Return to the Salish Sea

[Doug Hill]

Some folks think that it is dreary or foreboading, but the time I lived/sailed there, I felt it was magical. The pacific northwest is a special place.

Fair winds,
Doug

[Sea Hunt Video]

At 5' 7" and 155lbs, I can get fully in that locker.

David:

I saw 155 lbs. in the rearview mirror more than 30 years ago.

[David Patterson]

Finally back out on the hook, my preference, the boat more functional for the coming cruising. A few photos of ordinary scenes. One is sailing up the harbor, on a beam reach in very light airs. Alberg was deliberate about designing for both light and heavy air sailing. In this environment, where my CD25D's light air sailing capabilities keep me from being forced to motor a lot, I am grateful. I'm making over a knot, in less than 2 knots of wind in the moment. (Wind speed measured only boom high.) A freshly painted bottom helps, of course. Another ordinary scene is a large motor yacht, SEA LION, entering San Juan Channel after clearing US customs, apparently back from an "off-season" cruise in Canada. If so, they had the waters nearly to themselves. That cutter is an Atkins one from the mid-'30s, NORSEMAN, in a very slow recovery. A cormorant is trying to dry out on that white buoy. They aren't oily enough to stay in long.

[David Patterson]

Being at anchorage, as I provision and "work up" the boat, my scenes are partly of shore, partly of water. A bouncy night in a chilly northerly near-gale (gusts to 34mph) re-introduces me to the realities of life on the hook. The novelist Patrick O'Brian, in one of his later books, wrote that "The sea, if it teaches nothing else, does at least compel a submission to the inevitable which resembles patience." Winds eventually decrease. I am re-learning patience as I begin my fifth year of cruising my good little boat. Not to mention other cruising lessons, like the great value of a snub line on the chain, when in close to two foot waves in an anchorage. One can cruise in less involving ways. At the port, as I did my laundry, I noted a mega-yacht at the customs dock. Aboard her a cruiser could diminish sensory experience of the Salish Sea down to only the visual, the scenery going by as though on a large flat screen TV. Never a moment of discomfort or challenge. A much more multi-sensorial experience can be had, however, as the sailors aboard this junk-rigged boat must have enjoyed, sailing 50% reefed out in San Juan Channel. The Port of Friday Harbor's flags colorfully indicate the Force 3 winds of a moment of their own, unmoved by all save the wind itself. The buds on that tree are bursting with the spring.

[Jim Walsh]

The photo of the snow-capped peak with the junk rig in the foreground looks rather exotic. So does the budding tree for that matter. We are on the leading edge of another half a foot of snow expected today.

[David Patterson]

Feels kind of exotic, Jim, having tasted winter in NJ, MO, and CO since Thanksgiving last fall. A warmish winter, here. (I do notice that long-time NW folks seem to have an habitual crook in their right index finger, from holding a hot drink. Wasn't Starbucks founded out this way?) Lots of weather variation this time of year, locally, but generally very lovely. I've only experienced a few years hereabouts, but have yet to experience regrets. As Doug commented above, the Pacific NW can be a magical place. The U.S. part of the Salish Sea is a national treasure.

[David Patterson]

Up here above the 48th parallel, I'm usually up in time to catch the sunrise, which is a little before 7AM now. Here is yesterday's sunrise over San Juan Channel, each one uniquely beautiful. And, at the excellent San Juan County Library (which helps me keep the weight of my on board books somewhat reasonable) I get to observe local art. Raven, as a mythological figure, was highly meaningful in native cultures in the Salish Sea, and much farther north. The piercing gaze of this modern totem carving here gives Raven quite a presence. I wonder what the glyph on Raven's shoulder signifies. When I look at the man figure above, I imagine the visage of a son of one of the late 19th century Spanish explorers (the Eliza Expedition, perhaps, though my knowledge of local history is shallow) who contributed to the genetic mix in the native populations. Turns out Hawaiians, who were sailors and Hudson Bay Co. workers, were the third largest genetic contributors, after Europeans. [The dried flowers are on the bookcase behind, not part of the totem carving. The artist was Robert Horne.]

