When it comes to the weather, there are a few things any PNW dweller can count on: Expect rain anytime from October to June, and expect it to be bone dry for much of July through September.
Of course, there are no guarantees in life, especially when it comes to weather forecasting. Even so, when I saw those little blue raindrops coming up in my favorite weather app, I was a little dubious: It’s summer, in the PNW. Just two weeks ago, we were roasting on the boat! It never rains here in July!!
Nevertheless, we woke up to the sound of raindrops on the deck above today, Monday, July 29. In our defense, we have every reason to be a little surprised. Historically, today is the most dependably dry day of the year in Seattle. We are in the San Juan Islands right now, of course, but usually we can count on it being dry this time of year, too.
It’s supposed to rain off-and-on most of the day. I may have to pull out some of my foul weather gear if I want to get a kayak or hike today.
That’s OK. The West needs moisture badly. While on the boat, we are far away from the many wildfires burning in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, we’ve been reading the headlines and have had some pretty hazy skies from time to time out here.
So we are taking advantage of the cooler, wetter weather to warm up the galley with some cooking and baking. The weather report promises this moisture will leave our area by Wednesday morning.
I sure hope it does, if only because I took all of my cool-weather sailing gear off the boat for the summer!
A view of Mt. Rainier from Penrose Point State Park, located in south Puget Sound.
We kicked off our Summer 2024 cruise with a July Fourth jaunt with the kids to Jarrell Cove. Now C and I are moseying our way up the entire length of Puget Sound.
That’s right, we are sailing from our home marina in Olympia, bound for Port Townsend. We’ll get there in a week or two … or three.
Then we’ll hop across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to tour the San Juans with the kids and some visiting family before pointing the bow south for Olympia again.
I’m looking forward to being in boat mode for the next six or so weeks. We often spend the fall and spring going between the boat and house, and while I’m glad we have the flexibility to be on the boat so much during the school year, the constant adjusting to two very different ways of living can be challenging for me.
So now that we are here, I can settle into the rhythms of boat life:
Waking up with the sunrise and going to bed with the sunset.
Planning my day based on the weather, the tides and the currents, instead of around appointments, school schedules and commutes.
Having less living space, which makes getting outside and moving around even more attractive than it already is.
Handwashing our dishes.
Getting my workouts on shore, on the kayak or on the foredeck, instead of the gym.
Having fewer clothes and no ready access to laundry facilities.
Being a lot more mindful about how much water we use and whether we need to use the Wi-Fi after we get done working, because it’s a bit of an energy hog.
There are about 2 miles of hiking trails at Penrose Point State Park.
Last summer, we did a five-week cruise into British Columbia, a goal of ours since before the pandemic. We ventured as far north as Desolation Sound, and spent a few days in the magical Princess Louisa Inlet. It was an unforgettable journey. We want to head that way again, and go further north. But doing that journey on a 39-foot sailboat with a tight time window was a bit grueling for me, especially because the wind never was going the right way for us. That meant many long days of motoring. That’s the way it goes, though, when you are still working, have kids and have other obligations that don’t allow us to just wait and go when the wind is right.
This summer we won’t go as far, and I’m excited to take a slower pace that might allow us to sail more. (That’s a maybe, the constant high pressure system that usually parks itself over the Pacific Northwest during the summer doesn’t create a lot of wind.)
And I’m excited to explore the Sound, from tip to tip (twice!) in a single summer.
S/V Polaris on a mooring ball in south Puget Sound
I’ve been sailing the American portion of the Salish Sea for 8 years now, and I’m not sure I will ever get sick of it. No matter where we go, there’s a good anchorage nearby with access to nearly everything a cruiser could want: You want seclusion, gorgeous landscapes, great hikes and tranquil waters? You got it. You need groceries, a good meal and a fun place to grab a drink? You got that, too.
Plus the chance to see orcas, whales, seals, sea lions, and a variety of birds along the way.
