Friday Harbor

We left the next morning at 830am. We had about a 6 hour day, which included crossing Juan De Fuca and going through Cattle Pass. I was incredibly nervous about this part of the trip. It was a big trip and I had only been out on Royal Venture twice at that point!

I had planned out the trip to catch the ebb from Port Ludlow to Juan de Fuca. Then I wanted to hit slack in the middle of Juan de Fuca, so that we didn’t go through Cattle Pass until after slack there – which was 1:10 pm.

We made record time up to the Juan de Fuca – going about 12 knots over the ground!! We were motoring at about 6 knots, which meant we had about 6 knots of current with us at times! It was totally flat in the Juan de Fuca – very beautiful and not bad at all. There was absolutely no wind, but it was still very beautiful!

I was worried we would hit Cattle Pass too soon. If we went through too soon, the current can be so strong that we wouldn’t have control of the boat. (Imagine 8 knots of current going against a boat only going 6 knots, then add in some chop!) As we got closer to the pass, we were certainly getting tossed around quite a bit by the changing current. I was just telling Kathy that Navionics was only showing a slight ebb (the current was only a little bit against us), when the arrow switched and it was then showing a flood! We went past the lighthouse right at 1:18pm, 8 minutes after slack! Perfect timing!

Keith at Friday Harbor was kind enough to organize an easy slip for us to get in and out of – this being my third day of docking the boat, I was still quite anxious. He even came out and caught our lines which made the whole thing a breeze!! His help and knowledge were huge!