[David Patterson]

Locals are mixed in response to the relatively beautific weather here in the San Juan Islands. Most are simply pleased and grateful, reveling in it. Some few are out sailing even. Others are cautious, even superstitiously commenting that "we will have to pay for this, at some point." Here is the forecast, and a photo of the current state of that tree shown with the port's flags, a few days ago. My provisioning, and the stowage situation aboard, are not yet ready for me to sail. A short passage early next week is likely.

[Jim Walsh]

I'm so looking forward to seeing the first red buds on the swamp maples here. We had snow again yesterday and more due tonight/tomorrow. We won't see any relief till this weekend with rising temperatures. What a long winter this has been.

[Sea Hunt Video]

What a long winter this has been.

Although I do not want to "hijack" my friend David's cruiser's thread of great photos I do want to comment on the weather in Miami.

Jim my friend I feel your pain. The weather has been very difficult as well in South Florida this year. We had an entire week in February when the temps did not get above 70 in the daytime and they went as low as the low 40s at night. It was emotionally and physically draining to deal with this. I can't wait for Spring.

[tjr818]

David, does it ever get above 70 where you sail?

[David Patterson]

A full moon seems loomingly large behind the ice crystals in high cold air, illuminating a pathway on the waters to...what? Far places, romance, adventure, unknown waters? At the port marina a winter-stored Alberg 35 (I paced her length) waits for her return to her usual summer mooring buoy across the channel, near my much-favored Parks Bay, where I plan to be anchored in less than a week. Albergs have this buckskin-colored canvas trim, a few shades lighter than the Cape Dory brown. I've seen no other boat line using this tan or "buckskin." PHEROUSA is absolutely "cherried out." She was at the NW Alberg Rendezvous last year, but I wasn't able to be aboard her. Notice her port lights, not the stronger and more secure bronze Spartan ones of the Cape Dory line. Some Alberg owners replace these. She reminds me of Pearson Tritons, of course. In the next photo you can see her long stern overhang, which must give her good "reserve buoyancy" and lengthen her waterline considerably as she heels. A shorter waterline may tend to make a better light air sailing boat. Differing schools of thought on overhangs and their value. Offshore boats use them less, I believe. The A35 was designed as a coastal cruiser; the A37 for off-shore. Yacht design is fascinating to learn about. The empty marina shows how early in "the season" it still is in the San Juans, where conventional cruising peaks in July and August, as in most other places.

[David Patterson]

Tim, it rarely get above 80* here, for long. I'm not sure what the extremes can be. For metabolic reasons I don't handle heat well, so this moderate climate seems ideal for me. I spent my boyhood at about these latitudes but in central MT. I recall temps over 100 and down to minus 30 there. Here are some journal pages from two years ago, with local averages for the San Juans, as I was freshly aboard and beginning my second year of extended inland salt water cruising, dealing with depleted batteries and an overheating problem. I wasn't much of a mechanic. I notice the thermostat was a "thermometer" to me, apparently. (Plenty of problems remain with a raw water cooled engine a third of a century old. It is begging for a total overhaul.) These pages are unexpurgated too, for they include some older man's musings. Anyway, yes, above room temperature here. Jacket weather frequently.

[Jim Walsh]

That "buckskin" sure looks a lot like my Sunbrella "toast". This is a shot from a few years ago before I refinished all the brightwork and added self steering.

[David Patterson]

Look at that sweetheart, Jim. I do yearn for a cutter. 'Buckskin' is just my color association. By the way, Tim, my recollection is that the San Juan Islands, in a "rain shadow," only receive 17" a year of average precip. Better check that figure. So my averages above are likely for a broader area. Higher precip on the landward and southern parts of the Salish Sea, in the U.S., than in the central islands. [More checking comes up with two different figures for average rainfall in the San Juans, probably lowest in the Salish Sea. One is 18" while the other is 20". Parts of the islands do seem semi-arid at times.]