May 31, 2010 - Kiket Island

A 3-day holiday weekend!  We look forward to the 3-day weekends as we get an extra night on the boat, and that usually makes a longer trip to a more distant harbor feasible.  But, alas, the weather just wasn't in our favor this time around.  The wind forecast is good, but rain (heavy at times) is forecast basically for the entire 3 days.

Friday night was shaping up to be a really wet night, so we decided to stay home.  Good thing we did because it rained hard all night.  About 11:00 on Saturday morning we decided that the forecast, and the visual out the window made it the right time to go.  But, now it's almost low tide, a really low tide.  We rush to get to the boat and as we are walking down the dock one of my marine electrical clients yells over to me "do you think you can get out of here when the tide is so low Steve?"  I answer with a reasuring "I hope so!"  The tide was at about -2' and as we left the marina the depth sounder was reporting a whopping 2.5' under our keel leaving Shelter Bay.  We make it out just fine though, and it's raining again.  As we near the end of the Swinomish Channel there is a 40' sailboat aground.  At just about the same time as we are passing that boat, a Bayliner 45 just like our boat is coming the other way.  It's a boat name that I recognize from the Bayliner Owner Club website; "Aquaholic"  He hails me on the VHF and we switch to channel 68 to chat for a minute.  He recognized my boat name too.  Anyway, he's headed to La Conner for the weekend, and we are leaving.....

"Aquaholic" coming towards us, sailboat aground.

As I mentioned we usually go a little further on 3-day weekends.  But, not this time.  We are heading just a few miles to Kicket Island an Similk Bay, very close to home.  We get there and we are the only boat.  We drop the anchor and get another good bite with our new anchor.  We put the dinghy down almost immediately and head to Sakgit Island with Zappa to go for a hike. 

Zappa and Kevin headed to Skagit Island

Zapping rock climbing while the kids check out a cave

LOW tide.  This buoy is of no use right now

We head back to the boat after a circumnavigation of Skagit Island with our cat Zappa.  He's an amazing cat; more like a dog actually.  After lunch I head into the engine room to check out a clogging water filter that is making the sink faucet slower and slower.  I pull the screen out and clean it; problem solved.  Kevin and Cindy really want to see what is down there in the engine room, so all three of us head in there for a tour.  

 

Steve and Kevin in the engine room.

Kathy and the kids go for a kayak ride shortly afterwards while I work on a couple of boat projects and then head out in the dinghy to get some pictures of them.

Kevin, Cindy, and Kathy out kayaking

Nearby there is a wrecked sailboat that has been there for a couple of years now.  It is slowly getting destroyed by the wind and waves.  I wonder if it will ever be removed?  The story is that the guy had anchored there and was sort of living aboard for a while.  He left for the weekend and the bloat blew ashore during a storm and sank.  What a shame to lose your home like that.

The wrecked sailboat.

This boat is about 60' long.

Later that afternoon our friends the Dalton's arrived on their boat.  They came here to practice anchoring.  Jen is going to take the boat and her two kids up to Canada this summer so she is working on all of her boat skills as much as she can.  they practice for a while and it starts raining.  I head out on the dinghy to invite them to raft up to us for the night.  They do, and we have a great time together.  The kids play games, and we have dinner together.  The kids watch a movie on our boat while us adults play Hearts on the other boat.  It rains all night and by morning we have a few new leaks we've never had before.  I think the windscreen on the flybridge is the culprit, but I won't know for a while.  Mark takes some of the kids to check out the wrecked sailboat and then they go beach combing.  Grace finds a goose "decoy" used for hunting.  Mark finds the old sailboat dinghy covered in bushes and sticker bushes. 

Grace's decoy

Mark and I go back later to check out the dinghy.  It's totally deflated and covered in brush.  It's probably been there since the wreck.  We drag it out of the bushes and find an oar, a footpump to blow it up with, and the interior floor pieces.  It's in rough shape.  Pads are pulling off when we grab a line.  We blow it up and it leaks badly.  We decide to tow it back to the boats so we can haul it home and salvage some parts from it.  This thing is definitely garbage, but we don't want to just leave it on the beach to rot and become permanent beach garbage.  The wind has really kicked up while we were gone and it's gusting to 30 knots which makes for a wet ride back.

Our beach treasure

After a few hours of relaxing, and eating lunch, the wind calms down and the Dalton's decide to head over to Cornet Bay to practice docking some more.  It was another fun weekend with our friends!

See ya next time, Jen and Mark!!!