Friday Harbor Trip - the culmination of 1 years planning

DuckDogTitus

New member
it was sometime last summer that the idea of adventure via boat first beeped on my radar. I didn't grow up in a family with a dense boating history, so a lot of these marine parks were unknown to me. the research began, and by Oct I remember that we were pretty sure C-Dory was the way to go (but we'd make no decisions until the boat show). From there, there was the financial planning, space planning, maintenance planning, and of course hunting for the elusive used c-dory (an 8 month expedition in itself). re-taking my boaters course, researching camping and exploration trips, etc.

This boating season we've had the C-Dory out 27 days so far (purchased in May). We've had many 1 night or 2 night trips, usually sleeping at the Marina we launched at. Last week we made one of our final "big" (not dollar wise) purchases required for true 'grand' adventures. A Dinghy!

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We launched at Bellingham on Friday, motored into Friday harbor through a rather roundabout way, made lots of new friends (and met some great C-Dory enthusiasts). Luckily we had allowed a lot of extra time (as is my rule when boating) because the northbound traffic was horrendous. We pulled into Friday with plenty of time to spare and enjoyed a beautiful cruise and sunset:

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Saturday we motored up to Jones Island, moored up for a steak breakfast,

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then conquered what was for me another hurdle and accomplishment. launched the dinghy and rowed to shore while hoping that my floating and tied vessel stayed both floating and tied while I was away :thup

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we hiked around Jones Island for the morning, admired the very nice pit bathrooms,

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did some beach combing, and site seeing and soaked in the pleasure of our mini-adventure and "first time" accomplishments. Loved looking down on the moored vessels (especially our own) from the cliffy hiking trail:

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a few weeks back I saw Andrew Zimmern eating "Opihi" in Hawaii and I saw what looked similar, so I ate one.

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I dont know what it really was but it tasted fine :mrgreen:

That's our boat in the background:

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the smiling face suggests its still floating and tied


The vibe in the Friday Harbor Marina was great. Christina and I have always felt there is something different about the energy in a Marina vs land based RV/Campgrounds. Maybe its because everyone is on an adventure. We enjoyed the views and a little Pirate Farkle. (its like regular Farkle, but the loser loses a finger.)

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we woke up to an amazing morning pretty much each day.

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enjoyed Sushi and Saki one evening for dinner:

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and omelets and coffee the last morning for breakfast before heading home.

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I dont think a Canada trip is in the cards for us this year, but I am feeling much more confident in our skills on the water, the marina, and with our trip planning capabilities. I am certain Princess Louisa is on the agenda for 2014.
 
Dustin and All.... Glad to see you are enjoying the boat. It makes me smile. Living where you do gives you great opportunities to use the boat for its designed purposes. Keep the photos and experiences coming. Ron
 
digger":32vncx3q said:
Dustin and All.... Glad to see you are enjoying the boat. It makes me smile. Living where you do gives you great opportunities to use the boat for its designed purposes. Keep the photos and experiences coming. Ron

Thanks Ron, its been a blast! I think I was smiling ear to ear for 4 days. Every time we take this boat out it seems that I better understand something else that you did to it and I'm thankful you did. We met some brats at Friday Harbor and they came over to check out your handiwork. Lots of compliments on the boat. :mrgreen:
 
Looks like a great weekend trip! Im a little envious since we didnt make it out this weekend. Glad I can live vicariously through your photos.

Im not sure what that shellfish thing you ate was (limpid?) You're brave!! I ate a raw sea urchin once and it tasted like the bottom of the ocean.
 
Thanks for sharing your great introduction to life with a CD. Pictures were great and brought back marvelous memories of our cruising in that same area. We are so glad that the boat has opened such great experiences for the two of you. Keep on smiling! and bon voyage.
 
El and Bill":2bxrdqvx said:
Thanks for sharing your great introduction to life with a CD. Pictures were great and brought back marvelous memories of our cruising in that same area. We are so glad that the boat has opened such great experiences for the two of you. Keep on smiling! and bon voyage.

Thanks guys :) oh and by the way, we met the owners of C-Chantey (Tim and Betsy) while at FH and somewhere along the lines you guys came up. I can't recall if it was in regards to local travels or boat stuff but they had asked if we had read your website, which I have bookmarked :wink:


Sunbeam":2bxrdqvx said:
Go you! Looks like a great weekend, which we can now all enjoy thanks to your post :thup

It was a blast! I know its not quite a 'grand adventure' by the standards of more experienced boaties, but was a great baby step for us. We're hooked!


PaulNBriannaLynn":2bxrdqvx said:
Looks like a great weekend trip! Im a little envious since we didnt make it out this weekend. Glad I can live vicariously through your photos.

Im not sure what that shellfish thing you ate was (limpid?) You're brave!! I ate a raw sea urchin once and it tasted like the bottom of the ocean.

haha, I had Sea Urchin for the first time that night at the Raw Bar when we had the saki. I am not sure if I like it or not. It wasn't bad, but it did have a distinct flavor.

Also Paul, I have to admit. I we did essentially zero fishing on my first trip to the san juans. lol. seems sacrilegious!
 
We saw your boat a couple times, but no one was around it. Friday Harbor is a nice marina - good management, well run. Plenty of options for provisions (and restaurants).

Sorry we missed you, glad you had a good experience with this outing!

Best wishes,
Jim B.
 
