We are just back from yet another amazing trip aboard our good ship Aeolus, and boy was it heaven. Having moved to Bainbridge we were not sure whether the time it takes to get up through and past the San Juans would leave enough time on a one week trip for real enjoyment of the Canadian Gulf Islands, but it did. We left Bainbridge on a Friday afternoon headed north to DeCourcy Island just below Dodd Narrows and Nanaimo. Due to gale wind forecasts in the Straits of JDF we opted for the Swinomish Channel route.
That first night was about a five hour trip from Eagle Harbor to Langley. When we arrived at Langley, which we had read was a marginal anchorage, we found a stiff 15-20 knot NW wind was turning the anchorage into a trampoline. Oh well, we knew we were in for a rough night. As has happened many times before, our robust ground tackle saved us from trouble or real worry. We anchored in and among quite a few other boats and slept pretty well through the 2 foot chop.
The next day we motored up to the southern entrance to Swinomish channel at the start of a rising tide and when just starting to head in, several outbound boats urgently told us to turn around as several other boats had just run aground. Glad for the advice, we turned around in the tight channel which was showing about 8 feet of depth where we were and circled around outside the entrance for about 30 minutes to let the water rise. We watched the grounded boats float free and figured we were good to go as well. The channel is a lot of fun in some places, and tedious in others. It is like a portal from Puget Sound to the San Juans.
