Spirits 2009 part Sixteen

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Spirit of Freedom's Gunkhole Adventure 2009
June 12 - October 11, 2009 1,615.4 nautical miles

Part Sixteen: Leaving Home Again

We were able to leave on September 19, which left us a little less than a month to cruise, having to be back by October 14 for Cliff to go back to work. We decided to head back into the San Juan Islands, and maybe into the Gulf Islands--all of it totally dependent on our whim. We had a good run back up Puget Sound, basically retracing our cruise home, except we skipped Gig Harbor and the Tides Tavern, even though Cliff whined quite a bit! Our first day we made it to Blakely Harbor; the next stop Pt. Ludlow and the the skip across the Strait, lets see, for the fourth time since June. We sailed into Lopez Sound and up to Spencer Spit where we dropped anchor---right behind our CASCADIAN friends on CIRKUS. We were also next to another sailboat whose name I thought I recognized; turns out they were another Cascadian couple, only with a lot of friends on board, so we never got to visit. They were all heading home, albeit reluctantly. We kicked back and stayed a couple of days as the anchorage cleared out. The weather was good and I wanted to do some hiking on Lopez Island with Angel. We decided that we would just stay in the San Juan's not even going into the Gulf Islands as we had too much beer and wine onboard as well as fresh veggies that couldn't cross into Canada.

We got in some wonderful sailing and just kind of wandered the islands! It was lovely.

We went to Friday Harbor to refill some meds and were at the dock just behind JAM, and had a lovely visit with them. We revisited old favorite anchorages and spent a lot of time at Jones Island--being the only people on the island was wonderful. We hiked on the new trail that was being built on the east shore, hiked until the trail ended, then we bush-wacked our way to the beach on the southern end of the island so that we could catch the center trail back to the north end to where we were on a mooring. That was a lot of fun! We scared up lots of deer, including an exceptionally large (for the island) buck. We figured he might have swam over from Orcas, because he was much larger than we normally see on Jones Island. Fresh DNA!!

We anchored for several days of rain in Prevost Harbor on the north side of Stuart Island; a change for us as we haven't been in that anchorage for years. It was rainy and stormy and wonderful! Nothing like being snuggled down in a nice warm boat in a nice safe anchorage with some good reading during bad weather!

For days we just lazed around, sailed a bit, anchored a lot, hiked whenever the weather let us and read a lot. Lovely. We visited Roche Harbor, went for a moonlight walk after dinner, exploring the sculpture garden in the dark. We decided that all the modern "art" looked much better in the moonlight than it must during the day! We popped through Mosquito Pass and into Garrison Bay where we were treated to some gorgeous sunsets. We were finding it nice in the islands, nobody was here. Roche Harbor was even pretty empty. For the first time in years, we were boarded by the Coast Guard, while under sail coming out of East Sound. They pulled beside us while we were still underway and asked permission to come aboard, and wanted to do so while we were still under sail. I told them we were moving at 7 knots, but they said they wanted the practice! So aboard they came. The inspection wasn't much of an inspection. They were more interested in talking over the "old days" when they found out that Cliff was an old coastie himself. Too funny! Those boys were so young, I think they thought Cliff sailed on a schooner when he was in the USCG! We actually had a nice visit with the boys, but like I said, not much of an inspection!