As you can see we had our sail cover off with every intention of sailing.
Unfortunately there was no wind. But there was lots of sunshine and warm temperatures and we have a great motor!
We got to Eagle Harbor in about two hours. We hooked up to one of the free moorings there with about 37 feet of water under us. Our boat draws 5'7" (meaning that's how far we hang down under the surface of the water) and there were a few moorings there that would have put us aground. This one was right next to the steep cliff.
Nice spot!
This is the view of the beach at the inside of the harbor. It's a pebble beach, unless it's low tide. Then it's a mud and pebble beach.
We brought the dinghy up and loaded the three of us up and rowed ashore to give Simon a potty break. Speaking of potties, up in the trees above that little beach is a cool composting potty. It looks like your run of the mill vault toilets, but there's a bucket of wood shavings and a scoop. After use you put a scoop of wood shavings in and close the lid. It actually smelled nice and woodsy in there!
Eagle Harbor is on the northeast side of Cypress Island. It's one of the steeper islands and as a result it has a few lakes and a system of trails to get to them. We opted not to force the mature pup to hike that much on this trip.
When we cruised by a few weeks ago we spotted several bald eagles in the trees on the steep, heavily wood slopes here. We even saw a couple of them fighting over some thing on the beach. On this visit we saw no eagles at all. Weird. We speculated that they came to the island to pair up and then all go their separate ways to nest. Kind of like a speed dating location. Oh well. It was still beautiful.
Here's Simon resting after his romp on shore.
Dinner was some pulled pork sliders and salad washed down with some Mack & Jack.
Mount Baker viewed through the Cone Islands.
One of the joys of being out is the freedom of hanging from a mooring or anchor instead of being tied to a dock. It allows the boat to move around with the currents and wind. So your view changes all the time. You also feel the rock and roll from the movement of boats out in the channel that eventually reach into the harbor. We felt quite a bit of rolling Monday night considering there is not much traffic in Bellingham Channel, especially at night. Fortunately it was gentle rolling that mostly just rocks you to sleep.
The next morning Simon slept in, which gave us a chance to make coffee and get it in out travel cups before having to load him up in the dinghy to row to shore. That's when we encountered the mud that has to be crossed to get to shore on that pretty little beach. Just about lost a foot in that mud. Plan B! We pushed the dinghy back off the mud and rowed over to a nice gravel landing spot popular with kayakers.
Yes, that is fog. There was a bit of a marine layer in Bellingham Channel.
It burned off by noon.
After a couple of trips ashore we decided we would take off and look at a couple of other anchoring areas on Cypress Island before heading back to Anacortes. The wind was going to change on Wednesday and would be coming from the south. That makes docking in our slip very dicey. So we opted to head back a day earlier than we had planned to keep things fun for all. Again no wind, just a sunny still day. We motored up the east coast of Cypress and checked out Surprising Cove
It looks like it's pretty exposed to current, but it's supposed to be Surprising-ly quiet in there.
We'll have to check it out sometime.
We also checked out Pelican Beach further north. It has several free moorings also, but is very exposed to the current. It does have a nice beach with campsites. We then turned east and traveled across the top of Guemes Island and looked at the anchorages on the north and south sides of Saddlebag Island, a popular spot because it's so close to Anacortes.
As we were entering the channel into the marina a bald eagle was sitting on the rock on top of Cap Sante and called out, welcoming us home. It was very appropriate after our eagle-less visit to Eagle Harbor.
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