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.

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Friday Harbor, the Hub of the San Juan Islands!

Friday Harbor is a picturesque town and the largest small town in the San Juan Islands; you could say it’s the hub of commerce for the islands. This was our third time staying in the harbor. It has been said that the boating community is a small world, our slip just happened to be right next to Herb and Willy from Willy’s Tug, Tim and June, on Circle T, from California were also docked nearby. Both are Ranger Tug owners we know from our cruising time in the PNW – most recently when we all joined the Ranger Tugs 2013 Desolation Sound Cruise. Because of meeting up with these boaters, we got to experience a couple of things while in Friday Harbor we wouldn’t have, had it not been for Tim’s “Local Knowledge.” Perched on the bluff above the marina sits a Lions Club – with Tim’s membership all six of us were able to take advantage of a scenic, and a very happy, hour from the club’s porch with the added bonus of touring their very informative military museum before we left.

Friday Harbor’s famous mascot, Popeye, the one-eyed seal, has a statue in the park, overlooking the harbor, dedicated to her (above). She hangs out in the water surrounding the little fish market on the dock and will beg for food from people buying fish from the market.

Willy and Herb (below), on our way up to the Lions Club.

That night, after drinks at the Lions Club, before we parted to return to our boats, Tim suggested we meet on the dock the next morning and he would take us on an expedition of sorts to a favorite breakfast spot of his. He knew of a local restaurant we’d never heard of before and said it would include a walk, so we’d be sure to get our day’s exercise in as well. We had no idea where we were going, but at the appointed time we met on the dock and off we went, walking up through town toward the airport. Tim, being a pilot, has flown in and out of the airport in Friday Harbor and has more local knowledge than the rest of us. As it turned out our long walk was rewarded with a fantastic breakfast at the little-known, to outsiders, Ernie’s  Cafe, abreast of the airport runway. We never would have found this restaurant on our own.

It was drizzling all morning, so our walk, up, around the building, and through little out-of-the-way paths, to the restaurant was a little wet, but we got to see some beautiful critters slink their way out of hiding to soak and take advantage of the damp ground (below).

Finally, we arrived, the guys were way ahead of us and as you can tell from their gait, eager for a big breakfast. Looks like I should have had Chili #4 (below).

One thing that was plentiful during our trip this summer was yellow jackets. They were everywhere it seemed, always flying into our boat or hovering outside. Ernie’s had bee catchers hanging over their outside deck.

Apparently, the restaurant is named after aviator and author Ernest K Gann.

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Goodbye Canada… Hello Parks Bay!

We left Vancouver Island in our wake as we bid Canada goodbye, with our bow now pointed toward Haro Straight, we began to feel the pull of our country drawing us back to familiar shores after the close of a long-planned boating adventure.

It was late in the day when we arrived back into home waters, so after checking in with customs at Friday Harbor, we idled back out and across the San Juan Channel to anchor overnight in the protected confines of Parks Bay, off Shaw Island. It’s our cruising philosophy when paying for overnight dockage, to strive to get as full a day at a marina, and or town, as possible, so we returned first thing the next morning to secure dockage for a couple of days at Port of Friday Harbor, one of our favorite San Juan stops.

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Peaceful Night On the Hook in Prevost Harbor

From Anacortes, we headed straight to the northern end of the San Juan Islands to spend one night on the hook in Prevost Harbor before we checked in at customs in Bedwell Harbour, British Columbia. Stuart Island was just south of  Boundary Pass and Bedwell Harbor and just short of a heavy fog bank that just seemed to hang around the western edge of Stuart Island.

As we arrived in the harbor, we immediately spotted this Fathom 40 trawler (below – just like our previous boat, same color too), we cruised by to say hi to the owners, thinking maybe we’d know them, but we didn’t. Fathom yachts are beautiful boats and easy to handle. We loved ours, but find we can do even more cruising with our trailerable Ranger Tug. We can cruise as we did before on a bigger boat, but also a trailer and launch her in many desirable inland lakes, such as Lake Powell and Flaming Gorge Reservoir.

This pair of eagles were perched near our boat all evening. It appeared they were keeping an eye on the activity in the harbor.

When I began to take stock of what items we might have on the boat that would not fly during our check-in to Canadian customs, I got the bright idea to make potato salad with all the potatoes we had on hand. Potatoes were on the NoGo list we checked, but cooked items would be fine. We also had tomatoes to eat, some limes, and cherries. It made for an interesting dinner. We had potato salad for lunch for many days after.

Love nights on the hook when the water is glassy and reflects everything it touches. Prevost Harbor was picture-perfect for our one-night stay.

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