Glorious day! We had expected fog again this morning, but it was clear, sunny, warm, calm--a perfect day for cruising.
When we first started out, the tidal current was against us, so we were only making 4.4 knots over the ground, even though we were doing 6 knots through the water, but around noon the tide changed and we began truckin'.
The narrow entrance to San Juan Channel was exciting! The flood tide was rushing in at 7 knots, so we were zooming along at 13! Wow! Fastest the Jofian's ever gone. The water was full of choppy little waves, eddies, and tide rips. Hard to steer. But that was only for a short distance; then it smoothed out. We zoomed the entire distance (6 miles) from the entrance to Turn Rock in 20 minutes flat! I couldn't believe we were actually there already.
There's a large, crowded marina here. "Slip Assignments" (a young kid) told us to go to slip F29. We started towards it, but when Roy saw the fairway, he realized there wasn't room to turn around if anything went wrong, so we left the marina and anchored in the cove near the University of Washington Marine Biology Lab. Roy paddled over to the marina, and there was another boat in F29! So he was smart not to try to go in there. The boy at "Slip Assignments" apologized and admitted he had goofed. He'd forgotten that was a private slip. He said we could tie to the outside of the dock, but we decided to stay anchored.
What a beautiful place! We paddled all around Friday Harbor. There are a lot of expensive homes here with their own docks and boats.
So we finally made it to the San Juan Islands! From here on, it's easy, beautiful day hops, mostly protected from the ocean, except when crossing Queen Charlotte Sound. Tidal currents are more critical here than wind and waves.
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