Let the adventure begin!

Hello everyone!
We are back with another update! We left off just after installing our new anchor system, which was the last thing keeping us in Anacortes. Again, we can't say enough good things about Anacortes. The weather, the crabbing, and the vibe is just great.

Evening crab pot run with happy hour drinks

Jenny with our dungeness dinner!

Here's a video of us crabbing

Summer weather in Anacortes.... hard to beat.

Provisioning for our Canadian Adventure

Since the last blog post, we extended our local cruising knowledge by getting out to more islands before making the jump to Canada. We also took care of the million different tasks required prior to leaving the country for several months.

In terms of stuff to take care of for the trip, there's the normal stuff... banking, addresses, phones, phone plans, bills, dog documents, voicemail, etc etc... but also tricky boat stuff like a Border Patrol Documentation sticker. Didn't know we needed that! We haven't really found a one stop shop that details everything you need so we have been piecing it together from various sources- our friends in Anacortes let us know about that all important Border Patrol sticker.... enough of Border Patrol.

We tackled all of those logistics and now we are ready to cruise!

Grocery Store on Shaw Island

Locals board at Ferry Terminal on Shaw Island- note the cash pinned to the board (you don't see that in city!)

Dinghy Dock on Shaw Island

The view from our anchorage in Blind Bay at Shaw Island

Evening hike in Blind Bay

Watmough Bay

 Cruise to the beach at Watmough Bay

We left Anacortes on August 3 and have been bopping around exploring new islands as well as some ones we've been to before.

Our first stop was Sucia Island, which we have been to numerous times over the years. This island is AMAZING! There's all sorts of bays and unique geology. Trails weave there way through the whole island- great trail running on Sucia that we took full advantage of.
Each bay offers something totally different even though it's the same island. This was probably our 7th trip to Sucia over the years, but we stayed in two new bays (Ewing Cove and Shallow Bay) during our time there.

From Ewing Cove we watched HUUUUGE bald eagles scoop up prey and eat it 100 feet from us (our mooring ball was close to shore).
Shallow Bay offered an incredible sunset as the bay sits on the western side of the Sucia that is open to Haro Straight (a big body of water). We watched fisherman troll for salmon just outside the bay- next time we will be ready with a fishing pole.

Celebrating our first day out on our northern adventure

Small example of the cool rock formations all over Sucia- Sandstone that has been pummeled by the elements for years and years


Ewing Cove


Panorama of Ewing Cove

Lighthouse at Patos Island. We tried to stay in the little bay there, but it was filled up with boats. We shall return!

Happy hour and chess in Shallow Bay- waiting for the sunset show to start.

Here's the show! Sunset from Shallow Bay on Sucia- hard to beat.

Trail Run views

Funny story: Imagine this spot as the sun was setting- the sea and sky were gold and shimmery. Years ago I had planned on proposing to Jenny on this trip and this was the perfect place....

Except I forgot the ring back at camp- DOH! It all worked out in the end :-)

From Sucia we rode the tide southward to Garrison Bay San Juan Island via Mosquito Pass. Garrison Bay is a little area tucked back in on San Juan Island. There's a a National Historical Park there that has a well preserved English army camp there that dates back to  the 1850's.

Apparently there were some disputes over land claims in the islands which had the US and England at odds during this time- so much so, that the two countries almost went to war over a pig! Somehow the situation got resolved (and the pig was eaten, no doubt).
It was funny reading the signs and historical info on the site- the British frickin' loved it at Garrison Bay! They said it was paradise, to which we agree!
While at Garrison Bay we did a quick hike to the top of Young Hill and even got a drone shot- check it out!

Timelapse of our traverse through Mosquito Pass

Drone shot from Young Hill on San Juan Island

Drone footage over Garrison Bay and Wescott Bay on San Juan Island

Here's some more information on that park and its history:
National Park Information Page
Wikipedia Article about English Camp

Young Hill overlooking Haro Straight and Canada

English Camp National Historical Site

This was also at English Camp, although I'm guessing the Brits didn't build this :-)

Another neat thing about Garrison Bay is that it's neighbors with Wescott Bay, which is world famous for its shellfish. We had Maya anchored in Garrison Bay, but were able to motor over to the Wescott Bay Shellfish Farm and Restaurant for an unforgettable lunch. BBQ Oysters that were in the water that morning (like 100 feet away!). Absolutely delicious. Highly recommend!

Dinghy Dock at Wescott Bay

Wescott Bay Shellfish Farm and Restaurant 

With a checked box next to Garrison and Wescott Bays, we had pretty much knocked out all the "MUST DO AND SEE" in the San Juan Islands. Note: this has taken us years of exploring the San Juans (this place is amazing!).
While we are certain there are many more hidden gems in the San Juan Islands, it was feeling like we were ready to taken on Canada!

Filled up on fresh shellfish we headed out into Haro Straight for a quick trip to Reid Harbor on Stuart Island to set us up nicely for a short crossing into Bedwell Harbor on Pender Island to check into Canadians Customs.

Stay tuned for our next post where we will be coming at ya from Canada!

Love that feeling!

Pretty sure this was a speed record for us. 

That "get-me-off-this-F#$%ing-boat" look.

Maya at anchor in Reid Harbor on Stuart Island- last stop before Canada

Thanks for following along (don't mind the pun)

A few more ramblings about our anchor setup...

With our new anchor setup we have continued to practice our anchoring skills. Having VERY limited experience with anchoring kicks the difficulty level up a notch, so each drop of the anchor is something of an adventure. It's a two person job with one of us at the bow and the other at the helm. Basically the person up front drops the anchor till it hits the bottom, then the helms person slowly reverses while more chain (also called anchor rode or just rode) is payed out. Once the correct length of rode is payed out (which changes based on depth of water and the weather) we connect a bridle to the chain, which acts as a shock absorber in between the boat and the chain- otherwise all the pressure of the boat being pushed is directly on our nice windlass.
So far, we have been pretty successful at dropping and retrieving our anchors. Many cruisers will set their anchor and dive on it to make sure that its set properly. Murky water and frigid water temps don't allow us to see what's going on so that makes it tough to know what's happening down there. Once we have our anchor and bridle system in place, we jam the boat in reverse - pulling the anchor back to dig the point into the ground firmly setting it. We've had to drop and pull our anchor up a few times in a row due to something going wrong (probably operator error), and we even pulled up an old sunken crab trap!
Our favorite part about anchoring is the fact that it opens up a whole world of possibilities it terms of places to stay. Anchoring is free and allowed pretty much everywhere so with a good anchor setup the world is your oyster (still have those Wescott Bay oysters on my mind). We are very happy with our anchor investment so far.

Our new anchor system at work- you can see the chain going over the bow roller. The bridle consists of the black lines on either side. Those lines attach to cleats on the boat- this allows those cleats to take the strain on the anchor chain as opposed to the windlass taking that pressure.