2013 Cruise Day 1: Point Hudson Marina
Posted by: pat 11 years, 2 months ago
Point Hudson Marina in Port Townsend is without a doubt the marina I have visited most in my life. I stay a minimum of 4 nights a year here: two nights for the annual Wauquiez Rendezvous, and a night on either end of our summer cruise.
As the realtors say: "location, location, location." Hudson Point is a natural transit point for boats going to or from the San Juan Islands and points north. It is an easy 5 - 6 hour cruise from Shilshole and perfect setup for my tried and true strategy for crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca: go early!
In my misspent youth I frequently visited Point Hudson on the family Thunderbird, either for a local Tbird regatta or en route to the islands. One memorable year I was stupid enough to ignite illegal fireworks on the dock, resulting in a hole being burnt in one boat's canvas cover. I was still paying that repair expense months later. I still cringe to think how close those sparks were landing to portable fuel tanks. I also have many memories of the horrible state of the bathrooms, often featuring overflowing toilets.
As anyone who has visited in recent years can attest, the overflowing toilet issue is just a distant memory. The bathrooms sparkle and shine now. I've frequently run into the hard working maintenance dude in there mid-day keeping them spotless. The docks also went through an overhaul not too long ago and are all top-notch. The shorter slips are a bit challenging in the wind (look out for slips numbered 25 and higher) due to the minimal turning radius between the commercial dock and the transient slips, but other than that the facilities are all pretty much just what you would hope for.
The showers are very nice and are unique in that you can get the water flowing for a measly US quarter. Nowhere else can you do this! It enables a "navy-style" shower for a mere $0.50. I actually prefer navy-style showers when paying for them. Sometimes in the cramped pay showers it is difficult to avoid having all of your lathery suds rinsing away before you've scrubbed the sweat and sunscreen off.
The location is also very convenient to the historic retail zone, the skate park, and a short stroll on the beach to Chetzamoka Park.
Food and Nightlife
Port Townsend is one of those rare stops on the boat where you can actually find a decent restaurant serving more than fish and chips, burgers, and pulled pork. Some of our favorites are Alchemy, Sweet Laurette, and Lanza's.
There is really only one nightlife spot worth mentioning: Sirens. Up several staircases with a great deck facing the bay, Sirens is pretty much the only place to go after 10:00 PM. They have an..."eclectic" live music lineup. You may see some blues-infused klezmer or a jugband attired in period dress, or see the locals grooving to Kid Rock on rockaroke.
We miss the absence of the now closed Salal Cafe for breakfast. The Point Hudson Cafe is OK, but the breakfasts at the Salal were wonderful.
I disrecommend the Chinese restaurant at Point Hudson, and the Sarape Mexican restaurant. Both represent the most mediocre of their respective cuisines.
Point Hudson Marina: Room to Improve
While there is a lot to like about the Point Hudson Marina, almost all of its positive attributes basically boil down to its location and the quality of the infrastructure. Marina operations and policies leave a lot of room for improvement in being boater-friendly.
Two points on the infrastructure: (1) the wifi is an embarrassment. In the marina office they will tell you the password for the wifi and warn you "it is pretty spotty." On my most recent visit I challenged them a bit on this, letting them know they have been giving this same lame warning literally for years. The response was a less than heartening explanation that that was something the people in the administration building handled, aka "not my department." When the only direct contact your customer has is with someone with a "not my department" philosophy, there is a missed opportunity.
Good wifi is a solved problem (just not in Port Townsend). There is certainly more to it than turning on the wifi on a dlink router and calling it good, but plenty of larger marinas provide free wifi over a much larger footprint than Point Hudson. Gorge Harbor provides world-class wifi coverage over their entire extensive grounds. The only reason to continue to provide such poor service for years on end is simply that they don't care.
Second point on the infrastructure: bathroom sink areas. This is a really minor and nitpicky point, but the sink areas could be improved. As of now they are pretty much only functional as hand-washing stations. There is no shelf or counter space to put shaving cream, toothpaste, or any other personal care items. A couple of hooks are all you get. This is all mitigated by my gradual realization that in most cases, anything other than toilet and shower use is better when done on the boat. Toothbrushing, face washing, shaving are all easier on the boat.
