S/V Deep Playa - Pearson 424

Written by Dawn again…

After we finally left the grip of the mainland (Port Townsend) we made our way across the Straits of Juan de Fuca early on a foggy morning.  Once we made our way into the Straits there wasn’t much of an eventful crossing (thank goodness) with the exception of getting a hail over the radio from s/v Hello World!  They were crossing the Straits on their way to Port Townsend back from their circumnavigation of Vancouver Island, BC!  It was great to hear their voices again and to catch up briefly on their way to meet up with our other cruising friends, Kim and Fisher, who were about to head out on their voyage to the S. Pacific!  We crossed the Straits making good time to intercept with our other friends who made it up to Westcott Bay on San Juan Island.  As we rounded San Juan Island, we ran smack dab in the middle of a super pod of Orca Whales feeding off of the coast!  It was way cool!  But we were very respectful of the feeding whales and so we headed outside of their feeding ground and went around them.  We hailed our friends over the VHF and they escorted us through the channel into Westcott Bay.  We rafted up and settled in for a wonderful evening of story telling about our “incident” and listened to some other great tales.  That evening “someone” (ok it was Patrick) thought it would be a great idea to drop the crab pots (even after having a little too much drink).  I was awakened by the sound of giddy boys squawking about the size of the crabs they brought back to the boat.  They were busy killing and cleaning the huge Dungeness and Red Rock crabs that were already caught in the crab traps after dropping them for only an hour!  YAY!  (And a little side note, apparently, Patrick is very afraid of crabs!  It was very funny watching his reaction)  Our first crab of the season and so plentiful!  We were set for a few days with plenty of yummy fresh sweet crab meat.  That evening I cooked up some homemade crab pasta sauce and shared it with our friends.  How amazing was that???

I awoke early the next morning while others were still asleep and decided to go for a row in our dinghy.  If we do this trip again, I will have definitely make more of an effort to acquire some kayaks.  Although rowing the dinghy is nice, I would have much preferred paddling in a kayak.  I rowed around the bay visiting and watching the seals, tons of seals, and tons of water fowl and other birds.  I even saw a tree with five bald eagles hiding in the bows of the branches.  All I could make out were their prominent white feathered heads poking out here and there.  It was sooooo amazingly beautiful, relaxing and quiet.  The fact that we ran aground quickly melted away and became a distant memory!  After spending the day and another relaxing evening in Westcott Bay the raftup decided it was time to head north towards Sucia Island!