There are tradeoffs for all this, of course. The water is rarely, if never, warm enough to swim in (at least for me). And like I mentioned earlier, there often isn’t a lot of wind.
But last week, we enjoyed a gorgeous downwind sail to McMicken Island. And a recent record-breaking heat wave prompted C to don his snorkel and fins to jump in the water and view the critters along the beach at Penrose Point State Park.
So maybe, we really can have it all here in Puget Sound.
Here’s a question for you: How do you get a sailboat with a hull speed (maximum speed) of 6.5 knots to sail 35 miles in about four hours?
This isn’t a hypothetical question. Just the other day, we sailed our 39-foot sailboat, Polaris, to Port Townsend from Seattle in about four hours.
The answer is in the stars. Specifically, the sun and the moon, how close Earth is to either, and to a certain extent, the weather. These all have an impact on how deep the water is, how fast it is moving and in which direction it is heading. In short, tides and currents.
Puget Sound and Salish Sea have amazing tides and currents that have the power to affect how quickly you can get to a destination—or if you can get to that destination at all. That’s why it’s important to understand how tides and currents work in this area, and to always incorporate them into your trip planning.
What goes up must go down
It’s always important to keep an eye on the tidal cycle when exploring beaches along the Salish Sea.
The Salish Sea, of which Puget Sound is a part, gets its water from the Pacific Ocean thanks to the watery highway that connects the two: the Strait of Juan de Fuca. When the water rises for the Pacific, it brings gallons and gallons of seawater down the Strait and into the Salish. We call this the flood tide because that is when the water level increases in Puget Sound and around the San Juan Islands, so much so that it can completely cover things you don’t want to sail into, like big rocks.
When the water level drops in the Pacific, those millions of gallons of seawater go shooting back out the Strait. The water level drops for the Salish as well. We call this the ebb tide. The shore line can get a whole lot wider, often leaving places that were completely under water completely dry and visible, like those rocks you were trying to avoid.
Puget Sound’s big tides
In many places around the world the difference between the flood and the ebb is large. The Bay of Fundy in Canada has the biggest tide, with an average difference of 38 feet. In Puget Sound, the tide ranges from about 8 feet to 14 feet, depending on where you are, what time of day and when in the year. The Salish Sea has what are called mixed diurnal tides. That means that in a typical 24-hour period, there will be two low tides, with one much lower water than the other, and two high tides, with one much higher water than the other.
A NOAA map of the maximum current during the ebb tide in North Puget Sound.
During the flood, water coming down the Strait pushes south into Puget Sound and north into the San Juan Islands. When the tide begins to drop, the current runs north out of Puget Sound and south out of the San Juan Islands. These tidal exchanges create currents of varying speeds and directions.
The local topography also contributes to the speed of these currents. Water flowing through narrow passages functions just like water coming out of a hose that was been partially blocked at the end: it flows faster.
I took this video of the current in Kilsut Harbor from the northern beach of Marrowstone Island. We estimated the current was running about 2 knots. Just 2 knots, but it almost took me and the kids out to the Strait of Juan de Fuca when we were trying to row our dinghy back to the boat.
In general, it’s best to ride the current when it is going the same direction you are going. Going with the current speeds you up; going against it slows you down. However, in some places the current speed can get so fast it would be dangerous for your average sailboat to go during the max current, regardless of which direction it is going.
Where the currents are fast
Examples of places in our local waters where the flow gets “squeezed” into going faster include the Tacoma Narrows and Deception Pass, where the current often gets above 6 knots going either direction. British Columbia has some incredibly fast currents that require careful planning. The current going through Seymour Narrows, for example, can reach speeds of over 15 knots.
In those cases, it’s best to wait for a time when the water level is neither falling nor raising, creating little current at all. This is called slack.
Using tides and currents to plan your journey
The key to navigating around these variables is to always check tide and current predictions, and time your voyage accordingly.
