Friday, September 23, Spencer Spit to James Island
This morning was as beautiful as the afternoon before. The air was still and the water flat. We motored south down the Lopez Sound passing a solo sea kayaker who was enjoying the flat water more than we [Bass: He would have enjoyed it less had I run him over… going straight into the sun he was almost impossible to see through the glare!]. Motoring between Decatur and Lopez Islands landed us back into the Rosario Strait [Lopez Pass, solid current of ~2.5 – 3 knots against us, big swirly eddies… cool in a slightly nerve wracking way.]. There was wind in this piece of water so we raised the main and the jib and sailed up and down the coast. It was our last full day in the San Juan’s and we were feeling a bit sorry for ourselves (everyone now……ooohhhhh poor B & B!!). The wind eventually died so we headed to our last night’s spot at the moorage dock on James Island. The dock is on the west side of a small, verdant island in a protected cove. However sailboats which looked very “moved in” already flanked the dock [and I had read that anchoring conditions weren’t great in the west cove] so we grabbed a mooring ball on the east side of the island in a cove open to the Rosario Strait and practically across from Anacortes. While the boat traffic would be beautiful, especially at night, it was going to be a rolly moorage.
Rowing the dinghy to shore we planned to walk around this quiet island. The beach was neither sand nor rocks but uniform pebbles one inch in diameter and ankle deep. The color, smell and sound of the pebble beach was relaxing. Hiking to the high point we found a mossy rock with a great view. Here we conspired to forever more see land by boat.
On the way back down to the beach we heard a power boat quickly approaching the cove. A few minutes later another power boat loaded with sea kayaks joined the first. Suddenly there were a dozen boys in the campground on the bench above the beach. They set tents and a camp kitchen pretty quickly as the light began to fade. They built a campfire and huddled around the picnic tables. There was a lot of activity but not much noise and it looked like they may have an early morning ahead of them. We did as well, so after a pleasant afternoon on land and evening in the cockpit we decided we would pack tomorrow and retired for the evening.
The next morning the boys had packed camp and were loading their kayaks as we made coffee. It was going to be a nice day to paddle. And as much as we envied the boys beginning their adventure as we ended ours, we were also ready to sleep in our cal king bed and be reunited with our sweet dog Hannah.
Google Earth Tour
Click the link below to download a Google Earth .kml file that will take you on a fly-by tour of our route from Spencer Spit to James Island:
2) Double click to open in Google Earth
3) Expand the “Spencer_to_James.kml” tree down and double click “Double Click to View Tour”:
Pictures:
Saturday, September 24, James Island to Anacortes Click the link below to download a Google Earth .kml file that will take you on a fly-by tour of our route from James Island to Anacortes:
Sounds like you had a wonderful trip. I’m delighted you get so much pleasure from sailing together.