The sailing adventures of SV Meriwether and her crew
For our second sailing season we wanted to sail North through the inside passage to Alaska, but COVID-19 would throw a wrench in our plans. We spent four months tied to a dock, but that allowed us to get a ton upgrades and repairs completed before we started the season at the beginning of June. We sailed to the South Sound, exploring as much as we could before being hauled out at the end of the summer for a bottom paint. A few more months of sailing ensued before we pulled into Port Townsend to spend our first winter on the boat.
Well, we successfully sailed another season without sinking or being attacked by killer whales, as much as my mother feared it might happen. Although COVID19 utterly destroyed our plans to sail north into BC and Alaska, we still got a lot of sailing in and saw many new places. Though we never planned to sail the South Puget Sound, we...
Before the end of the work week we had already ditched the log infested waters of the Swinomish Channel in La Conner. It was clear that by the end of the upcoming weekend, we were going to be in Port Townsend for the winter. There was just no avoiding all the major wind events happening at this time of the...
So, we only got to hang around Hunter Bay for a single night. The forecasted winds finally put the fear into us to run back to the safety of a marina. This time we made our way into Anacortes via a couple-hour sail/motor while Kerri worked. The voyage went smoothly, as did the docking and resupplying our firewood and grocery...
Our time at Indian Cove was only a single night. Once again, we had to move to another anchorage to protect ourselves from strong winds coming from a completely different direction from the day before. There were not a lot of options along the general route, however one bay stood out for a few reasons; 1) We hadn’t been there,...
Obstruction Pass – sounds so ominous, right? We avoided this scary sounding stretch of water last year by taking it’s sister to the south; Peavine Pass. The only difference between the two is that Peavine is straight while Obstruction has a bend. Both still have strong currents at times, but with just a little bit of planning those can be...
The morning we left Waldron Island I scanned the AIS for other boats on the islands to our North – where we planned to point Meriwether. Patos Island was the original destination, but I saw something on AIS that changed our minds; Merlin. Merlin is a like-aged boat to Meriwether that we happened to view back in 2018 when we...
We are running out of islands to visit in the San Juan islands archipelago. Many we have been to multiple times in our two seasons sailing around the area, often returning to a new bay or anchorage just to keep things fresh. We have only sailed past Waldron Island, not stopping as we were on our way to another, but...
Our fridge part was to be arriving to Friday Harbor in a few more days. We needed only to occupy ourselves while staying within a reasonable distance to FH. Always in search of somewhere new to go, we pointed Meriwether back to Orcas Island, but this time to West Sound’s ominous sounding Massacre Bay. We had some wind in our...
Still awaiting our refrigerator part in Friday Harbor, we were sticking pretty close by – within a single day’s sail at least. Our options of new places nearby were quickly depleting after a couple weeks in the general area, so we opted to return to one of last year’s favorites; Garrison Bay, just off shore from the English Camp portion...
As it turns out, Kerri had a hidden motivation to bringing me out to East Sound. I had repeatedly expressed that going to East Sound did not necessarily draw me in, but she continued to show interest, so we kept it on the list. Now I know why. Not far from our last anchorage, at Obstruction Pass, is the tiny...
