Seattle Boater

Heading south from Seattle. Forecast called for a small craft advisory. The waves hitting the 520 bridge on the way to the boat suggested it might be fun. Heading out into the Sound whitecaps were everywhere and a 40 foot boat coming back was sideways all the way.

As we left the cover of the channel I knew it was going to be a fun ride. It was….

The sea was not terrible for most of the 2 hour trip. but at worst I think I was hitting some 8 footers. The boat did so well apart from getting very very wet.

Well the view from the new marina is surprising.

Must be desperately hanging on to the last days of sunshine….

Guess the pic is not that clear, but yes, yer man was butt naked !

When i bought the boat I was desperate for a slip and there was nothing available anywhere. At one point I thought I might end up in Tacoma which would be an hour just to get there and then ages from Seattle by water.

So I got lucky and at the last minute snagged a slip in freshwater in Ballard. Only issue was the slip wasn’t really in a marina. It was the commercial loading bay next to Nickerson marina. Which meant really easony access. But no marina ambience. No hanging on the dock having a beer and chatting to people.

So the guy who I bought the boat from shot me a text he was on the waiting list for a marina for over a year and they called him for a new slip. Turns out he couldn’t fit in there and I got it.

So happy, it’s on lake union. View of the space needle. Perfect for the fireworks on the 4th. 25 Minutes closer to home. Less than 20 mins from work.

Moved in Saturday. Also close to downtown. So Saturday did result in staying at the boat with a Headache after a late night in town.

Being searching for a new table for the cockpit. The cockpit on the 57 is not that huge and we had a small teak folding table. Worked but not ideal for eating in the cockpit.

Searching the web I stumbled upon marine teak in the U.K.

Marine teak uk

Loved the options they had for various sliding and expanding tables but was a little concerned about ordering from the uk in case it took forever to arrive.

Turned out to be an amazing buying experience. They deduct the uk VAT (tax) as I was a US buyer. Shipping was just $33 for a table pedestal and mounts and unbelievably I ordered on Sunday and it was here by Wednesday.

Took 20 minutes to install and I think it’s going to work out great…

Total cost about $560 which when o type it now seems expensive for a bloody table. But it’s boating stuff. What isn’t expensive.

The flybridge had an ‘ok’ stereo. Little old, cd unit but no Bluetooth and not a lot of bass out of the speakers.

I got some new JL audio Speakers. I wanted to stay in the existing 5″ holes so was a little restricted but they seemed decent enough.

Swapped them out. Easy install perfect fit.

They already sounded better than the originals, you can feel the bass but the head unit was struggling, in fact at high volume it would cut out. I was worried it was a poor power supply but decided to try a new head unit anyway. I didn’t want anything too special. I did want Bluetooth. Went for an Alpine unit. CDE143-BT. Not expensive. Only $130 from car toys. I would love to run an amp and sub but I can’t be doing with the hassle of running a decent power line for the amp. So just head unit and speakers will do for now

I got the unit wired up easily but a screwed up as I tried to use the original cradle and when i dropped the unit in it would not come back out

and would fall into the hole. Had to remove the vhf next to it. Reach inside, pull it all the way through and then remove the cradle.

Used the new cradle and job done. Note to self. Don’t be lazy.

It sounds way better. Tons of bass. My only problem now is the speakers are in the radar arch and kick out so much bass the arch vibrates. I am thinking I need to put some kind of cushioning inside the arch where the access panels are to stop the rattling.

And then I am only running 2 speakers so i need to add 2 more but trying to figure out where to put them for easy access and install. I think I need some box speakers so I can put them facing back ahead of the helm. But struggling to find good units.

Simple upgrade. One nights work. Happy so far !

Well it could be one of those offsite meetings where you take your team ‘offsite’ which really means the building 5 minutes away from where you work.

Or.

You could not have a meeting at all and just get out on the water. Sounds like a much better idea.

Top evening with great people.

We got jammed at the locks and had to wait for nearly an hour. Got sandwiched in with the boat behind inches of the stern. In fact his bow was resting gently on the rear staples until Scott pulled them out.

Always a good experience to take folks through the locks that haven’t done it before..

