*Ok, week before thanksgiving. American thanksgiving that is, as the Canadian one already happened 6 weeks ago. Whatever.

So my friend Elyess was hosting a thanksgiving dinner (see above) at her house on Orcas Island and that sounded like a fab idea for a sail trip, so I grabbed Emma (as after the last hellride I decided a buddy may be good) and off we went.

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Leaving the dock it was a beautiful day, and we decided to take the route through San Juan passage as we had the current

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And continued to be amazing as we got onto the Juan De Fuca

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I found that eating a bacon sandwich while steering is not particularly easy and makes you look like Golum

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One interesting thing was a MASSIVE collection of birds, the biggest I’ve ever seen – it must have been several thousand. Possibly a bird AGM or a dance party of some kind? If it was a bait ball it was the largest I’ve ever seen.

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Pictures don’t do it justice sadly!

We managed to sail most of the way down the Juan de Fuca, but had to motor the last little bit. We originally tried to tie up at the day dock again, but they had removed half of it and the other half wasn’t big enough, so we gave up and picked up a mooring ball – just in time for the sunset. These photos are unaltered.

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It really was a RIDICULOUS sunset, oh man. After a long trip we relaxed with a beer and a smoke and then headed off to Eylesse’s party.

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The party was a lot of fun, but we had to leave early the next morning. Not really much to say about this day, it rained a TON and we basically wrapped up like marshmallows. We had to go the long way around the top of San Juan as well, as the current was not in our favour.

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Overall take home message – Winter sailing and overnighting is very possible, but you have to wrap up real warm. Long Johns are basically essential, as is a diesel heater. And Elyess throws a mean party!

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