Learning to sail in mid-life has changed me for the better.
I’ve tinkered with the idea of writing an article titled “All I’ve ever wanted to know, I learned from sailing.”
Tongue-in-cheek, partly, but also for reals. Learning to sail has changed my life, and not just in the obvious ways. The lessons I have learned since I started to sail have taught me how to live better in all aspects of my life.
When I started this blog, I simply wanted a place to capture all I was learning about sailing. I’ve learned how to sail, yes, but I’ve also learned a lot about:
What I didn’t expect, though, was that my experiences on S/V Polaris would inform all parts of my life.
The first time I step foot on a sailboat was when I was 38 years old, newly divorced with two kids, and fairly certain about what I was good at and what I wasn’t. Learning to sail in mid-life definitely took me out of my comfort zone and I am so glad for it.
Sailing continues to teach me how to screw up and get back up again. How to be patient. How to be a better teacher and parent to my kids. How to cope when my plans go to shit. How important nature is to me and all living beings (and how, I firmly believe, we would all be better if we spent more time outside). How to dig deep and get a really tears-inducing frustrating job done. How to keep going when I’m tired. How to really, truly rest.
In short, sailing has taught me how to learn and to be OK with always learning, with not knowing the answer and being totally OK with that, too.
All those other things belong on this blog, too.
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here. That’s OK. Life has been crazy for us for the last two years. We bought a house, put our kids back in school, resumed splitting time between boat and land and have had to endure a lot of ups and downs along the way. But I’m ready to share what I’m learning again, and I hope that maybe, you’ll learn something, too.
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.
Blake Island State Marine Park is a tiny island in the middle of the busiest part of Puget Sound. Just an hour by sailboat from Seattle, and with Bremerton to the west, it feels both primitive and developed. Which makes sense, if you consider its history.
I still remember our first sail trip up to Port Townsend. It was during the kids’ spring break in 2015. We set out in our first boat, the Aequus Aer, at about 5 a.m. in the morning to ride the tide 35 nautical miles north.
I was at the helm with a warm hat and gloves on, a blanket wrapped around me and both my kids snuggled up nearby. By the time we got to PT, I was shivering and couldn’t fully warm up until I got into the marina showers that night.
I am one of those people who runs cold all the time. Plus, I have Raynaud’s syndrome. You might think I’d be inclined to take a break from cruising the Pacific Northwest between the months of October and April, but instead I’ve become all the more determined to make sailing a year-round activity for my family and me.
Life in a marina can be fun and certainly convenient. But if you ask me, there’s no better feeling than being on anchor. I love being surrounded on all sides by water. There we get the chance to see more marine life from the comfort of our cockpit, and the feeling of being gently rocked to sleep in a well-protected anchorage just can’t be beat.
Puget Sound and the greater Salish Sea is home to dozens of great anchorages. We have big harbors with plenty of swing room for boats and small, tucked-in little nooks that provide an amazing amount of solitude for being surrounded by 4.2 million people.
Since getting s/v Polaris, we’ve anchored all over the Sound in all kinds of weather. The cool thing about Puget Sound is a boater doesn’t have to travel very far to find a great anchorage. In this post, I’m going to list a few of our favorite anchorages that are less than a half-day away from Seattle if sailing at a cruising speed of 5 knots or less. This is by no means a comprehensive list and I will be adding to it as we check out more nearby places to drop the hook.
There are remnants of the old sawmill and shipyard still visible today, including an abandoned building that was updated to honor the death of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The details
Distance from Elliot Bay in Seattle: About 5 nautical miles
Anchoring conditions: Good holding, in mud, about 35-50 feet
Good place for: Hiking, kayaking/canoeing/paddleboarding, swimming (in summer, if thick-skinned or in a wetsuit), tidepooling at nearby Blakely Rock
Port Blakely is an easy choice, but that doesn’t make it any less of a good one. It’s about an hour away from the Elliot Bay, relatively roomy and well-protected from southerly or northerly winds. Given its proximity to Seattle, it does fill up during the summer months, particularly around holidays. But it’s so close to Seattle, you can easily make the trip there after work if there’s daylight.
We have noticed that the cellular reception isn’t great, which could be a problem if you are trying to work or do anything else online. Port Blakely also is not within close walking distance to grocery stores or shops, so be sure to provision up before heading here.
In addition to its close proximity, we love hiking along the shoreline and into the woods on the Blakely Harbor Trail ashore on the western end of the harbor. We beach our dinghy on the north side of the shore near a rack of kayaks stored for residents and then find the trail.
Kayaking here is lovely, though there isn’t much to see in the shallows unless you head out toward the rocky entrance on the north side of the harbor. There we have seen crabs, plumose anemone and the occasional starfish.
During a minus tide, though, we took our dinghy from the anchorage over to Blakely Rock, which sits just outside the harbor and is the only visible part of a shoal that you most definitely want to avoid with your sailboat. The rock, however, is home to all kinds of marine invertebrates. Our kids had a field day searching for critters like blood stars, crabs, anemones and sea snails.
The key to getting the most out of Blakely Rock is to visit it during a minus tide. Then make sure you leave before the tide comes in too much!