Although it looks like burgers and the obligatory veggie plate we actually had some pretty good food and the boat seems to do a good job of swallowing people up and never feeling cramped. Love that.

We hit blake island but only had 50 mins as the only space was on the loading dock and the marina man wasn’t happy that we pushed that 30 mins limit to 50 minutes. Fun to see the kids chasing wild deer. Wish we had more time.

Overall great night. I think people had fun. Wish every day at work was like this.

For some reason I've always had this thing about taking bikes to Vashon Island and riding into town. Vashon to me is a little weird for access. There is of course your normal ferry service but as a boater I'm used to pulling up to a dock and wandering into town and it's normally close. But Vashon access is not so easy. There is a bay at the south end of the island called quartermaster harbor. Very protected. There is a state park dock on the south side of the harbor and it's a 7 mile ride to town. Or you can head deeper in at the town of Burton. There is a yacht club marina there, private no access, and a marina that is a little weird as they don't seem to monitor VHF and you have to call direct. Waggoner reports them as not being very accommodating. Not really the case…

So we checked out the dock, it was full and I didn't want to be on a busy dock back to back with boats. Especially with no shore power and annoying people with the gennie. And 7 miles I was feeling a bit lazy. So we headed rounded the point to Burton. Shallow bay with depths around 14 feet. Anchor set easily and we were all on our own. No other boats on anchor. Peaceful night.

In the morning called the marina and the harbormaster was an interesting chap, seemed to want to help but seemed to think it was very tricky to find a way to dock our tender. This is weird to me. Nearly all marinas have a dinghy dock and most if not nearly all are free. He went back and forth with options and finally offered me a slip for $20. Probably the most expensive slip I've had. 14ft tender for couple of hours. But whatever. So next had to load the bikes on the tender. Thought it might be tricky but it was a doodle…

They sat up front nicely. Easy on and off.
Harbor master met us and helped us unload. Didn't want to give us the gate code and told us to call him when we got back. Again a little weird but he did it all with a smile.
The ride into Vashon from there is 4 miles. Seemed easy. Man is there some hills. I'm getting old!
Vashon is a cool little town and it has seabreeze farm cafe which has awesome food.

Was a great bike ride. A different adventure and glad we did it.
Left Vashon for a night at Bainbridge Island. Finally the smoke from the forest fires in BC are gone and we could at last see Seattle again. Really hard to get a shot of the Seattle cityscape at night but I tried. Anchoring in Eagle Harbor at Bainbridge always offers an awesome view of Seattle.

Been to Bainbridge so much It's familiar ground. Booked a massage Sunday morning in town. Chilled and headed home. Nice weekend!

Oh and started screwing with the tender to add underwater lights just do fun. Somehow must have knocked a wire or have an old poor connection. Now my nav lights are dead on it. Have tinkered around trying to find which wire I messed up. No joy yet. I hate it when things like that happen.
Always something to fix….

Well the 2 weeks in the islands was my first time to see why the fuel burn was going to be like. It was a big consideration when I bought the boat so many people scaring me off. Man hose big Man engines drink the fuel. 70 gallons per hour if you open her up. And considering my 3587 from before sipped Diesel like I couldn't believe I was worried. It might make every trip a pain. Turns out I couldn't be happier.
Now this is all relative I know. But let's remember this is a 55 ton. 60 foot yacht with 1220HP.
We filled up at Kingston on the way out and never had to refuel. I was about half full when we hit Kingston on the way back, maybe just under.
I need to figure out my mileage but i'm more of a gallons per hour guy anyway.
I'll add to this with mileage when I track it all.

Ok I am rounding a little here so don't check my maths. I have it right…

• Engines ran for 30 hours (each of course)
• One tank is also fueling the generator I am now guessing that's the starboard side as it used a lot more fuel.
• We burnt 439 gallons
• So with the generator use we averaged 14.5gph
• If i factor some gennie diesel I'm thinking that's more like 13.8gph
• That's both engines total burn

I can't believe it. I thought it was going to be much higher. Now to be fair we did some slow cursing while towing the tender from island to island sometime literally 7-8 knots for an hour and a bit. But we also did some decent 16 knot runs on the longer periods. Running back from the islands across the strait we were at about 13 knots against the current.
So I am super happy with it. On the 3587 I burnt about 7.6gph on a week in the San juans and that below my mind. But with the extra weight, power and everything that is my beautiful new boat I am psyched.

