Just Rocks

July 30th & 31th – We have one full day (Wednesday the 30th) to fill our tanks with crab before the off load deadline tomorrow.  Ok, this is not Deadliest Catch but we like to pretend and with 6 pots in the water it feels like all we are doing is pulling pots.  Our target crab is the delicious Dungeness variety but unfortunately they don’t seem to be here.  All we are getting is large Rock Crab but they are almost as delicious – just harder to get the meat out.  We decided to keep the Rockies and forget about the Dungies we’re missing out on.  We did pretty good in all with 21 large Rock crab kept in the end!

That evening the full moon was beautiful!  From the Dinghy we watched it rise up right next to Mt Rainier, it was an awesome sight.  Skylar camped out on shore all by himself.  He said it was a wild night with fighting seals on the dock and crazy coyotes making all kinds of noises in the woods.  He was surrounded by animals of the wilderness and he loved it.

Then next day we packed up everything and set off for Fair Harbor Marina at 2:25pm.  Traveling 16.34nm we arrived at the dock and started cleaning all the crab.  21 crabs take a while to clean but Skylar and I had a great system and we got it done quickly.

John (Julies Uncle) drove down to the marina, picked us up, and took us to dinner.  We had a great dinner with Julies family at The Boat House Restaurant in Allyn.  Tomorrow the family reunion starts.

Trip Log – 31.41nm

 

 

 




Day 1 – Big Trip

Wednesday, July – 29th.  This is the start of our big summer boat trip.  We will be out on the water from July 29th until the end of August.

Getting ready for a month long boat trip is a lot of work!  On the water, where we typically go cruising, you can’t just quickly run into the grocery store to pick up something you forgot.  If you don’t have food or something you need, it may be a few days before you can get it.  We stock the freezer with food and plan out meals for a couple weeks.  The boat also must be in top condition before you leave, reducing the chance of any mechanical failures while out on the water.  We spend a couple weeks getting ready for a trip like this.

Of course the day before we left the septic system in our rental house decided to act up.  We had to delay our departure until later in the day on July 29th so we could make sure that was taken care of.  We left our home port at 1:24pm, all stocked up and ready to go.

Our destination today is Oro Bay on Anderson Island.  The plan is to go crabbing for the next couple days then take off (hopefully with lots of crab) to Allen for “Hinckley Family Fun Days” -Julie’s family reunion.

As we approached the narrows bridge I looked out the port pilothouse door and saw a rare Pacific White-Sided Dolphin playing in our wake just 15’ or so from the boat.  It was amazing, something we’ve never had happen!  Julie and the kids were down below so I quickly called for them to come up.  Thinking something had gone massively wrong they sprang to the pilothouse.  We couldn’t believe it!  The dolphin played in our wake for a few minutes, twisting and turning as it kept speed with the boat.  Then it took off leaping out of the water several times at least 5’ in the air like a marlin does when caught on a fishing line.  What a great start to our trip!

We arrived in Oro Bay at 3:15pm traveling 15.07nm. We quickly all worked together to get the crab pots ready so we could let them soak as long as possible today.  After the first pull later in the day we didn’t catch any Dungeness but there were several large rock crab that we chucked in our bucket!

We spent the evening cruising in the dinghy over to the Nisqually Flats to see if any pots were over there, then watched the sun set as we came back along the south west side of Anderson Island.

Trip Log  – 15.07nm

IMG 0775 from Chris Heyer on Vimeo.

IMG 0777 from Chris Heyer on Vimeo.

 

 

 




Final Celebration

WEDNESDAY – July 1st – We woke up at the TYC guest docks – spent the morning cleaning up the boat, then put her away in our boathouse all ready for the next trip.  We had a great trip!  We’ve never been up in the San Juan’s in June.  We were surprised how few boats there was and the weather couldn’t have been better. 

This trip we tried almost no electronics for the kids.  We don’t have a TV on the boat but in the past they still spent too much time on other electronics.  It was pretty hard for them at first but after a couple days they figured out other things to do.  The whole trip was a great family bonding experience and so nice for us all to be together with very few distractions.

We left the yacht club and stopped at Duke’s on Ruston for a successful trip celebratory dinner.