First leg

We have gotten back from our first vacation in the San Juan Islands. It was the best vacation ever!! Cap Sante Boat Haven is in Anacortes, Washington. Simplicity is in slip #78. That is where our adventure begins and ends. Our first leg of the journey headed up the Guemes Channel, we were headed up to Thatcher Pass to Fisherman Bay. It's a very shallow, and narrow stretch into Fisherman Bay. It was the full moon, so we had extremely high and low tides. So we decided to take showers and head out early in the a.m. As we were checking the tide, we noticed that where the slip that they had assigned us, we were going to be sitting on the keel if we didn't get out soon. So we readied the boat, and set out. A guy on the dock 'helped' us out of our slip, and pointed us in the only direction that had the rocks that we were trying to avoid. Aaarrg!! Our rudder hit the rock pretty hard. We stopped the boat alongside the outer dock and checked the rudder with the boat hook, and all appeared to be ship shape. So off we go to the shallow entrance to the Fisherman Bay Marina, calling it close and we need to head out before the tide gets any lower. We were in the center of the channel, going slow and listening to the bottom get shallower and deeper, by inches, not feet, on the depth sounder. We got around the corner, and could see the last buoy. There was a power boat coming towards us on the last corner of the channel. The boat squeezed us out of the edge, and CLUNK!! The rudder hit AGAIN!! This time we didn't have a dock to climb onto and check it out, but the Captain poked it with the boat hook again, and again she appeared to be in tact. So off we go,,, headed to the deep water. After we hit deep water the Captain checked the rudder again, and decided we made it through. bunkmate