Fish Soup in the San Juans

Some random thoughts and info as we glide through the San Juan Islands
I made fish soup yesterday! Those of you who don’t now much about my home life don’t realize how much of an accomplishment that is for me. I used to cook but for at least the last 20 years Hartley has done the honors. It is interesting starting to get back into it. By the way the fish soup made was with tuna that we bought from one of the local fisherman  and was excellent.
Just now Hartley has been annoyed by the little gnats flying around and a few landed in his wine as we sit at anchor in Deer Harbor on Orcas Island. That was okay by me until he mentioned he could see at least three in mine, oh well , more protein.

The other night we were in Echo Bay , a repeat.  Last time we were there I hiked to the East and visited Shallow Bay and Fossil Bay. This time I went the other way and went to Ewing Bay which is more remote and the trail is a little rougher. Saw three snakes a long the way, just garter snakes, but nevertheless they always make me jump.
The areas that have real hiking trails are limited as most of the land is privately owned. It was nice on Sucia Island that most of the land is state park and so you can hike on real trails instead of needing to hike along county roads.

A couple  of days ago we were in Hunter Bay on Lopez Island. The guide book says there are no facilities available at that anchorage, but I noted that only a couple of miles away , which was on the other side of the island, there was a grocery store!! That was the day I decided to make fish soup and had to hike over there to get the necessary ingredients. Like I said there were no hiking trails but I walked along the roads with limited traffic. I did get to wave to lots of people though as the tradition on Lopez Island is that everyone, walkers and cars all wave to each other. Just as an aside there were thousands of “baby flies” (baby makes the sound cute , but they were not) at Hunter Bay. They landed on the boat and died as well as what seemed like millions of dead ones in the water.  I tried to look it up on the Internet but found nothing. Anyone know about this phenomenon?
We had a neat experience in Echo Harbor the other  night, just as the sun was setting (which is about 9 pm this far north), the person two boats over played Taps on his trumpet. That was very nice, but then he followed it by playing “Summertime”. He played beautifully. What great ending to a great day.

Today we sailed from Echo Bay on Sucia to Deer Harbor on Orcas Island. We got to sail for a change. The winds here in the islands tend to be light and infrequent but as we pulled  away this time  the wind was up , so up went the sails. The current, which was strong, was going our way, so with the wind and the current we were screaming through the water at 10 knots!

 

The water was dancing as the currents are wild in this area as the waters funnel through the various islands. We swung back and forth as the whirlpools pulled the boat one way and then the other. Lots of fun.
After we arrived in Deer Harbor I went for a walk to see the sights. There is an old dance hall that has been there for years. Too bad no dance tonight.

To go back a little we also went to Canada this time out. We left Port Townsend visited the islands and then went to Vancouver Island and stayed in Sidney Harbor which is right next to Victoria. We got to visit with my Uncle Angus, my mom’s brother and my cousins. I haven’t seen them in years , it was great.

The marina in Sidney was swank! All the posts between slips had two hanging planters. The boats in the harbor were incredible too. All big and in great shape.

After Sidney we worked our way back to Port Townsend where we once again met Rhonda who had kindly received our mail and packages. We stocked up there on food and enjoyed Rhonda’s hospitality before we left again for the Islands.

We also visited with Hartley’s relatives that live in the Seattle area.  They came to see us in Poulsbo Harbor. We were able to see his Aunt Barbara and his cousins. We really enjoyed it.

We also went through Deception pass which is between Whitbey Island and Fidalgo Island. The passage is narrow and the water fast even at nearly “slack ” current. I steered and Hartley took pictures.

As we travel through the islands one of the tasks is to watch for drifting logs Here is a “castle”some kids made which we saw  on the shore as we floated along.

One last picture this time. It is of Mount Baker which is almost always seen sitting beautifully in the background.

PS I figured out what I was doing wrong when I moved my pictures to the blog so they should be clearer now:)

Didn’t I say I wanted to go somewhere warm then why am I heading NORTH??
We decided to give the north a whirl and left the morning of July 10th. Our first stop after a full day of travel was Bodega Bay. We had an auspicious start as we saw 6 humpback whales. No matter how often you see whales it is always thrilling.

We left the next day and decided to do our first long stretch leaving 7/11 in the morning and arriving in Crescent City California about 9:30 at night on 7/12.
We saw lots of whales and porpoises too!
Crescent City is almost to the Oregon border in California. It is in red wood country. We ended spending almost a week there waiting for the weather to be good to travel north so we got to explore the area. We took a bus about 20 minutes out of town and were able to enjoy the giant red woods in a famous area called Stout Grove. As any of you know who have seen the redwoods they are so impressive.

One of the other major sites in Crescent City is their light house. It sits on a piece of land that is an island about 20 hours a day. During the low tides you can walk out to it and sometimes get to take a tour of the house. It has been continuously lived in since it went into service in 1856. It still serves as a light house but volunteers live there a month at a time.

Life is fortuitous at times. We were going to leave Saturday but the weather was going to be even better on Sunday so we decided to stay one more night. We went out to dinner and were waiting for our turn ( a very popular place so we expected a longish wait) Good thing we had to wait as what should happen? I got a call from Dr Gibson !! She and her husband were taking a trip out of San Francisco and had just pulled into town. We were able to get together and have dinner. Such a treat to see some one you know when you are so far away.

We had a great time reminiscing about Phoenix and OB -Gyn stuff.
After a week we were ready to move on and so left for however far we could get. We were making good time so we kept going for another day and a half until we got to Astoria, on the Columbia River which divides Oregon from Washington .

The Columbia River entrance is called the Columbia River Bar and when the weather is bad the meeting of the in going tide and waves with the out going river causes huge breaking waves. Even with great weather it was easy to see why this is such a dangerous place. The Coast Guard does their heavy weather rescue training there. Astoria is a town of about 10,000 people. It’s industry is tourism and fishing. The port is busy with lots of fishing boats. The river is amazing to watch as the shipping channel is very near the shore and you see these huge boats going by and they look almost close enough to touch.

After a couple of days in Astoria and several rides on their restored trolley that travels the length of town, we left for the Strait of San Juan de Fuca.

We did another over night trip and got into Port Townsend just before midnight on 7/25. Port Townsend is a quaint little town. It is a tourist town that has other things to do so the stores etc are for real people not just tourists.
Rhonda, one of my friends and former patients lives in Fort Townsend so she took us around to see the sites. It is always great to have some who knows the area and can show you all the things you wouldn’t know to look at. Also, I was impressed that Rhonda must know people who travel on boats, the first two things she asked were do you need to use my car to get supplies and do you want to come to my house to do laundry!!
We did an easy 5 hour trip and are in the the true San Juan Islands. The area is gorgeous. There are islands and islands and islands. Because of all the land and the narrow passages between them the currents are fast and turbulent. We were traveling a 6 knots and all of a sudden a current picked us up and we were going 9.5 knots. We hit a whirl pool that pulled the boat left and then right and there was nothing we could do about it.
We stayed in Fisherman Bay near the town of Lopez. I was able to paddle my kayak into town about a mile a way and get some great ice cream .After two days in Fisherman Bay we moved on to Sucia Island. The scenery is incredible with Mont Baker looming over the horizon.

Time to go .