We too saw your boat, but I don't remember seeing you around any of the times we passed. Just like you, we loved the weather and conditions. The fishing was pretty good around Eagle Point. In total we landed 8 fish during our 3 day stay. Not as many crabs as we would have hoped for, but still everything we had hoped for.

Next time, we will try to do some advanced planning and enjoy what we hope will be a longer stay.

Glad you had a fun time as we did.
 
JamesTXSD":24t0qg43 said:
We saw your boat a couple times, but no one was around it. Friday Harbor is a nice marina - good management, well run. Plenty of options for provisions (and restaurants).

Sorry we missed you, glad you had a good experience with this outing!

Best wishes,
Jim B.

much agreed, great management. very fun and easy people to work with. I loved the low stress atmosphere. When you are motoring into a new place, with no reservations available and they say "we'll fit you in, even if we have to raft you up with someone" you really dont know what to expect... and then we found that they were serious. people are so lowkey they would literally raft you up with strangers and it was perfectly acceptable! :beer


redbaronace":24t0qg43 said:
We too saw your boat, but I don't remember seeing you around any of the times we passed. Just like you, we loved the weather and conditions. The fishing was pretty good around Eagle Point. In total we landed 8 fish during our 3 day stay. Not as many crabs as we would have hoped for, but still everything we had hoped for.

Next time, we will try to do some advanced planning and enjoy what we hope will be a longer stay.

Glad you had a fun time as we did.

I'm pretty sure we saw both of your boats out there. When we got back to Squalicum we saw Two Bears as well. it was a good weekend for C-Dory sightings.

Where exactly is Eagle Pt? next time We'll probably do more fishing. we did drop one crab pot, checked it twice and found the salmon to be picked over pretty well, but zero crabs in it. me thinks there was some piracy afoot.
 
DuckDogTitus":1arzrscv said:
JamesTXSD":1arzrscv said:
We saw your boat a couple times, but no one was around it. Friday Harbor is a nice marina - good management, well run. Plenty of options for provisions (and restaurants).

Sorry we missed you, glad you had a good experience with this outing!

Best wishes,
Jim B.

much agreed, great management. very fun and easy people to work with. I loved the low stress atmosphere. When you are motoring into a new place, with no reservations available and they say "we'll fit you in, even if we have to raft you up with someone" you really dont know what to expect... and then we found that they were serious. people are so lowkey they would literally raft you up with strangers and it was perfectly acceptable! :beer


redbaronace":1arzrscv said:
We too saw your boat, but I don't remember seeing you around any of the times we passed. Just like you, we loved the weather and conditions. The fishing was pretty good around Eagle Point. In total we landed 8 fish during our 3 day stay. Not as many crabs as we would have hoped for, but still everything we had hoped for.

Next time, we will try to do some advanced planning and enjoy what we hope will be a longer stay.

Glad you had a fun time as we did.

I'm pretty sure we saw both of your boats out there. When we got back to Squalicum we saw Two Bears as well. it was a good weekend for C-Dory sightings.

Where exactly is Eagle Pt? next time We'll probably do more fishing. we did drop one crab pot, checked it twice and found the salmon to be picked over pretty well, but zero crabs in it. me thinks there was some piracy afoot.

Eagle Point is South from Friday Harbor and then back up the West Side of the island. Probably about 30-35 minutes cruise from Friday Harbor. There were a ton of boats (over 100) there during the morning bite. We saw quite a bit of fish landed. The crabbing near there was about as good as any we found while there.

I do feel there was some poaching of crab while we were there given that some of our pots were not in the same location as we had dropped them. Our pots had fresh salmon carcasses so it definitely wasn't the bait. In total we had 8 crabs during our time there.
 
looks like a great trip! thanks for sharing the pictures. looks like the dingy worked out good also. what do you use on your teak? it looks really good and i have had minimal success with teak oil lasting more than a few months before it goes back to the good old grey..
 
thanks guys! I just wish I took more pictures with something better than my cellphone. Christina did take quite a few with her good camera, but being a photog professional, she wont release them until she's gone through 'em and done the required clean up work :mrgreen:

Jake, we bought the boat from Digger (Ron) here on the forum (and he posted earlier in this thread). I had noticed how great the teak looked too and he said he used what I believe is called Cetol. if you PM him he could probably verify (I need to as well) exactly which Cetol product it was, but I can tell you the stuff seems to be amazing.

I did find this though:

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/st ... iaQCtI3s1I
 
here is a sneak peak to a project I'm experimenting with. There is absolutely no point to this video, other than me testing the quality of the go pro, and the mounting positions. down the road I hope to edit it into something short and entertaining, but for now its just me moving from the breakwater to our much improved moorage in FH, lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYx6bao0Nas

and me learning where not to place it. :disgust

but I thought the 10 seconds of water outside looked neat :) I've never done video before so this is something that may entertain me a bit this winter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufNTcji4 ... e=youtu.be
 
GoPro's are a ridiculous feat of engineering. They gave an instrument that provides incredible quality and astounding durability at such a cheap price. I've abused mine to the top of Mt. Rainier, ice climbing in the Shoshone Valley of WY, rock climbing the Cascades and to the depths of the Hawaiian Island SCUBA diving. Pretty sweet toy!

I like your placement on the deck towards the bow. I want to get a rail mount and put mine towards the anchor. We took a beating in some heavy, steep seas and that would have been sweet to catch on film.
 
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