Sucia Island, better than before

With the windlass project finally finished we were feeling anxious to go farther afield than Jones Island and Stuart, favorites though they are, and decided to give Sucia another try. We had last been there in July of 2007, soon after we had moved to San Juan Island and found it crowded, trashy and not remotely a wild experience. This time, with it being March, we hoped for a more favorable impression of a place that at least geographically speaking has much to offer.

We were not disappointed.

Elliott in a happy place

We left Friday Harbor early on Saturday and raised sail for some exciting tacks in San Juan Channel before furling up and motoring up around Orcas to Sucia. We were against a strong north wind and an ebb and so our SOG averaged in the neighborhood of 4 knots. Pretty dreadful. Beautiful though, and 4.5 hours later we arrived at Fossil Bay for the night. We had thought we would anchor since I was anxious to use my new system, but the anchoring spot in Fossil Bay is quite far from the dinghy dock and so we decided to pony up the buoy fee and stay closer.



The dock was full of boats, even in March and there were a couple other boats on buoys, but this wasn't so much as would detract from the beauty of the place or a feeling of some wildness. Sucia is so close to Bellingham that it draws that crowd, where the islands just a bit to the West are less of an easy day trip and so get fewer visits. Likely, Sucia's reputation and easy anchoring/docking/tying up also attract the large numbers.

In any case, we jumped in the dinghy and headed out for a hike once ashore. Actually, first we laid on the rocks and soaked up some direct sunshine for a while as it felt insanely good. After that, we walked over to the head of Echo Bay and enjoyed some shoreline scrambling. Only a couple boats in Echo Bay and the island had a much more quiet and clean feel than our July visit before.

Amy and Roscoe, a very happy pair on Sucia

Amy and I discussed how Sucia is in many ways a sacrificial place for high impact visitation for boaters. The main anchoring areas are hardened nicely for many feet, with gravel trails and official campsites and restrooms and the whole works. It is in no way a place like so many other nearby islands, especially north, where you can feel really apart from the hands of humans. However, the crowd that loves Sucia might love the party atmosphere and find that even that very civilized island is plenty of wilderness for them. And so the world goes around.

The night was lovely and the sunset spectacular. As always, we hung out on the boat playing games and being together. We made a wager that we would play two rounds of Uno and if anyone won both rounds they would have to be called "Supreme Being" the rest of the night. Well guess what, none other than yours truly managed that feat and the family obliged with the moniker for the duration of the waking hours. It was splendid.

On Sunday we had french toast cooked by Chef Mom, but before we ate I had time to go ashore and go for a run. Boy it felt great to run in a semi-wild place on dirt, instead of my usual runs around town during my lunch break at work. Later, we all went to shore and explored around. Lovely, though it would have been ghastly to be there on any holiday or in the summer as the whole place would be crawling with people.

We decided we would be happy to go back to Sucia between October and March...

On a perfect tack to Waldron

But the biggest news of the trip was in many ways the sail we did from Sucia back toward San Juan on Sunday. There was a good North wind still blowing and the tack from Sucia over to Waldron is a close reach. It was among the most enjoyable sails I've ever had. The wind was 15-20, which is ideal for Aeolus, and with full sail she heeled about 15 degrees and just flew like a bird right along the salty sea. Wow, was it smooth. We even had current going with us and so hit some nice speeds. This lasted for about and hour before the lee of Waldron killed the wind and we had to motor all the way back to Friday Harbor.

It was a great weekend and a great bit of variety in our sailing season. The highlight of the trip for me was having Elliott say at one point, out of the blue, that "there was nowhere on Earth I'd rather be than right here right now."

Pretty good SOG for the old gal-Never let someone say a Gulf 32 is a motorsailor, godforbid!