoxy on a boat? More on THAT later too!) and we grabbed some extra snacks at the Safeway that would pass muster at the border. This is what it looks like when boater-collies are waiting for mom to come back out of the store...
We timed it and took off from the dock in Anacortes, headed back north and did a live pick up of Josh and the dinghy near the north end of Guemes Island. He covered a lot of dang miles in that Avon 310 RIB that morning, oh to be 19 again! It was a good exercise because we were able to accurately measure on the plotter the distance/time he traveled vs the fuel he used and get the dinghy wide open fuel burn data.
It was beginning to look like we'd blown our original plans - leave Eagle Harbor in time to get across the border, clear customs, get some fresh food, and get into an anchorage all on Tuesday. It just didn't look like it was going to happen, and it didn't. We're committed to running the boat between 6.25 and 7 kts, closer to 6.25(1300-1400 RPM), we are not speed or fuel demons. We made Bedwell after customs closed, which is no big deal as they have their phones on the dock. We cleared in fine, and were thinking of trying for Ganges as their stores were still going to be open, but then that left us anchoring there for the night. Before we had it figured out, here comes a trawler up to the customs dock flying a familiar pennant on her bow....
It was Cheechako from here on TF and his wife on Synergy, and it turns out they keep their boat in Laconner as well, at the county marina. We'd never met until that day on the dock. We talked boats for a while, and they went to anchor out in Bedwell. We did a horrible and didn't get ANY pictures!
We tossed the Ganges idea and opted to go anchor out in Port Browning, planning on shopping in the morning before heading to Winter Cove. Here is one final shot of the Admiral and Josh getting ready to set anchor (I swear its not dark!) in Port Browning....