Watmough Bay and James Island, Sept 22-23rd

After transiting around the South end of the San Juans, we spent a couple of quiet nights at Watmough Bay and James Island. Though it was gray most of the day we had a little bit of sunshine just before sunset:

Thawed out some prawns for our favorite pasta dish:

Kelpy anchorage!

Another frontal system forecast with SE winds, so we headed to a sheltered little park service dock on James Island, a Washington State marine park on the east side of Decatur island - just across Rosario Straits from our next destination, Anacortes. After a pretty squirrely landing (crazy currents and backeddies all around the dock) we secured safely and had the island all to ourselves except for a couple of day visitors who just stayed for an hour or two.

A break in the rain gave us a chance to do some exploring:

James island is like two tiny islands connected by a saddle in the middle. The dock is in a little cove on the West side of the saddle. A 100 yard walk from the dock brings you to the East side of the saddle where you can see Cypress Island and Fidalgo Island/Anacortes on the other side of Rosario Straits. 

We hiked a loop trail around the Southern part of the island. Definitely felt like fall with the leaves turning color and a chill in the air:

Slugs!

Kona: "When is it going to stop raining?"

The wind started to blow a bit around dinner time, and it was a very dark and blustery night. Fortunately, we had good protection in our little cove, and all was quiet except for the wind overhead, the rain coming down, and the occasional patter of little feet as the local racoons explored the deck of our boat in the middle of the night.

Garrison Bay and Westcott Bay, Sept 20-21st

After a night at Roche, we travelled about 6 miles to an adjacent bay where there is an old military garrison and a little more peace and quiet:

Looks like we are definitely back in the US...

Hiked up to a small cemetery plot with burials from the Garrison days.  Mostly accidental drowning, plus a guy who was accidently shot by his brother who was stationed at the garrison (!?)

The next morning we planned to head down the coast to the South end of the island for some fishing, but as soon as we left the anchorage, we saw some other boats trolling the shoreline and decided to give this spot a try. The Coho were thick here and we caught our limit (plus a couple of catch and release) in about an hour. Outstanding!

This was clearly the place to be - so with a lot of fish cleaning, bagging, and freezing to do, we decided to turn around and go back to the anchorage so we could fish the same spot the next day too.

This also gave us an opportunity to catch lunch at the local Oyster farm which is only open on saturday afternoons this time of year. As it was our anniversary, we decided to treat ourselves to a delicious oyster lunch. 

Picnic style, pick your own oyster feast:

It was a busy day...

Oysters for lunch and fresh Coho for the grill:

That afternoon we had a visit from Clark and Nina on the Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, which they home built and on which they have been cruising for many years in the Northwest. We had a nice visit and traded boat tours - their boat is amazing. Always a good learning experience when you meet up with other cruisers, especially those who have built their own boats. 

Check out Clark and Nina's story at: http://svrikki.net/Build/RTT/About_Us.html

Limits on Coho again the next day (as planned) 👍