Point Hudson charges a $7 reservation fee. This is pretty steep, and it is not a generally accepted fee or practice across marinas. I think Friday Harbor also charges a reservation fee...but they also only reserve a fraction of their total slips. Without a reservation for a weekend night in the summer at Point Hudson you absolutely will be shut out most of the time. I can't think of any justification for this policy other than to maximize the extraction of dollars from boaters' wallets. Take my credit card info and charge in full for no-shows, but don't drown me in "convenience fees."
They have a similar "have my cake and eat it" approach to how they charge for slips. If your boat is shorter than the slip length, you get charged for the full slip length. 35 foot boat in a 40 foot slip? Get charged for 40 feet. I am actually OK with this part of the policy. The part that gets my goat is that if you overhang, you get charged for your boat length. 43 foot boat in a 40 foot slip? Get charged for 43 feet. In other words, we will charge you the maximum our rate card allows even if it means being inconsistent in how we determine the length to charge.
These anti-consumer policies and the "not my department" syndrome are found in some municipal dock operations. Many do a wonderful job welcoming boaters (Lund, Friday Harbor, Cowichan, Chemainus) but others fall short. I would put Point Hudson in the same ranks as Victoria and Bremerton for not being very customer-focused.
Our visit on August 1, 2013
Well that was a lot of general info and bitching and moaning, but what about our visit on August 1, the first day of our 4 week journey? It was fine. A little cool and cloudy, but that was kind of a relief after all of the hot weather we had in July. We sailed a little on the way up. I had a reservation for slip 25, a port tie which is good for the prop walk from my left-hand rotation propeller. Docking was drama-free, owing to the negligible wind and my recent practicing of the "back and fill" method of spinning the point in place. After reviewing the french bistro menu at Alchemy (a favorite for the rendezvous mancation weekends) and rejecting it as not being kid-friendly, we climbed the stair to uptown for dinner at Lanza's, a good italian restaurant I discovered last year when coming back with Anders and his brother. Everyone enjoyed their meal and leftovers were taken back for the next day's lunch.
We ran into fellow Wauquiez owner Guy on Airfare. He and his wife were heading back south (aka "the wrong direction") after a short cruise. We talked about our plans for making our first trip to Desolation Sound, and Guy commended Pender Harbor as a great place to stop on the way or to wait out the wicked southeasterlies that frequently plague the Strait of Georgia in the summer. He also recommended a pub with deck that served wonderful fried oysters "if you're into that"...YES SIR I AM! We'll get back to all of this in the Garden Bay post to come in a few days.
Elizabeth once again made her voice heard with the observation that the trip was going to be too long, and she had just got back from two weeks of not seeing her friends and having no internet or phone at Camp Orkila. Our original "pro forma" itinerary called for us to blaze straight up to Sidney on day 2, clearing Canada customs and stocking up on provisions there. As a peace offering I allowed that we could afford to make a stop somewhere in the San Juan Islands before crossing to Canada. Kim just required that it be anywhere but Roche Harbor. Elizabeth proposed Deer Harbor, an old favorite. I called (they also book up quite a bit in the summer) and they had space, so I nabbed it. I plotted our course in OpenCPN and uploaded it to the chartplotter. Cattle Pass currents wouldn't be a problem, but we would be transiting the area around Point Wilson at max ebb. This would give us a big push north, but the Point Wilson Rip is a notorious hazard when the wind is up from the west during the ebb. All of the water flowing out of Puget Sound gets up to 3 knots of current as it takes the big left turn for the strait. When this flow is counter to a big westerly you get truly dangerous conditions. Fortunately the forecast didn't call for the wind, and the good thing about tide rips is that they are very localized: keep plugging through them and you do get through them in 30 minutes or so.
The ladies took preventative doses of Meclizine (generic version of the non-drowsy Dramamine II) in preparation for crossing the strait in the morning. The forecast was pretty innocuous except for some threat of rain. We got to bed at a reasonable time in preparation for a medium length journey in the morning.
