Category: Trips

It has been three long months since Scott and I have been boating so we finally decided to charter a yacht from Anacortes Yacht Charters and visit the San Juan Islands. We have talked to AYC many times at the Seattle Boat Show and they have a great selection of yachts from which to choose. We chose to depart from Anacortes to save time and get over to the San Juan Islands quickly.

You might ask, did we look at other charter companies? Great question – yes we did. However, this was a very last minute decision that also involved another party. We had invited my brother-in-law Kurt and his brother Cal (and girl friend Tracey) to come along. Long story short, only Cal and Tracey decided to go and our choices were pretty limited in regards to available boats around 40-45′. There is some irony to this story so keep reading!

We reserved a 40′ Carver and I sent everyone a photo and link to the yacht, which had two large staterooms.

After we reserved it, I started looking for YouTube videos of the Carver and noticed that our model (that I thought I reserved), didn’t have big staterooms. Uh ho! Sure enough, I reserved the wrong Carver! Instead of an aft cabin Carver, we had reserved a Carver 410 Sport Sedan that only had a V-berth and a small cabin for stowaways. Since it was my mistake, we’d take the small cabin.

More surprises ahead!

A week before our departure, Kurt calls and says he would like to join us. Awesome!! (Remember, he not only has years of boating experience, but he is a retired Chief Engineer for the Washington Ferries). So we love having him on board!

One problem though – this boat only has two staterooms and the couch is curved. I tried calling Anacortes Yacht Charters to see if we could upgrade to a larger boat and they said no – we would have to pay a cancellation fee.

The other bit of info I should share, is that we wanted to charter for four (4) nights, but the boat was only available for three. Unfortunately, if you reserve a boat for less than four nights, you pay extra fees as a penalty. Plus, we wanted to do a sleepover on it the night before, so we could get under way first thing in the morning. There was another fee for that! I’ll share our charter costs at the end of this blog series.

Two days before we depart, Scott sends out a group email that simply says “Bad news. The Charter company called and……..” Everyone’s heart stopped at that sentence. Luckily, he finished it by saying “…..the Carver ran aground, so they need to upgrade us to a Meridian 411”. We all sighed in relief and were thrilled! This was a much nicer boat, great layout and the couch wasn’t curved.

Packing the truck

The five us wanted to ride up together and I told everyone to pack lightly. We also wanted to drop a couple of crab pots, so Cal brought along two of his. (We didn’t know until later that the boat comes with two pots). Arriving to Cal’s house, it was obvious we may have to take two cars. But you have to know Scott; he’s the master at tetris and he made it work!

It also helps that we have a Nissan Armada and everyone fit comfortably!

Then on our way up, we asked Kurt where his sleeping bag was? (he’s sleeping on the couch). Ooops, guess who forgot to pack one! Luckily, we were just approaching Cabelas and he stopped and bought one there. Another note – the boat had plenty of spare blankets, so he didn’t need to.

Provisioning & Itinerary

Since this was a short trip, I told everyone to bring their own beverages and favorite snacks. Provisioning was really simple. When we were at a marina, we planned on eating breakfast and dinner at a restaurant to support the locals. This ended up being a good idea, as the fridge was really small compared to the one on our Bayliner 4087.

In addition, many of the cupboards were full of supplies. We ended up putting food in drawers in the master stateroom.

With only three days to explore, we kept the itinerary easy. We planned on leaving Anacortes on Monday morning and head over to Roche Harbor (26 miles) where we would stay at the marina and explore. Tuesday, we would head to Stuart Island (8 miles) and stay the night in Prevost Harbor and then head to Friday Harbor (13 miles) the next day. Had the trip been longer, we would have anchored more and explored a few more islands.

Anacortes Yacht Charter Check-In

This was our first charter (remember our BVI charter was postponed until next February), so we didn’t know what to expect. They are very strict about arrival times, so be sure to adhere to those. We arrived to the office at 4pm on Sunday and they had Scott review the paperwork and then watch a 30 minute safety video. We were all there, so we joined in. They offer free water, coffee and ice cream – so it was worth it!

From there, we met with our check-in captain on the boat at Cap Sante Marina. They were running late from the previous charter that day, so we had to wait about an hour before we could board. Since we couldn’t get a cocktail, we just walked around the marina a bit.

Once on board, she walked us through the interior and exterior of the boat. One tip I have, is be sure to video tape any instructions (i.e. turning on the generator), as they may come in handy later.

The captain also took Scott and Kurt down into the engine room – that ended up being a great idea later. The access is under the flybridge stairs, which was pretty convenient (versus lifting up the floor board in the salon).

