The sailing adventures of SV Meriwether and her crew
Patos Island is only a few miles away from our last stop. Barely enough time to raise the sails. Not that we had any wind anyway, so the decision was already made for us to motor over. At least the alternator will charge our house battery during the two hours (we cruised it, nice and slow). We even took the...
It was a 15 mile travel day, with no wind to speak of… once again. We knew all week that there would be no wind for the weekend, when we could travel. Unless we wanted to stay on Patos Island another week – with no guarantee of wind the following seven days either – we were going to be motoring...
Ever since our visit to English Camp in the van – a part of the San Juan Island National Historic Park – I have wanted to return in our boat. I can’t explain why, but I did. Heck, I wasn’t even sure the cove outside of English Camp could even accommodate Meriwether’s draft (it did), but I wanted to anchor...
We couldn’t decide where to go after English Camp, ending up choosing a return to Friday Harbor to restock the fridge and firewood. The route would consist of a few miles backtrack and more motoring than sailing. We did get an hour or so of sailing in that day… close hauled, and tacking, of course – but eventually the wind...
One of the few places on our list in the San Juan’s that we had not yet visited was Doe Bay. We were told months ago about the resort here, with a great restaurant and hot springs to die for. Since we had recently decided to end our 2019 sailing season the following week, we didn’t want to head further...
T’was a truly angry looking wind that would be arriving from the south by Saturday morning and we had no protection from the south at Doe Bay. With land directly to our north nothing would be less comfortable than spending a night or two with heavy winds pushing us towards shore with no idea how well maintained the moorings are...
Well, we did it. We went from a being land based nomads to sea-based, learned to sail, and finished off our first full sailing season… all in a single year. Not that we intended to rush it at all, but looking back at where we were and what was in our minds just 14 months ago, it’s pretty crazy where...
