Sailing Verboten: San Juan Islands 2013

Tuesday, July 30th dawned sunny and the wind had blown out to something more moderate. Scott Reed beat us out of the bay again, headed for Stuart Island. We'd decided to run down the west side of Waldron Island instead of back down President Channel. The wind was good so we sailed much of the way from Patos Island crossing the international boundary and fighting fairly strong currents.

At one point the wind really began to build. There was a lot of slack in the lowers so I decided we should reef. In the process I managed to get the outhaul stuck so we did the rest of the trip with a reef in. Need to pull the boom apart and figure out what I did.

Off of South Pender Island Deborah noticed that the chart plotter had turned off. She was unable to get it working again. While we hove to for lunch I tried to get it working again. No luck. Scott Seaman took the lead, heading for John's Pass between Stuart Island and Johns Island. We ran into Lou and Rochelle just as we were getting there. It's a narrow winding passage but there was plenty of water below the keel.

We motored around to Reid Harbor and ended up tying up on the Linear Mooring. Scott Reed was in Prevost Harbor on the other side of the island. Lou and Rochelle tied up behind us, Bill & Sue and Scott S on the other side. We tied up so our cockpits were all facing each other and had a nice visit. Reid Harbor has the steepest ramp I've ever seen for getting ashore. Not sure why they didn't put in stairs.

Lou loaned me a multimeter, sent my way via his dinghy on a line and I was able to locate the issue with the chart plotter. Turns out one of my newly crimped connections came loose, which blew a fuse. Luckily I had the crimping tool along and a spare fuse.

We were treated to another great sunset.

Even the seagulls were well behaved.

Wednesday, July 31st. Just a short trip today, across Speiden Channel to Roche Harbor. Bill and Sue went ashore to do some exploring, then we headed for Roche.

The trip started out with a stop at Cemetery Island for Bill & Sue to find a geocache. The original plan was to tie Windsong alongside Verboten, but Deborah suggested that I just transfer to their boat instead. Much easier so that's what we did. Deborah and I motored the boats around for about 10 minutes, while they got the cache, then I transferred back onto Verboten. We motored across to Roche Harbor, keeping an eye on the fog in the strait.