Once you have gone through the boat, the captain will then have the crew take the boat down the fairway, turn around and dock it. One thing I was disappointed about is she didn’t ask us about our experience as boaters. We did share with her that we had many years experience, yet she didn’t give us consideration for that. For example, she told Kurt (who has owned three boats over 30 years) how to properly tie off a cleat!

A beautiful night at Cap Sante Marina

Once we unpacked, the five us relaxed and enjoyed the sunset. I had made a cold pasta salad for dinner earlier in the day and that worked out great!

The other irony of the evening, was that Simbault, the 1995 Navigator 53 Sundance yacht that we toured in July was right across from us. So far, this has been our favorite liveaboard option – we just can’t find a home for it. Watch that episode here.

The weather forecast

I have a number of weather apps on my phone and around 7pm, every alert went off. The weather was changing and now we were expecting 22knot winds and 4′ seas as we crossed the Rosario Straits and San Juan Channel. Not what you want to see. I texted our broker (who has sold many Meridians) and he assured me that the yacht could easily handle these seas.

The weather was beautiful in the marina when we woke up. Since we couldn’t check into Roche until about 12pm, we took our time leaving from Anacortes, as the trip would only be about 2 hours (even in bad weather).

As we left Anacortes and entered the Guemes Channel, things were nice and calm. We crossed the Rosario Straits and headed to the north end of Shaw. Another thing to note, is the AYC gave us a map of areas to avoid. If you run aground in any of those areas, you are not covered by insurance. To play it safe, we took no known short cuts. It was such a comfortable trip, that I forgot about the weather forecast.

I spoke too soon. As soon as we rounded Shaw Island and entered the San Juan Channel, the white caps appeared and we were in 5′ seas. The photo below doesn’t do it justice, but the footage does – so be sure to watch the video on our YouTube channel. We had the isinglass panel out, so all of us got sprayed the entire trip up the channel.

Then things go terribly wrong!

I was excited to get into Roche Harbor early, so we could all explore the sites. It’s very important that you enter the bay on the west side of Pearl Island, as the eastside is shallow. In fact, the Carver that ran aground went that way.

In the bay, you’ll find lots of boats anchored out, so it’s important to be respectful to them. Go slowly and around them, versus through the anchor field. We heard one boat on the VHF that said “hey, thanks to the idiot and your wake going thru our anchor field” and no, it wasn’t us.

Scott put the boat in neutral while he got ready to radio in for slip assignment and that’s when all hell broke loose. Immediately an alarm went off and he says “It’s our high water alarm! We’re taking on water!” Kurt and I ran down to the cockpit (I grabbed my life jacket) and he went into the engine room. At that point he told me not to panic, but we have over 2′ of water in the engine room! In the middle of the chaos, I didn’t get a chance to get a photo of it. The photo below indicates how high up the water was!

Try not to panic

There are two things that terrify me about boating – sinking and catching fire. After putting on my life jacket, I asked Kurt if I should lower the dinghy?! He calmly said, “No, let’s see if the bilge pumps start pumping the water out”. After about a minute, he said he thought the water was going down slowly. I then called Anacortes Yacht Charters (while the very loud high pitch water alarm is blaring) and tell them we are taking on water. Oddly, she asked me if we were sinking and I said no. I told her we were making our way to the dock and she said she would send out a tech in a few hours. My initial thought? Are you kidding me?!! More on that later.

Unfortunately, the marina office couldn’t hear us hailing them on the vhf due to the alarm. Thank God I’m Facebook friends with the manager and I had been messaging her all morning. I quickly sent her a note, that we needed our slip assignment asap! To make things more stressful, we had never arrived to Roche by boat, so we weren’t too sure where go to. I knew the guest docks were on the far end towards the beach and she assigned us 5A. Luckily, we went straight to it (I wasn’t sure which side of the dock we were on).

The staff at the marina was fantastic and helped us get docked and situated. Once we were secured, we checked the engine room and it was finally dry. We still didn’t know where the leak was coming from, but we did discover that the aft bilge pump did not work at all. That meant the mid and forward pumps were doing all of the work. With over 500 gallons of water pouring in, they could only pump out so fast. Now we had to wait for the technician to show up and figure out what was happening. Spending our first hour in the engine room upon our arrival, was not what we had planned! However, we were so thankful that Kurt was with us (once again – we broke down the last time we went to the San Juan Islands).

Stay tuned for our next blog, as we explore Roche Harbor and try to figure out where the leak is coming from! As always, thank you for following our journey! Please subscribe to our YouTube channel (see episode below) and follow us on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter @BoatingJourney.

Cheers, Scott & Ally