After a peaceful night at Jones Island, we headed up President Channel (bucking the current) to Sucia Island, which is definitely the jewel of the San Juan Islands. Rounding the corner into Echo Bay, I was very surprised to see the anchorage was almost empty (Thursday @ noon in August). We headed over near the lineal moorage and dropped the anchor.
After pulling on the anchor to verify it was well set, we had some breakfast then lowered the large dingy to motor over to do some exploring on my favorite place in the San Juan’s. The all girl crew was excited to get some exercise and to see the entire island.
We walked over to Shallow Bay and admired some of the very nice boats that were hanging on mooring buoys in the bay. Then we hiked over to Fossil Cove and Fox Cove on the south side of the island. The girls were wading in the warm waters of Fox Cove and talking to a group of Kayakers that had just paddled half way around the Island.
We briefly went back to the boat for some Lunch, then putzed over to Ewing Cove, beached the boat and hiked from Ewing all the way to Shallow Bay. It’s a beautiful hike with stunning vistas of Echo Bay as you round each point along the trail. While stopping for a break, we noticed the rest of the flotilla arriving, even the two boats that had been missing in action in Anacortes for so long! Whoo Hoo!
After hiking back to the dingy at Ewing, we did some exploring along the north shore of Sucia and then putzed over the raft-up to say hello. A large group dinner was planned for the evening and we headed back to Sea Eagle to clean up for dinner.
Still here? Dinner was awesome and we didn’t head back to Sea Eagle until well after dark. Some idiot in a blue hulled sailboat anchored right next to us and sure enough, during the big Thunderstorms at night, drug their anchor. I was awakened at 4 AM to pouring rain and I could see that the other boat was clearly headed our way, so I fired up the main engine and pulled the anchor in the dark. NOT my idea of a fun time! We motored over to a spot near Ewing Cove and dropped the hook until it became light at 06:00, then headed for Roche Harbor to pick up Ken Houlder.