The Best Laid Plans....
So, the plan was to meet our daughter, son-in-law, and our two grandsons in Friday Harbor. We both had reservations at the Friday Harbor marina. They left Gig Harbor on Thursday headed up toward us, and I got a call from my son-in-law early that afternoon saying that they had a mechanical problem. They have a wonderful little "Albin Family Cruiser" that's a pretty cool design in 30 feet with a pilothouse and forward cabin in the bow, an open cockpit in the center, and a separate aft cabin in the stern--perfect for their two young boys.
The problem was that Stephen (my son-in-law) noticed that part of the hatch over his engine was unusually warm--bordering on hot. When he opened the hatch, he discovered that the exhaust system had a leak apparently before the mixing elbow where the cooling sea water is injected into the exhaust stream to cool it down. He said there was a lot of black soot around the exhaust elbow and the engine compartment smelled like diesel exhaust. In addition, it was getting the fiberglass above the exhaust quite hot. It was obvious something had to be done to correct the problem.
They ended up stopping in Edmonds to troubleshoot and weren't going to make it to Friday Harbor. Sad. But he was able to order a new mixing elbow and have it air-shipped to Anacortes. We agreed to meet them in Anacortes so I could help Stephen replace the exhaust elbow.
It turned out to be an all-day job to remove the old elbow and install the new one. On his Yanmar 6-cylinder engine the exhaust elbow is actually two separate parts joined in the middle, and the joints are tricky to get aligned and clamped properly in place.
I spent the day helping him and about 5 pm, we had the work finished and started the engine. AAARRGG.....there was STILL an exhaust leak. We hadn't aligned junction between the two elbow pieces perfectly and it leaked there. Fortunately, with another 45 minutes of disassembly and careful alignment, we were able to get it sealed up. Our second test run at about 6:15 worked!
I was sore and exhausted, but we solved the problem and will be able to spend the next several days out in the San Juans!
Spencer Spit
We left Anacortes Sunday morning about 10 am and headed out into the San Juans. Our first anchorage is only about 15 miles from Anacortes at Spencer Spit. There's good crabbing here and some fun beaches for the boys to play on, so we got anchored and then rafted Katie & Stephen's boat to Koinonia. Let the fun begin!
We set out some crab pots and are hoping for a good catch and crab for dinner tomorrow. I went out to check the pots after dinner--about 7 pm and we had four nice big male crabs in the first pot. The second pot had three small females and one small-but-legal-size male. So, we ended up with five nice Dungeness crab.
The primary problem with Spencer Spit is that the anchorage isn't very protected and it's less than a mile off the path of the Washington State ferries, so every time a ferry went by, we'd get a fairly substantial wake. It rolled Koinonia around a bit, but it rolled Katie & Stephen's little Albin a lot! Then mix in some wind--it's been pretty windy from the northwest, and the anchorage just wasn't all that comfortable for them. We decided that one night in Spencer Spit was enough. Initially, we talked about going to Sucia, but there's quite a bit of Northwest wind forecast, and Reid Harbor--just north of Roche Harbor, is better protected--especially for Northwest wind.
Reid Harbor
We pulled released Katie and Stephen's boat (called "Dawn Treader" from the CS Lewis Chronicles of Narnia series) from our raft-up and pulled our anchor up about 10 am and headed off for Reid Harbor. It was a strange day for wind. There were areas where we saw wind in excess of 30 knots, but minutes later, we'd be practically becalmed. Oh well. There was some wind chop in a couple of the channels where there was significant fetch for the wind to kick up waves, but when we arrived in Reid Harbor it was perfectly flat. There's about 4-5 knots of wind, but no chop and nothing but a few passing boat wakes
The anchorage is pretty crowded, but it's big anchorage and we arrived at just about the perfect time--just before 1 pm, so most of the boats that are leaving for the day will have already left, but the big rush of new boats coming in hasn't arrived yet. We found a nice spot 2/3 of the way into the harbor and got anchored.
It's 80 degrees out today, so the water toys--including my son-in-law's "inflatable dock" and a couple of paddle boards came out right away. I went and took a nap after not sleeping very well last night.
We spent a couple of really fun days in Reid Harbor. On the second day, Roseanne and I decided to go out and try to fish along the shore of Steward Island. Probably not an ideal place, but we were just fishing in the dinghy, so we didn't want to run very far.
The grandsons also wanted to come, but with all the fishing gear and Roseanne and I, there's very little room left, so Stephen loaded them into their dinghy and they followed us out.
We fished along the shore (in quite a bit of current.....we probably mis-calculated when slack would occur) and got one pink salmon. We had three more on, but with the barbless hooks we're required to use in Washington state, it's really easy to lose them. It's especially hard when we're dinghy fishing because I have a harder time getting the pole out of the holder quickly. Oh well.....at least we didn't get skunked! That brings our salmon total for the cruise to 22. (See "fish stats" at the end).
Reid Harbor to Langley
After two days at Reid, we decided it was time to head back toward home. The wind was forecast to switch around and start coming out of the south, with some possibility of rain on Friday, so we decided to beat the weather change.
We looked at various options for our return path and decided to try out the little town of Langley on the southern tip of Whidbey Island. THey have a really small municipal marina there and they have quite limited space for boats our size. We were fortunate and the harbormaster said they could accommodate us as well as my son-in-law's boat. Langley is a really cute little "artist" town and we enjoyed just walking around a bit on Wednesday afternoon.
We decided to get dinner at a little pub/food truck that was advertising live music. Much to my shock, the musician for the evening was an old friend that we haven't seen for at least 30 years, and had totally lost track of! What a shock and pleasant surprise. He's a very talented keyboard/piano player with a great voice, so we sat and ate and enjoyed the music! It was a nice "last night out" for our cruise.
Home and the Statistics
I always go into a mild depression when we get home from a cruise. It's just hard to re-enter "normal" life. I'll get over it, and slowly get re-acclimated with the busyness of regular life, but the first few days are hard for me.
Our cruise was amazing. We were gone for one week short of four months. How do you summarize four months of experiences, sights, and people? I can't. I'll just give you the statistics:
Miles Traveled: 3,087 nautical miles
Time Away: 114 days (one week short of 4 months)
Main Engine Hours: 472 hours (just past 4000 total hours)
Fuel Burned (main engine only): 2433 gallons
Average NMPG = 1.26 NMPG
Generator Hours: 206.8 hours (would have been a LOT less, but our house batteries are very nearly gone....)
Fish Statistics:
Pink Salmon: 11
King/Chinook Salmon: 7
Coho/Silver Salmon: 4 (hoping for several more this fall here at home)
Halibut: 4 (largest: 85 lbs)
Spotted Prawns: 287
Dungeness Crab: 23
I'm hoping to create a slide show/video of the highlights of the trip. Unfortunately, I can't post it on the owner's site in the gallery. I'll figure something out and send a link when it's done.
UPDATE: Here's a link to the slideshow from the voyage!