It is about 63 NM from Brownsville to Friday Harbor. Since this was a year with good currents for heading north, I made the decision to make the delivery run in one day. Furthermore, I had a friend along to crew and he could only get one day off. We were underway at 0420. The run north was great, after passing Kingston, we started getting a boost from the current. By the time we passed Point No Point and entered Admiralty Inlet, we were getting several knots of boost from the current. But we also encountered fog, very heavy fog with about 200 yards visibility. We did not see any land from Point No Point until just before we reached the south entrance of San Juan Channel. We tracked ships around us with the chartplotter and AIS(Automatic Identification System) and easily kept away from traffic, except for a US Navy shipped that that only announced it's presence with a fog horn.
We arrived in Friday Harbor at about 1330 and had a slip assignment about an hour later. Note to self: Try to get reservations earlier! We secured the boat and explored the town. I have been to Friday Harbor many times and it is one of my favorite places in the San Juan Islands. Still there is always something new to see!
Saturday we woke up early and hiked up to the Rocky Bay Café for their fantastic breakfasts. Then back to the boat to get ready. Our start was not until 1215, so we had lots of time to rig the boat and kibitz with old friends and new acquaintances. We left the dock in plenty of time to get the sails raised and tweaked before my start.
It did not seem to be as crowded in the starting area as I remembered. The line is set off the north end of Brown's Island. The wind in the channel was out of the south at about 5 knots, but in the starting area under the lee of the land, it was light and shifty. As the first start went off at 1200, most of the fleet went counter clockwise and only a couple headed clockwise. About the same happened at my start. We decided to go counter clockwise as my detailed analysis determined that that was the way to go. Yeah Right!
Our start was hectic. Just as we timed our start right and found a nice hole to shoot through, a boat late from the first start port tacked us and forced us to go around them. After wiggling clear of the line, we headed for Upright Channel and soon the wind came aft enough to set the spinnaker. We hugged the Lopez Island shore and found some wind when the wind started evaporating all over the course. We rounded the east end of Shaw Island in a really great position ahead of most of our class. But the convergence zone struck and the wind died. Boats from behind caught up to us and some passed us. After working and drifting through the fluky conditions, the wind finally filled in from the south and we reached through Harney Channel, Wasp Pass and sailed close hauled into San Juan Channel. The wind was up to about 10 knots now. We had a great beat and worked the eastern half of the channel passing many boats and distancing ourselves from the pack behind. We were on the the final tack to the finish with only about a quarter of a mile to go when the wind died and then changed to the north. We stopped and the boats behind caught up some. We finally crossed the line and when the results were calculated, we were in fourth in our class. We missed third by 1.8 minutes!
We cleaned up the boat and went to the club house for dinner and the awards. I was very tired and dehydrated. I drank lots of water followed by their traditional lasagna dinner. San Juan Island Yacht Club puts on a great race and post race event. They are always friendly and seem happy to see me. The complete results are here: Shaw Island Results 2013
On Sunday, after another breakfast at Rocky Bay Café, we got underway for the transit home at 0747. This was predicted to be a long trip with adverse currents for most of the way back to Brownsville. Sure enough, half way across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, we started bumping into the ebbing current and our speed was reduced to about 3 knots. Instead of the usual track down Admiralty Inlet, I elected to head to Pt Wilson and try to avoid the current. But as I was navigating I thought about transiting through the Port Townsend Canal on the west side of Indian Island. The current flow through this canal varies differently from the flow in Admiralty Inlet. While we would have been fighting ebb current east of Marrowstone Island, in the Port Townsend Canal we could see two knots of flood going our way! We gained several miles on boats that went down Admiralty Inlet. I have always been reluctant to go this way because I though it was farther than the direct route. But when I downloaded the tracks, I found that it is only about one half mile farther than what I thought was the direct route. Learn something new everyday! And since the J35 does not have a very tall mast, we fit easily under the bridge. Larger boats with taller masts may not fit and need to evaluate their "air draft" before trying it.
The rest of the trip was uneventful and we soon arrived at Brownsville at 1830, a lot quicker than I thought it would be.
The dark spot in the fog is a US Navy frigate. We came kind of close to them.
The Friday Harbor Marina. We were somewhere in that mass of sailboat masts.
Mt Baker
Reaching through Harney Channel.
In Harney Channel off Orcas.
It rained some Sunday morning. Jim was driving the boat.
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