July 2015 – Page 3 – Sean Bissell

Our family has a place at Rocky Bay and a buoy (although it’s for sale now) so we could hook up to the buoy and go in shore to do some laundry and hang out.

We headed over there. And on the way, the wind was warm, and it it was just about perfect to sail comfortably at about 5 knots with just the main sail out to make things easy.

So that’s what we did. Until some gusts woke Jackson up from his nap and he came out and devoured a bunch of chocolate.

And then tried to go back to sleep.

But that didn’t last long, because the wind picked up so much that it started to get cold, and the wind was very light then strong, then coming from this way then that way.

When that happens, it can throw the boat around a bit and make things uncomfortable for those inside the main cabin.

So I took down the sails and we motored back into Rocky Bay. It was blowing really hard in Rocky Bay too, and grabbing the buoy was a little tough, but Lindsey and I were able to do it.

Then Jackson gave Lindsey lots of puppy kisses.

And we threw the laundry into the dingy, and went into shore.

Jackson watched The Jungle Book while the laundry was going.

And we went out on the point and hung out around sunset before we went back to the boat.

In the morning we went back on shore at Rocky Bay to get the rest of the laundry. And we checked out the rocky beach of Rocky Bay.

And all the tide pools and cool starfish and crabs.

Who knew sea urchins could move like this? I didn’t.

After that excitement, and finishing off the laundry, we sailed over to Deer Harbor on Orcas Island.

Again it was very strong winds, but they were consistent this time. So I reefed in the main sail, didn’t put out the jib, and we had a pretty smooth, although cold, sail over to Deer Harbor.

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July 2, 2015

Sailing The San Juans – Post 5 – (Part 2 of 4)

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Lindsey and Jackson unhooked us from the buoy.

And we passed on by the incredible rock formations and out of Fox Cove.

This rock formation looks like a face to me.

We made our way to Patos Island which is not very far at all, maybe an hour tops away from Sucia. Just enough to enjoy some coffee.

On our way in you are greeted with a really cool view of the lighthouse at the beginning of the bay you’d stay in at Patos Island.

But the bay is really small, and it shallows quickly, and it’s also narrow, so it only has 2 buoys and room to maybe fit one or two extra people anchored.

When we got there, there were already two people tied up to the buoys so we decided to try anchoring.

It’s pretty tight in there, and we were uncomfortably close to the rock wall, and some other rocks behind us. Plus, close to another boat on the buoy.

It wasn’t the best anchorage, so we thought maybe we’d just stay there for the day, explore the island, and hope someone leaves a buoy, otherwise, we’d find somewhere else to go for the night.

We headed to shore, and checked out Patos.

It is like a tiny Sucia Island, but maybe a little more wild and untouched. Probably because there’s not room for too many boats to hang out there. And therefore less people.

The rocks look a lot like the ones on Sucia, same sandstone formations that seem to go on forever.

We hiked the path to the lighthouse, and it was HOT. Especially for Lindsey, being pregnant in her third trimester.

But Lucky was loving it, and he was running back and forth on the trail. In and out of the shadows from the madrona trees above and into the super strong sunlight.

And Jackson walked most the way, but I gave him a few breaks on my shoulders.

He used my head as a drum.

Eventually we made it to the Lighthouse and looked around.

Back on the beach, the dogs jumped in the water to cool off.

And we headed back to the sailboat in the dinghy. The tide gets really fast next to the beach there, and some Geese were having fun riding the fast tide like they were river rafting.

Back on the sailboat, we noticed even more people coming in and trying to anchor. We thought that was pretty sketchy.

So we decided to leave, and go to Rocky Bay on San Juan Island for the night.

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July 2, 2015

Sailing The San Juans – Post 5 – (Part 1 of 4)

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It’s been a little while since I updated here, and lots of animated gifs have been piling up. Too many to load on one page without causing problems, so I’m going to split this post into 4 pages. I’ll just put a “next page” link at the bottom to keep things simple.

Right now we’re in Deer Harbor but when we last left off, we were still in Fox Cove on Sucia Island. And we were just about to go look for fossils in the area they recently found T-Rex dinosaur bones.

So we got in the dinghy, went to shore and started hiking along a path that someone on shore told us about.

It was a bit of a hike, some significant up and down action with steep cliffs off to one side.

Jackson was having fun. But falling a lot, probably due to his legs getting tired.

I didn’t see anywhere you could find fossils, and the mosquitoes were scary intense so we turned back around and went to the bottom of the trail, along the beach. That seemed much more promising for fossil action.

We didn’t find any dinosaurs, but we did see some fossilized tree trunks.