[Jun 21, 2014] San Juan Islands (Anacortes, WA)

[Skagitguy]

Me too. Lost anchorage one night and woke up about 200 yards from the I -90 bridge at 3 a.m.. Still caught two Sockeye later that mourning.

Have a great time.

[Lowell]

About Anchoring--- it can get scary but the odds of something happening is a lot less if you have the proper gear, knowledge and skill.
You also have to be smart about where you choose to anchor and know the weather forecast.
30 years of boating only drug once and I was young and didn't know better. I don't trust a depth sounder for the final depth either, I pull out a lead line and compare the two.

If you are anchored out in water that is 6 feet deep and a wake comes, it will not break in that depth of water, your boat should just ride up and over the wave. Now if you are pulled up on the beach--- that is where a large boat wake can get messy---it could fill your boat with water as the wave breaks on shore.

I don't have my heart set on Clark Island if you and Greg want to go somewhere else that is fine with me.

Tim that salvage job looked hard to pull off, the boat appears to be full of water. How did you save the boat?

[McSkagit Tim Jones]

Lowell, I kept pumping with a 3 inch pump. That plus some plywood dams kept the water low enough to regain flotation.

I'll be heading out in about an hour and a half. I'll keep an eye out for you at Cap Santa. I may walk over to West Marine and see if they have any red stain (Z Spar 1081) I ran out.

Now my anchor dragging story: 1960. My dad rented a new 25 foot Owens. We took it up into Canada and got back to Puget Sound two days before the charter ended. My brother and I asked if we could sleep on the boat anchored off Normandy Park. We didn't know about this "SCOPE" thing. Set the anchor at low tide.

I slept really well and woke up.....looked out the window and said, "Gee, I don't remember a ferry landing around Normandy Park!" We were in West Seattle! Never slept well on a boat since!

[GregJ]

Everybody, We had four boats on our cruz into the San Juans. Tim Jones, John Nelson, Lowell Lorentz and I. We had great weather and mostly flat water. We went to Clark Island first and we spent the night there. The next day we went all the way up to Patos Island which is the most northern island in the San Juans, just a few miles from the Canadian boarder. We left Patos around noon for a three hour cruz back to Anacortes. Round trip was approximately 100 mi.. We were able maintain a 17- 23 mph speed most of the time. Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures when I have more time to do it and I am able to figure out how. I tried earlier but it didn't work, I'm not real computer literate.

[Lowell]

It was a lot of fun, 100 miles seems like a long distance but we had plenty of time to explore Clark Island. We hiked all the trails and sat around a fire in the evening. On Sunday we went north and spent 2 hours on Patos. While on Patos we got to tour the old lighthouse and go up into the light tower.
The method that was used for staying overnight worked like this, Tim tied up to a Park buoy and rowed his dingy ashore. Greg and John used the bungie arrangement off the bow for the day and then went out in the evening and tied to a Park buoy overnight. And I spent the night next to shore in 2 to 6 feet of water with a bow bungie on an anchor and a stern line to shore.

The water was almost flat and very little wind, some current but not bad. Only burned 13 gallons of gas going with a cruising rpm of 3500.