2013 Desolation Sound Cruise Highlights
Posted by: pat 11 years, 2 months ago
This is a highlights and summary post. I intend to publish some additional posts on specific locations. All of these posts are made after the fact. I took some notes on the cruise but didn't want to spend that precious time pecking away on the keyboard for hours every day.
Summer Cruise 2013, destination Desolation Sound, was a big success overall and achieved all primary objectives. Northbound strait crossings were all uneventful, we had plenty of ideal weather, crowds were manageable, no major equipment failures, no docking mishaps, and Desolation Sound lived up to its reputation as a cruising mecca. There were some low points. The weather was mostly perfect, but did leave us cooped up in rain for several days. We had one rough crossing of the Strait of Georgia on the return delivery. We all learned things about how long we can spend happily eating, pooping, and sleeping all together within a 10 foot radius. But overall we experienced some unique and beautiful places together as a family. Everyone appreciated the natural beauty of the setting, the wildlife, and most of all the warm water and swimming.
Cruise Itinerary
Aug 1: Point Hudson
Aug 2: Deer Harbor
Aug 3: Poet's Cove
Aug 4 and 5: Nanaimo
Aug 6: Pender Harbor, Garden Bay Hotel Pub and Restaurant
Aug 7: Lund
Aug 8 and 9: Tenedos Bay
Aug 10: Refuge Cove
Aug 11: Melanie Cove
Aug 12: Toba Wildernest Resort
Aug 13: Teakerne Arm
Aug 14 and 15: Lund (visiting Okell family and waiting out rain)
Aug 16: Grace Harbor
Aug 17: Squirrel Cove
Aug 18, 19, 20: Gorge Harbor. Crew Change: Kim and the girls fly home, Greg and Katherine fly in for the return delivery
Aug 21: Tenedos Bay
Aug 22: Pender Harbor, Fisherman's Resort
Aug 23: Pirate Cove
Aug 24: Roche Harbor
Aug 25: Mackaye Harbor
Aug 26: Point Hudson
Aug 27: Shilshole!
August crowds
I harbored some concerns over planning a trip during the peak month for visitors. Family and school schedules and other summer time commitments pretty much boxed us into August. With that said, the crowds were really not so bad. I had a "plan B" for every stop, but never had to implement any of them. Prideaux Haven was by far the most crowded, but even then we really didn't have any trouble finding a nice stern tie spot to anchor in Melanie Cove. Docks rarely filled at night. Part of our success has to be attributed to my "depart early and arrive just as others are leaving" strategy.
Favorite anchorage
Tenedos Bay for the combo of 70 degree salt water swimming and even warmer lake swimming, and low crowd factor/good privacy.
Food Highlights
Best Desserts: Nanaimo bars, Beartooth Pie (ice cream pie) at the Shingle Mill in Powell River, Chocolate Lava Cake at Lund Hotel
Best Chowder: Clam chowder at the fancy restaurant at Gorge Harbor
Biggest Pleasant Surprise: The mexican restaurant on the dock at Nanaimo. First ever Canadian mexican food sans cheddar.
Showers and Washrooms
Port of Nanaimo gets honorable mention for having the most non-obvious but mind-blowing and unique design approach: no spigots or water control of any kind, just a pure blast of hot high pressure water. Downside is that 3 minutes is a bit short.
Refuge Cove's $5 no time limit shower was the best shower of all. So much water pressure I couldn't run it on full. No time limit. No line. Just pure awesome. The price is at the high end but it is not like these guys are just plugged into some municipal plumbing system.
Point Hudson should always get a shout-out for the always clean showers that start for a single quarter, enabling a perfectly adequate "navy-style" shower for a total of $0.50
Living the Dream
The "living the dream" award goes to Kyle and family who run the Toba Wildernest Resort at the entrance to Toba Inlet. Completely off the grid, self sufficient on power with custom hydroelectric and water from a beautiful waterfall. Deep waters mean there is no place to anchor anywhere nearby, and these guys can only accomodate 6 - 7 boats on their docks. It is a beautiful setting with nobody else around for miles and miles. It is easy to romanticize this lifestyle, but I'm sure there are dark days during October - April!
Favorite dock
Cathy's favorite was Lund (because that's where the lava cake is, duh!)
