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Formula Jr
08-16-2001, 01:02 AM
This event - planed well over 20 minutes ago - will be taking place this week end at one of those parks north of seattle - some where. ;) We'll be rideing out to Roche Harbor for lunch and then to the northern Island parks for a beach party over night. Saturday we'll randomly explore the San Juans, in no particular order, as long as we end up at Doe Bay for the hot springs in the afternoon, returing to camp on an outer island that night and to the north of Seattle camp on Sunday. Hope to see you there. Where ever that may be.

:D

OOPs! Looks like the dreaded Puget Sound chill is on......... no time to be on the Sound in an open boat. I'll have to wait till there's a break in the weather pattern.

Blewbyu
08-17-2001, 08:20 PM
Owen-good move.The wx is not lookin good for Sat-Sun-no rain,but not much sun either.Got muggy this pm,but past 2 days have been noticably COOL.
I should splash the X-18 tomorrow (Sat),rain or shine.Dyno'ed at 357HP with a bad distributor.Took it in to have it rebuilt/recurved-will p/u @ 0900 tomorrow,should be in the water by 1200.Let me know if you're in the area-mebbe we can hook up.If you replan a San Juan excursion some time this month,and you want some company,call me.Be sure to do Matia,Sucia,and especially Patos.Patos is a GREAT, and underused place with superb campsites and STUNNING sunsets and views.Tape your cooler shut tho,the coons can open most anything. :D

Blewbyu
08-17-2001, 08:23 PM

Kelly
08-19-2001, 05:32 PM
Tell me if its replanned, and I'll do my best to convince my stepdad to go.

Kelly

Formula Jr
08-20-2001, 08:00 PM
Guys, if we want to do this, this year, just pick a date for Lake Washington. That seems easy enough. I want to do the Islands, but because of Dog and other considerations, I'd rather pull up the Seaswirl Cuddy for a look see first. But Washington Lk. is known to me and very spashable with the JR at any time.

MXRoadster
08-20-2001, 10:47 PM
Count me in on any meeting on the Sound or Lake Washington. I hope to have the Hornet back together and out on Lake Washington this weekend.

Kelly
08-22-2001, 03:10 AM
lake is do-able probably. let me know a date, and i'll see what i can do.

kelly

Forrest
08-24-2001, 08:53 AM
Great place for a Donzi event! I want to go! . . . well, I guess that it's not really practical or affordable for this North Florida boy to go though. Anyway, I know you guys will have a great time in one of the best boating places in the country!

Formula Jr
08-25-2001, 11:27 PM
Oky, ya want-a date....This next weekend. WHERE ARE WE MEETING?

oldLenny
08-25-2001, 11:32 PM
I am watching this like a HAWK!!!!!!!

Formula Jr
08-25-2001, 11:46 PM
OKY, this comming weekend I will be on Lake Wash. The remander of the week, its a tour of the San Juans meeting up with Len SomeWhere? You NW guys can lead or follow as you choose........but people will go places and have stories to tell either way. Jeff has good info.

MXRoadster
08-26-2001, 10:18 AM
I’m heading east to Banks Lake for the Labor Day weekend, so unless my plans change I won’t be able meet up this weekend. However, if I don’t finish installing the new throttle controls and get the boat running right I might get stuck staying on land. :mad:

David

Formula Jr
08-27-2001, 12:56 PM
What do you guys think of Camano Island State Park? Its pretty central. Looks like it will put me an hour away from both the islands and the Lk Wash.

Just called the Park and there's room, so thats where I will base from Thursday to Monday. Large gold/brown G30 Chevy Van. UHC 196.
Home Phone (541) 744-0032. Sorry no Cell Phone.