Total spend for the entire trip was $1010. For 15 days covering Seattle-Kingston-Port Townsend- Sidney- bedwell hrbr- Ganges on Saltspring- Victoria- Roche- Friday H- Jones island- Sucia Islands- Deer Harbor- Lopez- Port Townsend- Kingston- Seattle.
Oh and $50 bucks to fill up the dink and it's still over half full.

Views- Priceless!

I love this boat !

Shout out to the Kingston Diesel dock man. Friendliest guy in the word.

Left Sucia a little sad. Such a beautiful place. We'll be back for sure.
Decided to make a stop off at deer harbor on orcas island. Been a long time since we have been there and we needed to top up on water.
There are hundreds of forest fires burning in BC and the whole channel is smoky. Made for crappy weather. Shame as the forecast was bright hot sun but the smoke won. Bit miserable, but was kind of nice to get a break from the heat.
It's obvious how much prettier things look in the sun though. The islands we motored past looked less attractive than they did just a few days before.

Anyhoo.

Deer harbor staff were great. We radioed in asking for a temp tie up. They met us at the outer dock. Helped with lines, offered power for us to use for free and of course we filled up with water. I asked how long we could stay, 'as long as you want'
These guys were maybe the friendliest staff of the trip. Left them a nice tip 🙂
We considered staying at deer harbor. But there's really not a lot going on, there used to be a cool barge art gallery here but it's gone now, been gone for years I think.

We decided to go stay on the hook at Lopez island in Fishermans bay. Never been there before and it got us headed in the right direction for home.
The entrance to Fishermans bay is a winding channel with depths of just 5 feet either side, and super narrow. Zoomed in on the plotter we had little more than a boat width either side to stay in the dredged channel. Was a little spooky watching the depth sounder hit 8 feet. We draw around 6. But we snaked our way in following the buoys that marked the channel and dropped the anchor. This is supposed to be good holding in mud in very shallow water but the anchor didn't seem to want to bite so reset and we were good.

We took the dingy in to the marina to tie up. Got yelled at by a guy on his boat for making to much wake. Was totally fair. Wasn't really paying any attention and we were going too fast. He came over and shouted at us as we were tying up. All crazy. He was totally in the right so I was super nice and apologized. He didn't really seem to know what to do to that and just said 'oh ok' and turned and went. I think he was expecting a big argument. Some times it's just easier to be the nice guy.

To be honest I found this the least attractive anchorage of the trip. Maybe it was the hazy smoked up skies. Just seemed less pretty than all the other places.
We docked the dinghy at the islander resort. They have a restaurant, pool, bar right on the water. But again just felt a bit ugh.
It was a 1 mile walk into town. Which was nice and Lopez village was super cute we had dinner at the Haven which was pretty good and right on the water. We lucked out and got a table on the patio overlooking the sea while a wild rabbit messed around on the grass in front of us. Nice night.

Great little bakery for breakfast too with an amazing Rueben pastry like a cinnamon bun. Must eat if you visit !

The dog is exhausted. I think two weeks of swimming and running and digging rocks has nearly done him in. In fact he has a pretty bad limp at the minute. So he'll be glad to get home and chill if he sees water he just can't help himself and swims and swims. But that morning he was knackered.

Tide was super low in the bay. Note if you tie up your paddle board remember they have a fin…

That guy clearly didn't 🙂

Left in the afternoon to Port Townsend. The Marina in town was full but we managed to get a spot in Boat Haven marina which is about a mile out of town. I've been there before and didn't love it. But I was too lazy to have to bring the dinghy down off the flybridge again and wanted to get going in the morning to get home.
Decided to walk in to town but didn't make it as we passed a bar called the pourhouse that had what sounded like a great band playing. We stopped for a drink that turned into all night. Great choice of different beers and you could order food in from the Thai, Vietnamese or Pizza place and they deliver it to your table. Super cool. This place was fantastic, yet again right on the water with its own
Little beach right in front and the band, jackalope saints were brilliant. Kind of country music that I normally think is rubbish but these guys were really good ( you can find them on Spotify and iTunes) ended up being a great last night.