Elizabeth's favorite was Refuge Cove for the unusual setting, shower, and great wifi.
Pat and Kim's favorite was Toba Wildernest Resort for its truly unique and rugged setting, and the entertaining opinions on marine guidebooks from Kyle the proprietor.
Best Marina Value
No question, Lund wins this one hands down.
Great showers, wide well-maintained docks, helpful staff focused on the needs of the summer cruising crowd, and the price couldn't be beat. $33 including power! The one area where they seriously fall short is wifi. Fortunately there are enough business on shore filling this gap, plus I got a solid signal on the Koodo Mobile prepaid SIM I bought for the trip so we could have data in situations like this.
Equipment Failures
Not much. The main cabin Caframo ventilation fan failed, but the failure was just in the speed controller. A soldering iron, some spare wire, and a switch allowed me to bypass the controller and get it running again.
The Jabsco freshwater plumbing pump failed, but...I had a spare! I enjoyed that special feeling you get when a mint in box spare you tucked away 3 years ago pays off.
I regretted not changing the head's joker valve before we left. We saw about 8 ounces of "backwash" throughout the trip. Not a huge deal as long as everyone remembered to finish the flush with a few cups of water, but apparently that is too much to ask! I wanted to get a replacement in Nanaimo, but the chandlery was closed for the BC Day Holiday during our visit.
Equipment Success
Pretty much everything else worked flawlessly, including the most critical components such as ground tackle and windlass and most of all, the mighty Volvo D1-30 Diesel Auxiliary Engine.
The new wifi system with a Bullet M2 antenna/access point coupled with an onboard router worked very well to share wifi across all of our devices.
Navigation planning with the open source OpenCPN software was a huge time saver. I uploaded routes directly to my Garmin chartplotter using a USB to serial adapter.
Projects and Upgrades Under Consideration
New sunshade. I've come to accept that the sunshade that came with the boat is not all that well designed. We saw some nice sinple designs for mounting from the boom to the backstay.
Shorter holding tank discharge to a new deck pumpout location. Eliminating some low points in the current discharge hose routing should eliminate the last vestiges of "head smell."
New fridge and fridge box insulation: the fridge remains our biggest amp hour sucker, and it seemed to be feebing out on us a bit during some of our hot days, necesitating ice block supplemental cooling. And it makes annoying noises. I will be checking out keel coolers vs. holding plate technologies.
Stay tuned for more detailed location-specific posts!
On the Nanaimo Bar Trail
Posted by: pat 11 years, 3 months ago
I've long been a big fan of the Nanaimo bars sold at our neighborhood Ken's Market. What a delightful confection. Kim and I contemplated making them once, but as Boromir might say:
It involves a double boiler and takes more than a day what with the need for stuff to chill and all.
Fortunately we are taking a layday in Nanaimo for provisioning, which affords us the opportunity to take a journey on the Nanaimo Bar Trail (no I did not just make that up, check the link to the Nanaimo Tourism office site for all of the details and a map) in search of the platonic ideal, the ur-bar.
The first bar comes from Javawocky and seems to be a great example of the traditional preparation. Much thicker than the bars from Ken's, but I was expecting that. The coconut us discernible, the custard layer creamy and thick, and it looks like it has walnuts. The official recipe calls for almonds, but I think I might prefer the walnuts. Overall, a great bar and no complaints! On another note, I found the drip coffee from Javawocky insipid and weak.
This was supposed to be a long post wherein I described in detail the virtues and shortcomings of a dozen or so different Nanaimo bars....but it was too darn hot! The thought of pounding the hot pavement and scarfing down sugary confections became more and more nauseating as the temperature climbed.
I will say that the Nanaimo bar gelato at the gelato shop on the esplanade is delightful though. Elizabeth and I both enjoyed it very much.
Canada Customs 2013
Posted by: pat 11 years, 3 months ago
This will be a quick note on our customs experience this year. We cleared at Bedwell Harbor, the scene of my serious tongue lashing two years ago for having wayyyy more alcohol on board than I declared, and more than I even knew I had thanks to my crew of 4 other 40-somethings each of whom had brought wine, liquor, and beer on board. That experience was my "scared straight" turning point. Now I meticulously inventory and declare everything.
