Skipper’s Rant

After two wonderful days in Poulsbo it was time to head to the Coho Ho Ho raft-up. The weather was still cold and rainy, so we motored down around the south end of Blakely Island. Upon entering Blakely Harbor we found that only one boat had arrived at the raft-up so far, but one other Coho boat was entering the bay just ahead of us. We idled while the first two boats tied together, then dropped our anchor and joined the raft. A fourth boat arrived a while later to complete the raft for the night.

After spending the night at the Coho Ho Ho raft-up tied to three other boats, we began our return to the San Juan Islands and familiar territory. We had never rafted before, and untangling the mess in the morning took some time. We were rotated 180 degrees from our position the night before, both Perception and one other boat had anchors down, and it was unclear which direction we had rotated. We attempted to rotate the raft back into position by pulling clockwise with Perception, but found resistance, so went back the other direction and were able to get free. Luckily we didn’t rotate more than a full circle or it would have been a complete mess to disentangle.

After leaving the raft we motored up Puget Sound, into Possession Sound, up the south side of Whidbey Island, and back into Skagit bay. While we travelled a significant wind came up from the south, and we saw gusts of over 33 knots while underway. Luckily it was nearly dead behind us so we experienced the wind waves as a relatively gentle, rolling, following sea.

We had decided to head to La Conner on the way back north as the tide level was reasonable for both air and water clearance in the Swinomish Channel. In hindsight turning across the wind and current to head up the channel was not a very safe action to take. I realized as we progressed up the channel that we would have almost no time to react if we encountered engine trouble, and the strong current and wind on our starboard beam would quickly push us aground outside the dredged channel. Luckily we encountered no such trouble, but I will try to carry the lesson forward.

We arrived at La Conner and landed at the sparsely populated guest dock, choosing to land against the outside as the pilot was a bit tired after the long trip. In hindsight we really should have taken the time to go inside the guest dock to stay out of the worst of the current. Where we were located we were exposed to a good deal of the current in the channel, at times feeling like we were tied in a rushing river.