In the example I gave at the beginning of this article, we chose to time our departure around 11:30 a.m. so that we would ride the ebb (drop in water) north out of Seattle to Port Townsend. With the current flowing north and the wind coming out of the south, we enjoyed a speedy, relatively smooth downwind sail to Port Townsend. At times, our speed over ground reached 10 knots, which is why we were able to get our destination more quickly than our hull speed would indicate.
For another trip north, we opted to leave during the tail-end of the flood. Why? Because the current in the central part of Puget Sound is relatively weak and wouldn’t affect our boat speed much. Plus, we were aiming to get to Mystery Bay before low tide. The charted depths near the entrance to Kilsut Harbor get quite shallow, barely over a fathom (6 feet) in spots. We draw 6.5 feet and didn’t want to risk running aground.
The charted depths are recorded in fathoms. As you can see, there are some pretty shallow spots during low tide. Luckily, the entrance is well-marked and for that very reason.
You can find tide and current predictions on NOAA Tides & Currents or DeepZoom with a quick search on your phone, but we still keep a current copy of the printed Ports and Passes on our boat. The beauty of a paper resource is we never need a cell signal to read it. The book also kindly explains how to read the predictions, how best to use them and includes local knowledge about particularly tricky or turbulent passes in the Salish Sea.
Tide predictions give the vertical height of the tide above or below the charted depth of a particular area. For example, if Ports and Passes predicts the high water for a specific area on the day you arrive will be 13 feet, the total predicted depth would be the charted depth plus 13 feet. Similarly, if the predicted low water is 1.3 feet, it would be the charted depth plus 1.3 feet. (And yes, in the case of a minus tide, such as -1.3 feet, you would subtract that from the charted depth.)
Why is it important to know this? It can affect how much anchor chain you need to put out and whether you will risk running aground in shallow spot. I’ve heard of more than a few sailors who have hit bottom even while tied up to a Washington State Marine Park mooring ball.
Understanding current predictions
Current predictions give the max speed of the current during flood or ebb (represented as +/-) as well as when to expect slack.
It’s important to consider which direction you want to go and which direction the water is flowing when evaluating these current predictions. Here’s our local example: In Puget Sound, you generally want to ride to the flood south and the ebb north. On the other side of the Strait, in the San Juans, you generally want to ride the ebb south and the flood north.
And don’t forget the weather!
In addition to minding tides and currents, note where the wind is coming from and where there are known tide rips along your journey. Wind against current can result in large, short and steep waves that aren’t much fun to sail through.
This recently happened when we departed Port Townsend in time to ride the flood south to Seattle and were greeted with 25+ knots of southerly wind right on the nose. With wind opposing current, we slogged our way through confused seas and at times saw our speed over ground drop to 3.5 knots. Our trip was slower than we were expecting and rather uncomfortable.
That’s the thing about sailing, though; you can’t control everything. But timing your voyage with tides and currents in mind certainly helps.
In June, we got rid of 85% of our stuff and moved out of our house in Southwest Portland to move full-time onto our boat for the summer. We will spend three months sailing the Salish Sea with our kids. Our tentative plan is to explore:
I left my full-time job in April and am transitioning to freelance writing and editing in the fall. My husband will continue his current job, which he can do remote almost 100% of the time.
A view of the Coal Harbour Marina in downtown Vancouver, B.C.
Downsizing for the future
My kids are from my first marriage, and they spend 50% of their time with their dad (big thanks to him for agreeing to let us take the kids for the summer!) He is based in Portland, so we aren’t leaving Portland completely. But once we return from our trip in the fall, we plan to split our time between Portland and Seattle. We’ll be in Portland when the kids are with us and in the Puget Sound area on our boat when they are with their dad.
I’m going to miss that kitchen. Thankfully, the cook is coming with me!
We’re so excited to dedicate the summer to exploring this beautiful and rich body of water. I thought that cruising was something I wouldn’t be able to do until I was much older, certainly without kids in the house anymore, and probably closer to retirement.
This is the beginning of something new. Something, for now, that is only part-time. But something big, indeed.
