Cruise of the Sassy Cat

We just completed our 5th annual cruise north from Seattle in our sailboat, using Waggoner’s of course. I thought I'd pass on some things we learned/experienced this year for your consideration.

Sequim

We anchored at the state park in Sequim during the second week of August on a Saturday night—it was cloudy, and a bit drizzly and foggy, but there were only three boats at the park, all of them anchored. All the mooring balls were available. The park itself was quite full of campers, but we were surprised by the lack of boaters. It is indeed a lovely park.

Victoria Customs

As we entered the Victoria Inner Harbour the harbour patrol pulled alongside and asked if we needed to clear customs. When we said yes, they told us that we were 8th in line and that we should pull in behind a specific boat. They did this with each boat entering the Inner Harbour. There is only ONE customs phone on the dock, and the dock was handling only two boats at a time. The harbour patrol made it an orderly affair. (This was a marked difference from the chaos we experienced at Roche Harbor last year trying to clear customs.)

Sidney Spit

The south beach of the Sidney Spit anchorage seems to attract the local party-and-boom-box crowd that arrives by speedboat and disappears with the sun. While this was generally not bothersome to us, cruisers sensitive to this sort of thing might want to stick to the north side of the Sidney Spit anchorage.

Portland Island

Princess Bay on Portland Island was a real treat. The park hosts from Sidney North Saanich Yacht Club provided us with an invaluable map of the trails on the island -- we strongly recommend getting one before setting out. The trail around the island is best taken in a counterclockwise direction. In places on the north side we found the trail difficult to locate. The hosts said that whenever they hike it clockwise they lose the trail, but when they hike it counterclockwise the hike goes on without a hitch.

The hosts gave me the card of a grad student doing research on boating in the Southern Strait of Georgia (her survey is at (http://coral.geog.uvic.ca/rec_boating). The survey seemed to part from the premise that the islands are too "crowded." I think of the Gulf Islands as "busy" because they are so lovely.

Wallace Island

Princess Harbour on Wallace Island was truly lovely -- it was all sun and zero wind during our stay. Every animal noise out there could be heard clearly. Thanks for the recommendation to visit, it was certainly worth it. I woke up in the night to the sound of a raccoon munching shellfish right off our stern tie.

Bedwell Harbour

The park mooring field and anchorage is very bumpy if a southerly wind springs up in the night! Waves roll in off Boundary Pass making for an uncomfortable night. They propelled us out the next morning at an early hour. Mt. Norman seems to have a brand new deck from which to view the vista.

Sun Tea

We did not replenish our beer/cider/soda stash after the first week. We switched instead to brewing sun tea, and drinking water from the boat system instead of bottles. These changes reduced our trash/recycling load by 75%, freeing up a ton of space normally occupied by recycling waiting to find a bin ashore. For a slow-moving sailboat trying to maximize time at anchor outside the marinas, this was magic!

Cheers, and thanks for your efforts.

Tyson Nevil
Sassy Cat
Catalina 350