We woke up knowing we needed to make some miles south but how far we could not decide. Do we cross the straight? No, wind forecast was for 30 knots in the afternoon right when we would get there. At 9:20am we took off deciding to go through Rosario Straight then through Deception Pass. Just through the pass is Cornet Bay with a TYC outstation we could spend the night at. This pass is narrow with strong currents so it must be hit at or near slack water. Checking our estimated arrival time with slack water time revealed we could hit it just perfect.
As we entered Rosario Straight we could see up ahead a large fog bank. We decided to take the somewhat longer route along the east side of Cypress Island. As we motored along we noticed some mooring buoys off Pelican Beach. We have never explored this island and it looked really cool! There was an open buoy so we decided to take one for the night and it would be nice to stop and eat lunch anyway.
Skylar instantly started fishing and brought up a rockfish! He was hooked on this place as he brought up fish after fish. Then the tide changed and everything stopped. No more fish. As we sat there in what felt like freezing cold (this was the first 60 degree day in a couple weeks) Julie and I decided to untie and keep going. We missed slack water at Deception Pass so we decided to take the slow but protected route through the Swinomish Channel.
Still undecided on where to stay the night we just kept moving south. For some dumb reason Julie and I kept talking about sunset being at about 9:30pm when calculating where we could make it before dark. We figured Edmonds would be a stretch but we could make it. At about 7pm with Julie and the kids down below reading, I thought to myself, wow it seems to be really getting dark for only 7pm. To be sure I grabbed my phone and looked up the time for sunset in Seattle. 8:08pm. What the….. how could we have been 1.5 hours off? I guess not paying much attention to time over the last 3 weeks will do that to you.
We now had less than an hour until sunset. The small Langley Marina was only 2nm away so we decided that was our destination. This marina is very small though and there was a good chance it was full. Sure enough, absolutely no dock space. Where to now? Everett was about 9nm away and the closest option. I cranked up the engine to 15.5 knots burning 14.5 gallons per hour at that speed! We felt like we were flying after going 7-10 knots most of our trip! I have only been to the Port of Everett once before so I also had some navigating to figure out. The marina is actually located on a river so you have to navigate some buoys to avoid the shoal. As we rounded the entry buoy a huge barge with a tug pushing it was coming right at us! We navigated around the barge and through the channel leading to the docks. At 8:10pm just after sunset we were snugly tied up in our slip! Just about 11 hours and 61.55nm is way too long on the boat especially for the restless kids.
Trip Log – 338.37nm