July 25 – Westscott Bay to Anacortes, 29 miles

As we were having breakfast this morning, we noticed a tall ship come into the bay and anchor, up at the entrance. It was the Hawaiian Warrior. We saw both it and the Lady Washington last year while we were traveling with Trav and Barb, as we entered Maple Bay in the Gulf Islands. And, sure enough, not too much later we saw another tall ship come in and anchor and it was the Lady Washington. We took a few telephoto shots, and planned on taking some close-ups as we left the harbor. We had some extra entertainment when they fired their cannon – it was towards us, but no cannonball came flying overhead.

Yesterday morning, for some reason, the starboard engine was a little cranky about starting up. It eventually did start, but because we had to crank on it quite a bit, it belched a lot of smoke on some neighboring boats at Roche Harbor. So, I thought it would be a good idea to start a little early, just in case some tinkering would be required. It wasn’t – it started right up. We raised the anchor and slowly cruised out, doing a full 360 circle around the Lady Washington as she lay at anchor, snapping photos all the way around.

I had plotted a course on the computer to take us to Anacortes. We hadn’t stopped there in many years so thought we’d see what was new. Our computer software includes ETA and Best-Departure-Time features. All the current stations along the way are automatically linked to the route’s waypoints, and given a date and time range and expected cruising speed, the best and worst departure times are calculated. Today some more than average tides were occurring, which begets a little higher than average current speeds through the various passageways throughout the islands. Of course, for today’s trip the best departure times would have been about 4:30 in the morning or 3:30 in the afternoon. We left about 45 minutes before the absolute worst departure time, so had reduced headway much of the time due to oncoming currents as the tide ebbed and the water flowed out of the islands and into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Our trip through the islands and across Rosario Strait was uneventful, and although some legs seemed to take quite a bit of time as our forward speed was reduced from 8.5 knots down to under 5 knots at times, in total only about 45 minutes extra time was added to our journey.

We arrived at Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes around 1 o’clock, and the drill here is to tie up to C dock to get a slip assignment. A small sign on the breakwater gave the hailing channel for the harbormaster, and I called as we were approaching the dock. Just as Erin and Ray were tossing our lines to someone standing on the dock, I received an assignment to a slip on D dock, and away we went, with our lines being hastily retrieved. If only they could assign slips in Sidney that quickly.

The last time we were here with the boat the docks were wood, old and rickety, with some individual floating boat houses along the way, so we were agog at how much the harbor has changed. The docks looked brand new, and we found out at the office later that they were upgraded just last year. The boat houses are gone and the shore side facilities are all new.

The weather was sunny with temperature in the low 80’s, and we quickly closed the sun side curtains and set up our fan for maximum cooling effect inside the salon. We watched from our shady location as other boaters came in and quickly went about their business of hosing off any salt residue from their hull and railings. A little later Erin and I took a walk over to the Safeway store a few blocks away, and although we have only two days left on our trip and much more food than that on board, we managed to come back with a selection of goodies.

Later in the evening we were treated to quite a light show, as a thunderstorm approached from the southeast. For the first hour or so it was just bright flashes and loud thunderclaps, but eventually the rain hit. Ray and I were up on the bridge watching, so quickly put in the side curtains, then congratulated ourselves on our previous laziness as the rain washed away any salt residue. Erin hastily deployed our drip bowls, as we have an assortment of interior leaks. Some reliably occur in the same place and others pick new locations to manifest themselves. We’re hoping that planned maintenance with sealers and new topside paint will stem most of it. We’ve been fortunate to have mostly dry weather on the trip, but on the other hand, that also makes any open seam that much more open and more prone to leaks. We have work to do when we get back.

We’ve got a good wifi connection here at the dock, and we were pleased to see an update on Craig and Kristine’s travel blog that they were successful with their run to Bellingham for repairs to their alternator. Actually, the alternator was shot; they got a rebuilt one and returned to the San Juan Islands Friday afternoon.

We had hamburgers and salad for dinner tonight, along with some steak fries we picked up at Safeway, but probably should have left there.