It’s 17:35 on July 13th 2018 we are just underway for the tour of the San Juan and Gulf Islands.
This video highlights the exciting parts of the first day of the trip. As you watch the video watch for the highway bridge crossing over Agate pass.. we actually wound up motoring all the way and then it was nip and Tuck whether the sun would go down or we get to the marina first.
The sun won.
Now the second day heading for Oak Harbor and there is a nice breeze we went under sail at 11:30. Our speed is not looking good for a continued sail. 32 miles is a long ways to go.
We lasted about 30 minutes sailing then we had to get the motor going again.
Now we have arrived at Oak Harbor. The day almost ended in disaster. The spin-on fuel filter for the engine, spun off a little and started leaking diesel into the bilges. We spent the evening cleaning up.
Third day:
This is the big day; we got an early start (7 a.m.) so that we can reach Deception Pass at the exact time of change of Tide at 11:40. (To take advantage of slack water)
But first! We stopped near the entrance to our overnight moorage, and retrieved our Crab Pot. Waiting for us; 4 very large, very male, crabs. Success beyond our wildest dreams. Four hours later we are approaching Yokeko point about a mile from Decption Pass. we saw some speeds over 7 knots along this stretch. We had arrived a good hour early. That gave us time to get some Diesel at the marina. No luck there. But a group of sailboats of about our size started heading for Deception Pass. Taking this as a good sign we started out ourselves. Smooth as silk was the water. Then the point of no-return, we are looking at a turbulent rapids spreading out before us. Right in the center are three standing waves. The first one, wwhheeee… the bow plows the wave into two furrows and we are on to wave number two. Abby Normal is bucking like a bronco, this time the bow splits the wave and carries on through. Wave number three is looming just a boat length further on. The third time is the charmed one. Abby dives into the wave, some of the water goes up on the deck and Abby hesitates before going on. Diving into the wave had slowed us from 7 knots to about 3 knots. From there on it is just turbulent water all moving at five or six knots. I was running the camera in video mode. I have a special talent for this neat trick. The camera starts out shooting video. Here is the action scene coming, “click”, “click” there was the action scene, neatly snipped out because I get out of sync. Well maybe in the next life I will be more co-ordinated. The photo gallery has some photos of the crabs and other highlights of the trip.
See this on line at
https://www.dinsmore-enterprises.com/2018/07/20180713-the-gra…adventure-part-1/
Photos by Barbra
