It's my semi-annual guy's boat trip. This time we are headed to Mud Bay at the south end of Lopez Sound. This is a good place to be in strong southerly winds, and the forecast for Saturday is calling for rain along with stong winds from the south. Mud Bay is shallow (about 10-15 feet) and has a great mud bottom that our anchor really works well in. No waves will make it into the bay in a south wind so it stays calm even when the winds are howling. We should be safe here.
The guys arrive early on Friday afternoon, and we are underway by 1:15 which will allow us plenty of time to get to Lopez before dark. Daylight savings has kicked in and it's dark by 5:00PM these days.
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| A beautiful day to cruise to the San Juans. |
We have a terrific ride over in the sunshine. There is almost no wind so crossing Rosario Straight is uneventful; just smooth water and sunshine. As we go through Lopez Pass I am blinded by the sun which is now pretty low in the sky. This made it hard to see all the crab pot floats in Mud Bay.
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| Blinded by the Light! Lopez Pass headed toward Mud Bay. |
We drop the anchor and get a great bite from the anchor. I let out 100' of chain in just 12' of water. That's enough scope to hold us in a hurricane :-) We make dinner, have a few beers, watch a movie or two, and chat the evening away. I unfortunately don't sleep well as the wind kicks up in the middle of the night. I'm up checking things out multiple times throughout the evening due to the anchor watch alarm sounding twice, the high wind alarm sounding, the vacuflush toilet suddenly pumping for no reason, the sound of the anchor dragging across the bottom as the wind shifted (the anchor chain noise is transmitted right into the bow of the boat because it travels up the chain). When I do awake in the morning the first thing I do is make a pot of coffee; I NEED it!
After a lazy morning sitting around catching up on all of our lives we get the dinghy in the water to take a ride over to Paul Allen's "estate" to do some water-based sightseeing. He has a LARGE complex on Lopez in a spectacular location. There are several "no trespassing" signs along the beach and we have no intent of landing here, but we do see a door open in one of the buildings and someone steps out to let us know we are being watched. No big deal, but it's clear that we are not invited to come any closer.
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| Just a portion of Paul Allen's waterfront estate. |
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| Totem Pole. I think it's saying "go away, trawler-trash!" |
After looking at several very large buildings, an unbelievable amount of waterfront for one person to own, a totem pole, a large dock and several mooring bouys, we decide to head over to a little beach at Lopez Pass where we can go ahsore. We go for a little hike there and it starts to rain. We continue our hike around the island and then head back to the dinghy and don our wet lifjackets and get into the wet dinghy. Then we zip back to the boat as fast as we can in hopes of remaining dry. It mostly works as we aren't really very wet when we get back. The heat of the furnace feels nice though as it was a cold ride back in the rain.
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| Ron and Mike. Hmm, what are they doing? |
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| BBQing steaks; Are they done yet? |
We spend the rest of our weekend on the boat due to cold, rain, and drizzle. During that time we watch a few more movies, drink some beers, have a few great meals, and "hang out." It's nice to get together a few times a year like this so we can spend time really getting caught up with what we've all been doing, how our families are, what we have planned for the future, and simply having fun away from the pressures of everyday life. I'm looking forward to another trip in the spring.
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