Eagle Harbor, Bainbridge Island
Anchoring in Eagle Harbor isn’t tranquil, but it is fun to watch the ferries come and go.
The details
Distance from Elliot Bay in Seattle: About 5 nautical miles
Anchoring conditions: OK holding, in mud, about 30-45 feet
Good place for: Sight-seeing, hiking, kayaking, shopping, museums, culture
Perhaps just as close as Port Blakely to Elliott Bay is Eagle Harbor. This long harbor is near the community of Winslow on Bainbridge Island.
Similar to Blakely Harbor, Eagle Harbor has an industrial history. It has been the site of shipbuilding and a wood mill. The result is the seabed in much of the harbor was contaminated with creosote. In the 1980s, it became an EPA Superfund site. The EPA has since “capped” much of the contaminated seafloor by burying it under clean sand. Anchoring here could pull up that clean sand and bring the dirty seafloor back up.
Because of this, anchoring is limited to a small area not far from the the Washington State Ferries maintenance dock. This makes the area where you can anchor pretty cramped, but in the fall and winter time, we had no problem finding a spot. We have yet to anchor here in terrible weather. For the most part, its a calm anchorage.
We don’t necessarily come here for the solitude, but that’s fine. We love exploring Winslow’s shops and restaurants, where you can provision, pick up gifts and dine on fantastic food that rivals what you can find in Seattle. There is a trail that winds around part of the harbor and includes signs that explain the community’s history as a sawmill (and the environmental impact the past has had on the present).
Transient boaters may be pleased to know that the city of Bainbridge Island manages a small dock with power, water and pump-out. This makes it a great stop if you need to charge batteries, top off your water tank or pump-out before heading to another anchorage. First come, first served.
Here are the fees and other info:
Power is $5 a day
Docking, 3 hours or less: 10 cents per foot
Docking, 24 hours, 50 cents per foot.
For now, showers are closed.
Boaters normally should prepare to raft up during the busy months, but for now, no rafting up is required.
Winslow also is home to the Bainbridge Museum of Art, which has free admission, a weekly farmer’s market from April through December, and a children’s museum that for the sake of families of young kids, I hope can survive the pandemic.
Some scenes from the Bainbridge Island Japanese-American Exclusion Memorial.
We just recently discovered the Bainbridge Island Japanese-American Exclusion Memorial, a park that is still under construction located near the south shore of Eagle Harbor. We accessed the memorial by taking our dinghy to a tie-up near the Bainbridge Island Marina. Once out of the marina, you’ll see an entrance to the memorial on your left.
The memorial honors the 200+ residents who were forced from their homes during World War II after the Empire of Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. Walk through the guided path to learn about the families who were forced from their homes and taken to internment camps. You’ll read about the many who lost the farms and businesses they had before the war, and how children were removed from school and missed graduations and ball games. And yet, many of the remaining Bainbridge Island residents worked together to preserve their neighbors’ properties while they were interned.
We enjoyed learning about this too-often ignored part of our country’s history and incorporated some of the lessons from the memorial’s message into our homeschool.
Port Madison, Bainbridge Island
We checked out Port Madison recently on a lovely, cold week in November.
The details
Distance from Elliot Bay in Seattle: About 9 nautical miles
Anchoring conditions: Good holding, in mud, about 15-25 feet
Good place for: Hiking, kayaking/canoeing/paddleboarding
Port Madison is on the northern tip of Bainbridge Island, and would be a great place to tuck into while on the way to Port Townsend or other points north. We only recently ventured into the deep, winding bay near the community. There are a few private docks, a Seattle Yacht Club outstation and several private moorings. Nevertheless, we found a spot to drop the hook about midway into the bay.
We took the dinghy to the public dock on the bay’s south side to get on land and stretch our legs a bit. There is a short lovely trail that takes you up a hill into the woods and to some painted rocks well-known by locals. After that, most of the walking we did was on residential streets. Thankfully, Port Madison doesn’t get a lot of traffic.
A frog and ladybug rock; you either love this or hate this.
Like the other anchorages near Bainbridge Island, Port Madison was a mill town at one point, and like most of Bainbridge Island, was once home to the Suquamish Indian tribe. These days, its a picturesque bay with a mostly high-end residential community surrounding it. Port Madison definitely feels like a calm, secluded anchorage, even though there is housing and boats all around.
There’s not much to do here in terms of sight-seeing, but plenty of space for calm, protected kayaking. We enjoyed exploring the length of the bay and rounding a tiny islet called Treasure Island.
Liberty Bay, Poulsbo
Come to Poulsbo for its huge anchorage, stay for the Scandinavian pastries.
The details
Distance from Elliot Bay in Seattle: About 16 nautical miles
Anchoring conditions: Good holding, in mud, anywhere from 12-40 feet
Good place for: Hiking, kayaking/canoeing/paddleboarding, shopping, sight-seeing
West of Bainbridge Island and tucked deep into the Kitsap Peninsula is the long, wide anchorage of Liberty Bay and the lovely town of Poulsbo. It takes us about a half-day to sail or motor to Poulsbo from our slip at the Elliott Bay Marina. It’s short enough to do without too much planning and long enough to feel like you are getting away from the city. Just check the tides and currents when going through Agate Pass. The currents can reach up to 6.5 kts so try to time your arrival around slack tide.
