Bainbridge Island to Friday Harbor to close 2010

Leaving Bainbridge

Some trips are special for their destinations, some for their people, and others for their season. This trip was spectacular for all three. Choosing to delay this trip a few days yielded the most perfect and generally benign conditions anyone could expect to close out December. Where a few days prior it was stormy with 40 knot winds, we had winds below 20 knots and blue skies all day.

Elliott, who just turned 10, was first mate for me on this trip to take Aeolus back up to Friday Harbor where she will be based from now on. Any dad has a complex relationship with his son, and mine no more than any other I suppose. This trip turned out to be a perfect escape from some of the tensions of my day to day life with Elliott and a blessed bit of happy ease.



We left Bainbridge at 9am on December 30th under cold clear skies and with forecast for a north wind of 10-15 knots. Our journey north was smooth at first because the flooding current smoothed what little waves were being produced by such mild wind. The views of Seattle, all the nearby land, and the Olympic and Cascade ranges were simply spectacular. Mt. Rainier loomed in the south and Mt. Baker began dominating in the north.

I chose to go the Port Townsend route for two main reasons. One is that I find it much more scenic and dramatic. The other is that there are no good anchorages within a winter day distance from Bainbridge if you go inside Whidbey. Oak Harbor is really horrible and I will never go there again by choice. Besides, it is too far to reach on a winter day.

So as we headed up the outside, and before we reached the aptly named Foulweather Bluff, the tide had turned and a strong ebb began to push against the peak winds of the day. Later checking revealed that the gusts at this time of about 2pm were around 18 knots, which combined with our 6 knots of boat speed made it feel like 24. At Foulweather is where the Hood Canal drains into Admiralty Inlet, joining all the water from Puget Sound. Right at the point the seas were nasty and confused. For about 30 minutes we bounced through seas that were between 3-6 feet and breaking because of being undercut by the current. I could tell it would be brief and so the violence was fine and even enjoyable.

Approaching bridge in Port Townsend channel. Ebbs north. 

As I've stated many times on this blog, Aeolus endures these sorts of rough seas with relative ease. Too heavy to be tossed around lightly, and too long of a keel to be tossed side to side very easily. As I stood at the helm I was having to lean far back and pitch far forward to stay level as we climbed and plunged through the waves. We were taking them nearly straight on as any other angle would have really prolonged our suffering unnecessarily. I was really proud of Elliott for showing no fear and being really casual about conditions that would really scare the hell out of most non-sailors.

No surprise but note here for anyone doing this trip is to be aware of current against wind at Foulweather Bluff.

After this it was smooth sailing through the Port Townsend channel under a nice high bridge and over to the Port Townsend Boat Haven.

Boat Haven Marina on 12/31/10 at 8am.

Throughout this day we motored as it was never really above 32 degrees and the wind was on the nose all day. The pilot house on Aeolus was a savior again as I could steer from within the 72 degree cabin that was heated by my nice Heater Craft cabin heater. Not bad to have a 40 degree difference between inside and out!

Elliott and I enjoyed a night in Port Townsend and a good night sleep. The boat got down to 37 degrees by the morning but we did what all mountaineers learn and kept bundled up tight with no arms or heads exposed. Outside in the morning it was about 27 or so.

One note about the Port Townsend Boat Haven is that their slips are marked with signage so absurdly small that I needed binoculars to see which dock was which even from close range. Have your binoculars ready if you go there to know where to turn and find your slip. The online map does not show which dock has which slips.

The second day of the trip was even calmer with a forecast 10-15 knot E wind that was really SE coming up Admiralty Inlet to start our day. Once out from downtown I unfurled some genoa to push us along and to steady the boat. There were small wind waves of 2 to maybe 3 feet and our downwind course made it all smooth.

Passing through the Straits of Juan de Fuca always feels adventurous to me because of the fetch and frequent gales. It is simply a fierce place of many moods, and many of those moods are unfriendly to small boats. I've observed it's weather for many years now and know that any number of wind directions and current conditions can conspire to create very rough waters.

Watmough Bay with picturesque island in foreground

On this day, however, we passed close to Whidbey to reduce the fetch of the east wind and had smooth sailing right past Smith Island to Lopez. We went the longer route up the east side of Lopez rather than through San Juan Channel mainly because I wanted to see more scenery and partly out of it being the path less traveled. We were rewarded by nearly dead calm conditions as we approached Watmough Bight and the views all around were breath taking. Watmough is a truly awe inspiring place from the water.

My awesome first mate

How close do you dare to go? Spit is just underwater on the port.

The highlight of the inside San Juan Islands portion of this trip was passing between Spencer Spit and Frost Island. We've been to Spencer Spit many times over the years for little trips by boat and by bike, but had never sailed our boat through the narrow pass. It is precarious in that the usable width of the pass can't be much more than 30 feet. The spit extends out very far. Good news is that depths right up against Frost Island are over 40 feet! So you just cruise as close to Frost as you dare to go and all is well. It was really cool.

The rest of our journey to Friday Harbor was beautiful and uneventful.

Some trip statistics for anyone else doing this trip is that it was 74.6 miles by this route from Eagle Harbor Bainbridge to Friday Harbor. Total travel time on Aeolus was nearly 14 hours and we averaged 5.6 knots for the trip.

What a spectacular way to close out 2010 and what a profoundly wonderful thing to do with my son.

A proud papa and his son after arriving in Friday Harbor