Left around 9.30 to head to Kingston to fill up then home.
Man was it foggy. First fog we've seen on the trip and thank god for radar. I had been playing with the radar. It's an old one and I need a new one but it's never real until you can't see. It actually worked great. At one point we were down to virtually no visibility but we could see all the boats on the radar. We hailed one boat on the radio as he was on the same course as us and I could see him on radar and AIS but couldn't see his boat at all. It came into view as we were just a few hundred feet away. But we had agreed he would stay his course and we would pass on the starboard. No drama just good boating. I kind of enjoyed the heavy fog. It's nice to use the gear you have. And AIS is a beautiful thing. I wish all boats had it.

Ok this first one appears a little worse than it really was..

But this gives a pretty realistic picture…

Fun times sad to be going home.
Decided to open her up as we closed on shilshole just to clear her throat 🙂

Was pretty happy with a fully loaded 60 footer, full of 800 gallons of diesel and 200 gallons of water hitting a nice clip. Man she sounds like a jet airplane as she comes up on the revs..

Can't wait to get out on the water again already.

Well I have always had Sucia on my list and it's always been just a little too far away to get to in the time we had. This trip it was a must do. I've heard so much about it, people raving about the Sucia Islands, how beautiful they are and even in Friday Harbor everyone I met was headed there. Literally everyone I spoke to!
So if I am honest I was expecting to be disappointed.
I wasn't.
The islands are sandstone and carved by the sea over the years they jut out in amazing shapes. There are apparently fossils everywhere that you are forbidden to remove. The island has fingers that create bays, some small, some pretty big and they are all connected by walking trails. You can only get there by boat of course and it's the most northerly part of the San Juans. We picked Echo bay to anchor. It's the largest bay butbhas a great steep beach so you can beach the dink and step of the bow without getting wet. There is a dock in one of the other bays which makes for a cleaner dinghy when getting the dog on and off but I wanted to be on anchor and chill. We planned to stay two nights.
As we entered echo bay there were maybe 35 boats either anchored or on buoys. Sounds a lot but it's a long wide bay and there was more room than in most anchorages. We got close to the base of the bay near the beach and dropped the hook. Good holding here, we were set in 2 minutes.
Here's the dink on the beach, you can just about see the boat in the middle almost directly behind the dinghy.

The water is so amazingly clear here. There are literally thousands of different coloured stones on the beach. And the water was warm. Well for the pacific north west at least.

We even picked fresh seaweed which we fried with garlic later. To be honest wasn't that nice. But it's very green.

View from the rear down the bay and then forward to the sunset.

Stunning rock formations

There was a huge forest fire in BC and so the sky was overcast. Apparently the smoke made it all the way to Seattle. I can only imagine the sunset if it was clear skies.
Ok this next pic is crap but I had to include it because it took my Breath away.
As we rounded a large rock in the dink, going very slow as there were huge rocks under water either side of us and we were in explore mode we opened into a bay that was full of seals and then suddenly from a cut away in the rock the largest bald eagle launched itself and flew by us. It was just above the water and maybe twenty feet feet from the boat. Amazing.

We cruised around a lot on the dinghy. It's just so beautiful and made it back just in time to catch the sun setting…

And that brings us to today. We left around noon on the dinghy to go all around the island. And as we left the bay we were met by about 6 dolphins (porpoises I guess if I am being accurate)

And then we entered the channel between little Sucia and fox cove and found a little gem of a tiny beach. sandy beaches are rare in this area and this baby one had shells, sand and a streak of clear blue water. it was beautiful. we beached and i facetimed my mom and dad to show them.

And tonight we walked over to shallow bay. Which is a few steps through the woods from where we beach the dinghy. This is the sunset bay and I may anchor here next time just for that. Despite the haze from the smoke it wasn't bad at all

Leave tomorrow. I'll be back. You could spend a week here just soaking it up.