After leaving Orcas, I headed to Jones island to camp for the night.

Jones is a state park, and has some mooring buoys so I got to try snagging one for the first time single-handed. Got it second time, using a technique Emma suggested involving lassoing the thing to get it snugged up before attaching correctly.

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It was a nice bay

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I rowed ashore and setup my tent in sight of Gudgeon

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It was a calm evening

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Except… it’s been a while since I’ve solo camped in the woods by myself, and I’d forgotton how many scary noises there are. There are a lot. It was probably only the (kind of agressively tame) black tailed deer that are around, but still. Spooky for a coward like me. Luckily (?) the first huge downpour we’ve had for months decided to start that night and the sound of the rain blocked out everything. And also got my tent very wet.

After an extremely sleepness night and a vow never to go camping again when I had a perfectly good boat, I set off.

There were supposed to be Gale force winds that evening and all the next day, so I headed for Shoal Bay on Lopez. It’s huge, never anyone else there, and its 20-30 foot all over. Also, sheltered from all directions except the North. I got there quite late, as I sailed as much as possibly in very little wind

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And finished putting the boat away in the dark

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The next day, the wind started at around 7. I’ve been listening on the VHF all day to boats dragging, getting smashed up and other things, and even had to call the coast guard myself when a 44 foot fishing boat broke it’s mooring and dragged passed me. It was saved by a guy rowing out to it which is pretty incredible, and the CG made me stand by in case he needed help.

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Top gust so far was around 43 knots, but mostly it seems to be 20-25knots with gusts up to 35ish. My anchor is holding fine, but I have no beer on board, so things could be better.

It’s by far the stormiest I’ve been out of the marina in, but so far my 45lb Mantus anchor seems to be holding me pretty securely – though it’s pretty knarly on the big gusts as the boat strains. Hearing some new noises which is never really a great feeling.

I am able to use my wifi attenna to get a signal off shore somewhere, so I am using the downtime to go through work emails. Barf.

 

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