Port Townsend to Bainbridge Island (via San Juan Islands)

Getting hauled out and having your boat worked on is always stressful. Since we have no land-based living accommodations in the area, we continue to “live” on the boat while it sits on stands in the boatyard. That means we can’t spill any water overboard, black (most certainly!) or even grey. We do have holding tanks for both kinds, but they are not so large that they can be used for much more than a week of “normal” use. Consequently, we try to put nothing in the holding tanks. That means no cooking beyond boiling water and using on shore toilet & shower facilities.

Boatyards are usually dusty because of the sanding and grinding, either on your boat or other boats in the yard. There can be lots of foot traffic from the coming and going of the workers doing the work. Each new foot brings a little more dust on board.

On our work list for the folks at the Port Townsend Shipwrights Coop (PTSC) were routine maintenance items (e.g., bottom paint, new sacrificial anodes), repairing failed/failing items (e.g., the anchor windlass), and upgrading components. We spent 11 days out of the water, being hauled out on Monday, 8/19 and launching on Thursday, 8/29. We spent the night after launching in Port Townsend before departing on Friday, 8/30.

The last several years we have spent 1 – 2 weeks at the end of our cruising season in the San Juans. While it is still crowded compared to SE Alaska, September, after Labor Day, isn’t quite as crowded as in July and August. Setting realistic expectations is the key to coping with the crowds. If you expect to share the anchorage with 40 other boats, you shouldn’t be upset if it turns out to be true. But, if there are only 35 boats, you’re ahead of the game.

The nice thing about San Juan Islands is how compact they are. Twenty-five miles is probably the furthest you’d have to travel to get from any two anchorages on any of the islands. With good shore access at the many parks, it encourages a slow pace. As a result, Drake gets frequent walks and ball play when we visit. This year we stopped at Reid Harbor (Stuart Island), Garrison Bay (San Juan Islalnd), Griffin Bay (San Juan Island), Deer Harbor (Orcas Island), Fisherman’s Bay (Lopez Island) and, Echo Bay (Sucia Island). We used Hunter Bay (Lopez Island) as our last stop before crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca and slogging down Admiralty Inlet on the way to our home port in Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island.

We arrived Eagle Harbor in the early afternoon on Sunday, September 15. In total, we were gone 135 days but I am going to attribute13 days as time in the boatyard and not count them. Of the 121 nights out on the cruise, 73 were at anchor while 48 days were on docks. We put on 3,091 miles in 503 cruising hours (we had an additional 27 engine hours trolling or idling while fishing (mostly deploying or retrieving prawn pots).