Spencer Spit – Last Stop in the San Juans

What’s nice about Spencer Spit is that one can choose which side of the spit to anchor or catch a mooring ball on.

Spencer Spit, situated on the eastern side of Lopez Island in the San Juan Island chain, is a Washington State Marine Park, which means the area has mooring buoys, beach campsites, and hiking. We’ve never anchored or moored here, so we choose this spot as our days’ end destination after we departed our yacht club friends at Garrison Bay. What’s nice about Spencer Spit is that one can choose which side of the spit to anchor or catch a mooring ball on, depending on the expected wind direction. We had no concerns about the wind that day and spent a calm night on the hook, we never got off of the boat. The next morning it was extremely foggy, but I figured with the aid of our radar, and only eight miles to travel that, it would not be a problem. Boy, was I wrong!

The next morning, I got up a little earlier than usual, while Lisa was still sleeping, pulled anchor, and headed towards Thatcher Pass, where I noticed one of the large island ferries off to my port side. I looked away momentarily at the chart plotter and looked back up, the ferry had disappeared into the blanket of fog – scary, as it was not that far away from us. I decided to return to the anchorage and drop the anchor back down. After waiting a couple of hours the fog finally lifted, and we could see our way through Thatcher Pass and Rosario Strait making for an uneventful and smooth cruise over to Anacortes, WA, where we would attend the Ranger Tugs 2013 Summer Rendezvous.

In an almost surreal moment, amidst the lifting fog, we came upon this little sailboat (below) making its way boldly through Thatcher Pass.