This year was different. it had to be the most streamlined checkin ever. Maybe they figure they have us on file now, or maybe crossing with your family sets off fewer warning flags than five 40-somethings.
I was asked for my vessel registration number, after which they indicated they had the whole family already on record and didn't even ask for passport numbers, dates of birth, or anything.
On the subject of alcohol, they did not ask about the quantity, which was a first. The question was simply "is it staying on board the boat?"
Apples and potatoes are still verboten, which was expected.
On a tangential note, after transiting Cattle Pass we had the pleasure of a little on the water interrogation courtesy of the young men at US Homeland Security. As I was preparing flapjacks in the galley and Elizabeth was keep a less-than-sharp lookout, a DHS patrol boat snuck up on us and alerted us to their presence with a quick "bloop" of their siren. there are many things on the boat that can set off alarms and we don't get to hear them often, so sounds like this usually freak us out. After determining the source of the alarm was our tax dollars at work, we went through a rapid fire Q&A session before being released to go about our business. Thanks for keeping us safe. Right.
On Nautical Sewing
Posted by: pat 11 years, 3 months ago
I've been doing a few sewing projects over the last month. I love to make things, whether they are made of 1's and 0's, wood, motors and PCBs, or...fabric and thread. Sewing is a skill that has a high utility value. There are all sorts of custom thingies you can build to suit a very specific and unique need. Don Casey's "Good Old Boat" book has been a great source of basic information and inspiration on all of the great sewing projects that will make life on a boat more pleasant. Plus it is interesting to think about the whole wearable electronics arena with conductive thread and stuff like the Adafruit Lilypad. But that is a topic for Halloween prep and not cruising prep...
Most of this summer's sewing projects are in support of the boat's new second/backup anchor. I purchased a Fortress FX-23 anchor on eBay. Fortress anchors are great as backup anchors because they are light and they disassemble to simplify storage. My first project was to make a storage bag for the Fortress. Fortress sells one, but it costs a bundle, almost as much as the used anchor, and after all it is just a bag. So I made one. It has custom fit inner pockets for each piece of the anchor, as well as a little tool pouch for a 1/2" wrench to aid assembly.
Next came a custom bag for the rode, 200 feet of line and 30 feet of chain. I read on...I think it was the Starzingers' web site...about their approach for storing a long stern-tie line: put it in a long skinny bag. Because the bag is skinny, the line doesn't tend to kink up or get snarled when spooling in or out. So I made two long skinny bags from some cool synthetic mesh material I picked up at Seattle Fabrics: one for the stern tie and one for the backup rode. Line will dry out in the bag, and it is tough stuff.
Kim is unconvinced the bag approach is the right way to go. We have a short stern tie line, maybe 150 feet, on an extension cord reel. It is still kind of a hassle to deal with reeling it in in such a way that the line doesn't bunch up on one side or the other. Given that we are going to Desolation Sound this summer where stern ties are de riguer, I invested in a longer line. I just bought a whole 600' spool. Way overkill, but hey it is cheaper by the spool. For starters we will try managing it on the spool with a boat hook as a spindle across the cockpit seats. I have a hunch that is going to work about twice and then we will go for the bag.
The one thing I can't seem to get nailed is a simple drawstring closure. I can sew it up fine, or at least I think it is fine, but the darn drawstring always binds up and doesn't really slide through its sleeve smoothly to culminate in a nice tight closure like I envisioned (and like every commercial drawstring works). Maybe I need to pin down the "bitter end" of the drawstring within the sleeve rather than leeving it as a continuous loop? I have no idea, but whatever I am doing is unsatisfactory.
Of course these are all "small boat" compromises. The real solution is to jump up to an Amphitrite, amiright? Big boats have their second anchors ready to go on the sprit, and they also have a stern anchor ready to launch from a stern rail mount, and they have fancy dedicated permanently mounted reels for stern tie lines too. But that is a cliff I am not going to jump off of. It is easy to admire these skookum bulletproof gear setups on bigger boats, just as it is easy to overlook everything else that goes with a bigger boat. Not gonna do it.