The sailing adventures of SV Meriwether and her crew
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...
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...
The town of Port Gamble was about a half mile away, accessible by a dinghy ride to the boat launch. It’s a historic lumber town dating back to the mid 1800’s, though the lumber mill shut down in 1995, after 142 years of operation. Today – still owned by the mill – the town has been preserved, designated a National...
After only a single night’s stay we would leave Pleasant Harbor, knowing we would have hours of motoring (and no sailing) in our day. Kerri even got out of bed at a respectable hour so we can get started early in the day – like so many sailors do around here – but the fog would keep us in the...
There was only one way to go now – North, back up the Hood Canal. It took us two long days of travel to get all the way down here, and we would have two long ones to make the return voyage. After another stop at Potlatch State Park for a final shower, we were back on the water for...
Rested from the long sail, Kerri and I (Moose too) motored the two miles to our final destination in Hood Canal – the tiny town of Union, Washington. Union is located on the southern shores of the “Great Bend” in the canal. The marina area consisted of only a market-slash-trinket store, a Mexican-food joint, and a small country store across...
Seabeck Bay was a well placed location for us to stop after a long day of motoring. There is a private marina in the bay, but we chose to stay at anchor not far outside of the marina-proper. At the far end of the bay was a nice shore in which Moose could get out and stretch his legs each...
After a week spent in a marina we were both ready to get back out and away from everyone. Not that there is such a thing in July in the San Juan’s, but at least we could only have a dozen neighbors instead of a hundred. The destination for the work week was only a few nautical miles away, just...
Outside of Prevost Harbor, just on the other side of Satellite Island is cool, refreshing, cell signal… or so we remembered from our arrival the day before. Over there, just a short hop away, we could anchor for the week in a small cove. While the cove would protect us from the scheduled winds coming from the south west all...
Stuart Island is about as far West as we can go before entering Canada and the furthest from mainland Washington as we can get. With the Fourth of July holiday coming we thought an early arrival to the island would ensure we have a place to hunker down for the big weekend. The State Park portion of the island is...
