August 18, 2010, Wednesday, catywompus

The Captain woke up @1am to us rockin' and rollin', he poked his head out of the hatch and the rode was off to the starboard side where zipper was. The wind was howlin', the tide was rippin' through the bay. Just the opposite of when we went to bed at like 10:30ish. He got dressed real fast and put his shoes, and his life vest on. I guess the rode got twisted up with zippers line. I woke up to his banging around up top, and I could tell by the rockin' and rollin' of Simplicity that the wind was rippin' and whatever he is doing up top wasn't easy. So I jumped in my pants and threw my sweatshirt on as I came up the companionway. As I was yelling at him "What do you want me to do?" I noticed he was wearing his vest, and I immediately felt calmer. I was buckling my vest when he said, "I think I got us unwrapped, lets just watch for a minute." The motor was already started, so I sat next to the controls, awaiting instructions. The word 'catywompus' works well here, because it was, everything!!.. the wind, the rolling, the bouncing, the tossing back and forth, and we are calm.. As we were watching, and bouncing, and spinning, I asked the Captain if he just wanted to pull anchor and he said, in a laughing voice "that's the only thing holding here". So we sat for a minute Listening to the bangs, and the waves crashing on the cliffs just off the port side. We chatted out a couple of scenarios, and we decide on pulling anchor, avoiding the rock behind us, and anchor out in the middle for the rest of the night. The wind was howling, and as soon as the anchor was free from the bottom, the bow started coming around. I told the Captain to hang on, and I got us turned around and headed down wind. Thank goodness for Shirley (GPS), we missed the rock and headed to the center of the bay.

The bottom was pretty consistent at 28-30 foot deep, so we dropped anchor, and hung out for a bit to make sure we were holding. We decided it was good, so I went back to bed, with the Captain making one more line check, before coming down. He set Shirley's drag anchor alarm to tell us if we come un-anchored. Too bad she can't tell you when you get twisted up.!.  We decided not to stay another night in Reeds Bay. There is a front coming in from the south so we decided to head up to Blind Bay, which is on the north side of Shaw Island, to get some protection from the Southerlies. We headed North out of Lopez Sound. There was quite a bit of traffic as we went across Upright Channel into Harney Channel and into Blind Bay. There is a reef that crosses the entrance to 
Blind Bay with an island in the center of the entrance.

There is a ferry terminal on the eastern tip of the mouth. So if you stay (oh, and  a rock between the terminal and the island)in the center of the rock and island on the east side your alright. The reef is between the rock and the terminal. It's pretty shallow in there too, it runs 3-4 fathoms (18-24 feet) throughout. There is a cute little store where the terminal is on Shaw Island. The Captain took advantage of the calmer (not gone) wind to BBQ up some chicken and the rest of the polish dogs. We had a huge chicken salad for dinner, and we spent the rest of the evening drinking beer and listening to Jimmy Buffet and Sammy & the Wabos. Another wonderfully fabulous day in the San Juans. :-)   bunkmate