Stuart Island – Riveted

Happy New Year!

Laura Domela — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 22:18:32 +0000

We celebrated New Year's Eve last night in Prevost Harbor on Stuart Island. We met up with some friends (Dan and Eileen, and their Nordic Tug 32 "Fortunate") on their boat for happy hour and then dinner. Dan and Eileen made a delicious risotto with chicken and we brought champagne and salad and asparagus. It was a fun night! We took no photos at Stuart Island…and there were no visible northern lights last night either. I set the alarm for a few times in the middle of the night, but no luck. Oh well. Guess we'll just have to go back to Alaska for that!

The outboard on the dinghy died yesterday afternoon (while Kevin was out pulling in the crab pots, and our last crab of 2015), so he spent some time this morning in Prevost Harbor trying to diagnose that. At about 1pm we headed back over to Sucia Island and we're now moored in Fox Cove.

More clear mountain views on our way over:

After a bit more work on the outboard here, we did some testing and took the dinghy over to the beach. It ran okay, but it's going to need some work. (We think it's a ruptured fuel pump diaphragm.) We walked around a bit on shore and then headed back to Airship (and got there just as the motor died, again):

Heron in late afternoon light:

There are two sailboats on the other two mooring balls in here, and it's calm and gorgeous out. Dinner tonight will be chicken curry over some rice noodles with green beans. I'm wingin' it as far as the recipe goes, but look at this galley view!

Hope everyone had a great holiday, and here's to another year of exploration!

Port Townsend to Stuart Island

Laura Domela — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 21:25:44 +0000

Yesterday morning we left Port Townsend on the early side (before 9am) and headed north to take advantage of the perfect weather and great conditions for crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

And by perfect weather and great conditions, I mean this:

So, yesterday crossing the strait we saw Minke whales, and then up on the west side of San Juan Island, we saw a whole bunch of Orcas. I posted about all the whales in a separate post because…well…tons of photos!

We were cruising with the current giving us a bit more speed than usual….a pretty strong current:

Cool bird with nice face paint:

Nice rock formation along the tip of Stuart Island:

Lighthouse on Stuart Island:

Here's yesterday's track (55.4 nautical miles over 8 hours, including whale watching):

(You can see where the whales were in both spots…look for the little circle southwest of Minor Island out in the Strait…that's where the Minke whales were, and the Orcas are where the large doubling back happens off of San Juan.)

We grabbed a mooring buoy at Stuart Island State Park in Prevost Harbor and had ourselves a nice deck top happy hour:

Look at our cute little neighbor, named Slo-Poke:

We went to bed early and got up early this morning. If it's early enough when I first wake up, I can usually can tell if the light is worth getting out of bed to go look (and take a quick photo before hopping back into bed) by looking at the edges of the portholes on either side of the stateroom. This morning, it told me I should get up:

Because this:

And then this:

We left Prevost Harbor on Stuart Island after some breakfast and a shower, and decided as we rounded Speiden Island that we'd go back to Anacortes via the back side of San Juan Island again, because maybe more orcas!

Sea lions on the tip of Speiden Island:

The wind was supposed to pick up this afternoon, but we thought we might beat it and have a nice smooth cruise. About half way down San Juan Island (just as we saw three adult orcas trucking north), the waves increased and we were in about 3-6 ft seas. Not super fun, but not scary. We tacked a little to minimize the roll, and decided rather than head around the south end of Lopez Island as was our plan, that we'd go through Cattle Pass (at max ebb). It was actually no big deal, and quite a bit easier than being in the strait.

Entering Cattle Pass, looking back toward the strait:

Cattle Pass, Lopez Island in the background. (See? Not bad.):

I didn't take any photos out in the strait because I was too busy holding on.

Here's today's track from Stuart Island back to Anacortes (48.6 nautical miles, 5 hours 42 minutes):

We're back in Anacortes now, because tomorrow we're having a Racor dual fuel filter installed. Fun stuff!

Sunset at Stuart Island

Laura Domela — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 23:15:31 +0000

We took a beer and a little charcuterie board to the top deck to watch sunset tonight. For a mostly gray and rainy day, this was a pretty sweet end:

Stuart Island State Park

Laura Domela — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 22:59:36 +0000

Here's where we are now, in Reid Harbor at Stuart Island on our own (for now) little floating dock:

We stopped at Roche Harbor for some provisions (veggies, eggs, meat, wine) before heading over to Stuart Island. We returned to Airship with our groceries and we were about to cast off when the bells from the chapel struck noon. I remembered from our last Roche Harbor visit that the chapel plays several songs at noon, so we waited and listened:

Today's repertoire began with something I didn't recognize, then Somewhere Over The Rainbow, then Misty, then Surrey With a Fringe On Top, and I don't remember what's playing in the video above. Neat though, huh?

Once out of Roche Harbor, we decided to cruise around a little bit before stopping for the day (since our destination was only 6 nautical miles away…not much of a cruise).

It was a little rough on the north side of Johns Island, so we headed back through Johns Pass pass instead of going all the way around Stuart Island like we'd thought about. The green part at Stuart Island, on the top of this image, is Stuart Island State Park:

We're moored now on a floating dock in Reid Harbor at the Stuart Island State Park. There's one dock attached to the ramp connected to land, a bunch of mooring buoys, and two floating docks. The other floating dock has four boats at it, and two of them are Nordic Tugs (42s, I think).

We took the dinghy over to shore to register and walk around a bit. Tomorrow I think we'll aim for a longer hike that includes checking out the old schoolhouse. Or maybe we'll leave and go somewhere else since the weather is supposed to be better than originally forecast for tomorrow.

Ramp up to the land part of the state park:

Looking back toward the harbor:

We walked across to Prevost Harbor. I may like Prevost better, but it's on the north side of Stuart Island without much wind protection, and since it's supposed to be 30kts tonight, we figured Reid was the better choice…so did everyone else, apparently, since this is what the dock at Prevost looks like on a Friday night:

Here's a map of the island, Prevost Harbor on the north side, Reid Harbor on the south side:

There's no Verizon service here at all, and just a low-medium Edge connection on AT&T, so unfortunately that means we will not be binging on House of Cards tonight, dangit (another reason we might move tomorrow, heh). Good thing it's the weekend!