It's been windy for several weeks and we were becoming concerned about being able to get out for our traditional New Year's cruise. Fortunately, the winds died down the day we wanted to leave and were forecast to be fairly calm for at least a week. What a break! We plan to be out for 4 days. The lack of winds were offset by very cold temps however. The highs during the day will be in the mid 30's with lows in the 20's. That's pretty cold on a boat, especially when you think about the non-insulated hull sitting in 40 degree water. It makes for a very hard to heat interior but our diesel furnace did a great job keeping our boat's interior at a quite cozy 68 degrees. Installing the furnace is probably the best thing we have done to this boat; it allows us to boat year round and enjoy the beauty of the San Juans during the winter when most other boaters stay home.
We left our Shelter Bay dock at noon on Thursday (Dec 30) with the goal of making it to Sucia before it got dark at around 4:30. There is some wind after we pass Anacortes and our alternate stop for tonight is Eagle Harbor on Cypress. After bouncing around in some lumpy waves for a while and watching our cat get sea-sick we decide to head to Eagle Harbor. As we near Eagle Harbor the winds die down and we decide to go for Sucia and endure another hour of rocking and rolling if the winds don't cooperate. They do cooperate and we make it to Fossil Bay on Sucia Island with plenty of daylight to spare. There is only one boat here, a Nordhavn 47, which is on the dock. Amazingly as we near the dock he unties and heads out of the bay. We take his spot and are the only boat on the dock for the night! We go for a little hike before dark after we don our ski jackets, gloves and hats. The temp is near freezing but we won't let that stop us from enjoying the last few minutes of a wonderful sunny day.
 |
| Our first night. The only boat on the Fossil Bay dock on Sucia Island. |
 |
| Beautiful winter sunset. Fox Cove, Sucia Island. |
 |
| "Mushroom Rock" in Fox Cove, Sucia Island. |
 |
| Oh no, my antennae are showing again! |
On Friday morning Kathy gets up before the rest of us to check out the fantastic sunrise. I regret sleeping though this one!
 |
| Sunrise in Fossil Bay, Sucia Island. |
We take a nice long hike to the other side of the island. We check out Echo Bay and Shallow Bay. In Shallow Bay we play "word scamble" in the sand. One person rearranges the letters of a word and writes them in the sand with a stick while the rest of us try to figure out what the word it. It was fun.
Amazingly, there are only 2 other boats here this New Year's Eve afternoon. It never ceases to amaze me that so few people go boating during the winter. The often crowded summer "hot spots" are deserted, and there are so many capable cruising boats in Puget Sound. Where are these people? Why outfit your boat with all the creature comforts of home, and then stay home????
 |
| What a day! Shallow Bay, Sucia Island. |
 |
| China Caves, Shallow Bay, Sucia Island. |
 |
| Word scramble in the sand. What "word" is this? |
 |
| Mt. Baker as seen from Echo Bay, Sucia Island. |
When we return from our hike there are two new boats on the dock. We talk to a young women from one of the boats and she said they came by Patos Island a few hours earlier and there was nobody there. Patos is an island we have tried to get into for years but with only two mooring buoys we've never been there at the right time to find an empty buoy. We hop onboard and get moving ASAP. It's about 4 miles away and we are there in about 30 minutes and find there are still no boats there. We grab the buoy closest to shore and immediately get in our dinghy to go explore the shore. We gather a bunch of fire wood so we can come back after dinner to have a beach fire. The shore is incredibly interesting with amazing eroded sandstone that looks like we landed on another planet. It is so unique and interesting.
 |
| Calm day. Eroded sandstone shoreline. Patos Island. |
 |
| A person can spend hours checking out the interesting sandstone. |
 |
Patos Island sandstone. Glorious afternoon winter sun. |
We walk around a loop trail on Patos and run across several places where there is ice on the rocks. The kids love playing with ice and we spend quite a bit of our afternoon taking chunks of ice to the shore to float them out so they can become targets for the kids throwing rocks. It's not very often that we have cold temps like this, so this is a unique boating experience for us.
 |
| Kevin walking on ice. |
 |
| This ice was so clear it was absolutely transparent. |
 |
| Carrying ice to the sea so it can become target practice. |
As usual we play several games with the kids back on the boat. Uno, Sequence, and Sorry are among our favorites. We play Sorry and we do it all in Spanish; a fun challenge! We now have a mooring neighbor but he is so quiet we don't even know he is there. In the morning, after a very calm night, we get up just before sunrise and begin motoring over to Clark Island. Clark Island is a very interesting island with a sandy beach on one side, and a smooth rocky beach on the other. We motor for about 90 minutes and then grab a mooring buoy at Clark Island. After breakfast we row in to shore and take our cat Zappa with us. He loves the sand! Zappa catches a bird not long after arriving; he's quite a hunter.
 |
| Zappa catches a small bird on Clark Island. Rocky beach side of the island. |
 |
| Zappa, Cindy, and Kevin in a huge Madrona tree, sandy side of Clark Island. |
At about the time we are ready to leave the wind picks up and it gets really cold. The temps are still in the mid 30's and with a 10-15 breeze the wind chill is quite apparent. We row back to the boat to warm up and head home.
 |
| Heading back home. Swinomish Channel, La Conner. |
 |
| The famous La Conner "Rainbow Bridge". It is still cold outside. |
This was a great trip. The weather was great, there was no competition for moorage, and it was New Years! Another memorable and thoroughly enjoyable New Years trip to build on our long running tradition.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
Word Scamble Anwer: netlos actaully spells "Elston". Oddly enough it also spells "Stolen". Yikes!
