Sailing to the San Juan's – Part 1 Roche Harbor

Our PAYC Commodore Chris knew our departure and grabbed some fun footage of us taking off on our maiden voyage aboard Resa.  And yes, that stupid white bumper drives me crazy in this footage, it's the only white one and I didn't see it even though I knew it was there. Grrrr. :).  On the fun side, the folks on the big yacht on the fuel dock were trying to figure out why there was a drone buzzing around us during our departure, looking at us then the drone and back.  Probably wondering if we were somebody worthy of following.  Little did they know we just had an awesome Commodore who cared enough to come down at the crack of dawn to capture the footage.

This past week we took off on our first adventure on Resa. It's a culmination of a plan we've been working on for the last few years. First part was to move away from land locked Colorado so that our sailing options opened up, next we needed to sell the Spindrift 43 as she didn’t meet the needs of our family anymore, last we needed to buy a boat up here and start sailing this area that so many have touted as the best cruising grounds. We finally made it and I don’t know what positive karma we scored but somehow we ended up traveling during the most beautiful weather days we've had in six months. The weather was equal to what we see during the late summer. As we headed away from shore and looked back on the snowy peaks of the Olympics it reminded me how fortunate we were with our weather window.

We motored across about half way to Victoria and then the breeze filled in so Keith and I unfurled the sails and turned off the engine for our first offshore sail in the boat. The wind was blowing about 10-12 knots and the water was flat with little chop, Resa flew towards Victoria at a modest 7 knots. I was comfortable sitting on the rail and driving as she sliced through the waves effortlessly. The wind built to 18-20 and she continued to charge on without any more effort and continued to handle the challenge beautifully. Keith meanwhile was running around the deck, adjusting the stays, adjusting the running backstays, adjusting the hydraulic backstays….so many opportunities to tweak and tune…but me I was in sailing bliss. We were getting headed away from our lay line but we didn’t really care because the wind and the weather was just too pleasant to pass up.

Soon we got close enough to shore to see the skyscrapers of Victoria and determined we needed to tack over towards Discovery Island. The tack was smooth and we continued on until we reach Discovery Pass where we turned on the engine and tootled our way through the channel that spit us out into Haro Straight and the shipping lane that we needed to carefully cross to get to San Juan Island. We easily tucked in behind one tanker and then noticed another off to Starboard just coming around Discovery Island. Noticing it was bearing down on us at nearly 3 times our speed we opted for a direct line across the straight to get out of their path and then trudged our way up the West side of the island to Mosquito pass which was a fun little straight made up of day markers and channel markers. I understand that at times, if the tide is running against you it can be quite impossible to get through the channel. This time, we had a ½ knot current on our nose, not much to worry about. About halfway through Keith managed to drop his shoe in the water and amazingly they floated so we took the opportunity to go through a man overboard drill – with Loren spotting, me driving and Keith retrieving.

Soon we rounded the final bend and looked upon Roche Harbor where friends from the Port Angeles Yacht Club were standing by with a slip and many hands to help tie Resa off to her very first destination. Loren quickly got the kayak off the boat and was off exploring the marina and the nearby beach creating many shaved sticks which he planned to catch fish with. We took off to register and explore the area guided by Randy who showed us what a quiet Roche looked like and tried to help us envision the Disneyland type mayhem that summertime brings. Our evening wrapped up with a lovely gathering of friends from the yacht club for happy hour and a home cooked meal from Kurt and Donna….yum!
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The next day we walked over to the sculpture park which incorporated 19 acres of outdoor sculptures set in amongst grassy expanses, wooded pathways and a pond. It was peaceful and we enjoyed the meandering, the poetry and the amazing artwork. Loren spent a good deal of time in the kids area with Steve (his surrogate Grandpa for the trip) shaping his own artwork. On our way back through town we stopped off at the store and grabbed a few items we’d forgotten (like sunblock) before heading back to the boat to start packing for our next destination, Reid Harbor.
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