Liberty Bay is a wonderful anchorage in great weather and can be a good refuge in poor weather. We’ve anchored here in the summer when there have been dozens of boats, and we rode out a storm here while cruising in the fall. (You can read more about where we anchored in Liberty Bay during a gale.)
During the late summer and early fall we spotted tons of harbor seals cruising the bay and lounging on the breakwater near one of the town’s marinas. We didn’t get to do much beach-combing here, but really enjoyed kayaking the long, wide anchorage and checking out other boats.
And then there’s Poulsbo. The historic downtown is immediately accessible from the dinghy tie-up. You’ll find some cute clothing and gift shops, a market with some pricey, but unique foods and drinks, a marine supply store and, of course, pastries!
Our favorite is Sluy’s, located downtown. We usually grab a sampling of their wares; a few cookies, a danish, some bread and a fritter or two. Then, we take a walk along the Bay on a path that winds through a waterfront park.
If you need to do a full provisioning run, you can walk a mile or so to the local Safeway.
Illahee State Marine Park
During the summer months, the dock and pier at Illahee State Marine Park can get quite busy with families fishing and crabbing.
The details
Distance from Elliot Bay in Seattle: About 11 nautical miles
Anchoring conditions: OK holding, about 10-25 feet
Good place for: Hiking, kayaking/canoeing/paddleboarding, swimming (in summer, if thick-skinned or in a wetsuit), tidepooling
Illahee sits along Port Orchard Bay just south of Bremerton on the Kitsap Peninsula. Like many marine state parks, it has a few mooring balls (five) and a small dock if you’d rather tie up. We have not anchored here, opting to use our annual moorage permit, but I have seen boats anchor near here. It can get quite shallow if you get as close as the mooring balls (we recently tied up here and at low tide our depth sounder read about 10-11 feet), and the seafloor drops off pretty quickly if a little farther out. So be careful where you anchor.
The fastest way to Illahee from Elliott Bay is via Rich Passage on the south side of Bainbridge Island. You’ll have to share the relatively narrow passage with the Bremerton Ferry and, if you are lucky, a Navy ship. But in general, it’s an easy voyage.
In the summer time, the pier and the dock is crowded with families fishing, clamming, crabbing and oyster harvesting. Just above the beach starts a lovely, short but steep, half-mile hiking trail up the hillside. A sign informed us that an Eagle Scout project is to thank for the hillside stairs that made the journey a little easier.
Kayaking and hiking are just a few of our favorite things to do while cruising.
We are avid kayakers and enjoyed paddling near the beach during low tide to look for crabs, starfish and other critters.
While there are no grocery stores close to the park, there is a Fred Meyer about 2.5 miles away. We opted to go the long way by walking through residential streets and taking a side trip through the Illahee Preserve. Given the distance and the roundabout way to the store, I wouldn’t recommend Illahee as a spot if you need to provision. But for those looking to get their steps in, it is possible.
Other anchorages
We have yet to check out all the anchorages near Seattle, but plan to visit the following this winter and spring:
Manzanita Bay
Dyes Inlet
Let us know about your favorite nearby anchorages!
Wouldn’t it be great if anchoring always was as serene as it looks in the pictures?
Alas, anyone sailboat cruising for awhile eventually will find themselves anchored in a storm. Wicked weather is part of the cruising life; some storms are predicted well in advance, allowing sailors to change their voyaging plans or seek shelter in a well-protected marina. Other times, storms are a surprise.
That’s what happened to us recently. We first got word that weather was coming from a sweet couple paddling by our boat after we had dropped our anchor in Liberty Bay outside of Poulsbo, Wa.
The flood brought us to Sucia Island, pushing our speed over ground to 9 kts for most of our trip north.
Our goal was to grab a mooring buoy in Fox Cove. It’s a smaller and slightly more exposed anchorage near Sucia Island, but the forecast for the next few days was sunny and very light wind.
At high tide, Little Sucia—the tiny rocky island just a few hundred feet away from Sucia—works with its sister island to create a south entrance to Fox Cove. It’s a deceptive welcome that hides the abundance of rocks lurking just under the surface. We opted to round Little Sucia instead and entered from the west side of the cove.
We didn’t plan to stop by the very first Washington state marine park we saw after crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca. But when you come across an empty mooring in the San Juan Islands less than a week before the Fourth of July, you don’t hesitate to slow the boat down and pick up a mooring ball.
That’s how we ended up making James Island our first stop in the San Juan’s this summer. At first, we were lured by the lack of crowds here, but now I’d say James Island is worth a stop, no matter how many boats are in the moorage park.
It’s quiet, teeming with marine life and has epic mountain views. It’s home to about a dozen state-managed marine parks that make it easy to bop around from place to place and explore by kayak or on foot. And it gets little to none of the commercial shipping traffic seen between Tacoma and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
After spending two lovely, quiet, very socially distanced weeks in South Puget Sound recently, the only question we could ask ourselves was: How soon can we head back?
