After a good night on the hook in Cornet Bay we woke up, made a solid breakfast
The dreaded Deception Pass lies ahead
of eggs supplemented by fresh fruit and Larabars. What’s aLarabar? From their website: LÄRABAR is a delicious blend of unsweetened fruits, nuts and spices. Made from 100% whole food, each flavor contains no more than nine ingredients. Pure and simple, just as nature intended. Yeah, they’re pretty tasty and don’t contain any ingredients that are unpronounceable or over processed.
Under the bridge! Pennants flying and need secured. A quick wrangle with the boat hook got them under control.
We pulled up the anchor and proceeded westbound through Deception Pass. It sounds scary when you hear descriptions of it when the current is pounding through at up to 7 knots, whirlpools able to swallow kayakers whole (never to be seen again), powerful enough to spin powerboats around, filled with giant seamonsters ready to chomp anyone who falls overboard (OK, made that one up). You get the idea, it can be a pretty crazy place if the water is flowing through fast.
Our approach was at slack. That means the current was at its minimum. Natalie was surprised at just how easy it was once we made it through. Our Coast Guard friends on Henry Blake followed us through so if anything bad would have happened we’d have been OK. We turned Northwest and hauled up the genoa and main and headed across Rosario Strait towards the southern side of Decatur Island.
We made it through and Natalie said "That was easy!"
The broad reach across was easy. Around lunchtime I hauled in on the sheets and we started sailing close hauled around the northern side of Lopez Island. Natalie was downstairs making dinner, a show I call “Close Hauled Cooking with Natalie.” It was pretty easy for her cooking up chicken on the cast iron skillet and tossing a salad together.
As we headed South through the Upright Channel toward Fisherman Bay the wind was right ahead of us so we took the time to run the engine and charge the batteries for another night on the anchor. We carefully navigated through the entrance to Fisherman Bay keeping an eye on the depth sounder and found a nice place to anchor in about 20 feet of water.
Airborne rests at anchor in Fisherman Bay on Lopez Island
A 5 minute row to the Lopez Island Resort and we were walking towards downtown. There we found the Chamber of Commerce offers free showers to travelers. All they ask for is a $1 donation. We had dinner at The Galley for their fish tacos, sharing California style and halibut mango. The California style ones were the best, fried and served with a slaw and spicy chipotle bean fry.