Morning, muchachos.
Good morning, Bret.
Quick question, have you heard of Camano Island?
Yes. I've sailed by it any number of times, transiting the Saratoga Passage. Why?
That's where my brother-in-law's partner is from. I've seen pictures, and it looks beautiful. I hope to visit someday.
Anywhere on Puget Sound is beautiful. Even Tacoma has a certain charm, now that the pulp mill and its aroma are gone.
But yes - Camano is some expensive real estate, and for good reason.
The Saratoga Passage runs between Whidbey Island (famously the setting for the movie "An Officer and a Gentleman") and Camano Island. It's the preferred route to get to the San Juan Islands, because it's sheltered most of the way, so the seas are calmer. You navigate up the Saratoga to Skagit Bay, then throught the Swinomish Channel to Padilla Bay. From there it's a quick run to Cap Sante and Anacortes, and you're staged to cross the Rosario Strait. The Rosario Strait is part of the Juan De Fuca Straits system, so you're exposed to the effect of Pacific Ocean currents coming in from De Fuca and down the Georgia Straits on the east side of Vancouver island. They intersect in the Rosario Strait so it can get hairy. Not as hairy as crossing the Juan De Fuca strait itself, like to go from the islands to Port Townshend.
That's a brutal crossing for any boat under 50 feet. But Rosario can get dicey. Fortunately, it's a relatively short run.
People who don't know better think Puget Sound is easy for inland boaters, because it's not a lot of open water like San Francisco Bay. The opposite is true - open water makes for smoother boating (Ocean Sailing, what we call "blue water boating" is an entirely different ballgame). The tides and currents in Puget sound can be really, really tricky, and even treacherous if you don't understand them. We call inexperienced Puget Sound boaters "elmers." Elmers have this annoying tendency to underestimate the sound. They think because they're always in sight of land all round that it's easy boating. Then you hear them on the radio calling for vessel assist.
Coupla years ago some newly-wealthy tech bro got himself a cigar boat. Not a good choice for Puget Sound, but it was fast and it was expensive. So he's blasting up the sound somewhere, showing off. Next thing he knows there's a thump, which is a little concerning, but he figures it was just debris. Which it was. What he didn't account for was that he was motoring against an incoming tide, and that debris - a decently large tree branch that had been blown into the water - was moving south at about a third of the speed at which he was motoring north. Add that together, and what you get is a punctured speed boat that takes on water fast and sinks in a matter of minutes. And experienced Puget Sound hands just shake their heads.