Formula Jr
09-09-2001, 02:08 AM
Puget Sound 2001


This years event was held at the Camano Island State Park. This is a lovely area, nestled on the Western side of the Island facing Saratoga Passage. Camping with launch privilages was 13 dollars a night. The camp sites are alittle tight for trailers but doable. I got in at Midnight, so I couldn't scope out much of the grounds before signing up for Lot 12. (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/lot12.jpg) This worked out well though, cause I could directly see the conditions of the Sound, North (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/northpassage.jpg) and South (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/southpassage.jpg) while listening intently on WX 4 (Canadian eh) and WX 1 (Local) for the most recent weather reports. The Sound is all about timing and local knowedge as you'll read shorty. I thought Camano Island would be ideal for running both to the San Juans and down to Lake Washington thru the Locks. First, I checked out the ramp. (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/ramp.jpg) Its a pretty barren (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/ramplot.jpg)setup: No dock and the beach is gravel with no protection. Fortunately there is a fresh water source for flushing (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/flush.jpg)after a day in the salty Sound. Of coarse being prepared is something I've grown to take lightly, so I had no tide tables, charts, compass or GPS- Don't need no stink'en charts! Tide looked to be going out which makes for a rather slippery ramp with all the kelp. Tides look to be about 8 feet in this area. So we splash the boat and run North on the inner passage to find Deception Pass. Deception is a tiny little crack that seperates Northern Whidbey Island from the mainland. I had heard many stories over the years about this run - some rather frightening. But first, I cruised deep into the bowls of Skagit Bay. Few waves, so I'm runnning 3/4 throttle. For the past quarter mile or so the drive doesn't feel right - there's some vibration - so I shut it down and can feel the boat settle right onto the muddy bottom. So there I am, a mile from anything in any direction, in all of 18 inches of water. So, I'm thinking, maybe those tide tables and charts would have been useful - Nah, I'd a run aground anyway. So I'm freaking out thinking the tide is heading for low. Fortunately the tide had been coming in for at least a half hour when I launched. It just appeared to be going out as the tidal swell backed up into the North end of the Passage and then jets out Deception Pass: Completely the opposite of what you would think it was doing. The next day, I got a pretty good idea of how stuck (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/skagitbay.jpg)I might have been if the tide was going out. A half hours worth of poleing along, got me in 2 1/2 feet where I could use the trailer setting to power out. Then I spot Deception Pass. (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/spotthepass.jpg) This is wild, the current is running fast out to the Sound, it looks like a white water run, whirlpools, falls, upwells, standing waves. COOL! The world becomes one great big airport terminal and you are standing on the moving walk. I'm just maintaining fast displacement speed, yet the shore and incoming boats are flying by. I'm looking for reefs in the boil and matching speed with the water so I don't get spun around, but the standing waves are splashing too close to the top of the transom. Then I say the heck with it, and gun the throttle and fly thru and out of the channel over the tops of the standing waves. As the exit opens up there is what looks like a river running IN the Sound. A mere 100 feet to the South off West Point are guys in small open fishing boats in water that looks like rolling glass. So I cut out of the channel into the glassy rollers for some beautiful smooth liftoffs. I get out about a quarter mile (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/justoff.jpg), stop and look around. I have no Idea where I am. I guess thats Lopez, I guess thats Orcas? "Don't need no stink'en charts" is starting to drill into my foolish mind. So I memorize the horizon and site the Deception Island Day Marker with the binoculars. I can get back. So with Henry stuffed in his PFD, me in my jacket with the kill switch landard, we cruise to Lawson Reef - which I thought at the time was Smith Island.

Rounded Lawson Reef and headed back to Deception Pass. On the North Sound side of the pass are two beautiful little bays. The first one (Lottas) was full of people and other dogs; so I power, practically sideways, into the second (unnamed) isolated little bay. (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/littlebay.jpg) What a great view! (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/medogbay.jpg) Best seat in the house to watch the other boats running in and out of the Pass: Watching big powerboats at full plane, making barely five knots to the land while the outgoing boats shoot by. Incredable!
We hang about 30 minutes, do a little remote beach cleanup and head back, this time taking the smaller inner pass (Canoe Pass) (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/canoepass.jpg)on the North side of Pass Island. At slow plane, I'm dead even with the land while huge upwells flow straight from the bottom and wash out, moving me side to side with each upward gush. In the middle of all this, creeps up a couple locals in a 14 foot, ancient Bellboy at near WOT. They come right along side and with big grins and ask If I'm fishing?! "I think they would get dizzy in this stuff. Don't You?" They just laughed, stuffed their throttle, veared to port and headed for a huge whirlpool area to drift and seek salmon. A little more learned now of the varity of depths available here, I stay in the channel.
Then the torque zinc lets go. I guess my little grounding frenched the threads, cause I could not get it to stay in place. So the trip back was an unsettling twister of a ride with the tab flipping back and forth throwing the wheel hard left and right. By the time I retrieved the boat and was runnning freshwater thru the engine, the tab gave up the ghost and completely fell off. Now I have to find a boat store on Camano Island.

Friday, I realized I had to get my act together if I was to meet up with that most excellent Canadian, Len.
Though the Camp Host seemed like a nice enough fella, he didn't know squat about the Island. Time to find someone dirty, standing near a boat. Easy doings on Camano. "Yea'll, its just past The Light (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/thelight.jpg)."
The Light. There are few things in life as heart warming as an Island population's pride in their STOP LIGHT. Everything is in Reference to that Light.
Good Resturant? Right next to The Light.
Short cut across the Island? Turn at The Light.
Boat Stuff? Three Miles Past THE LIGHT.
I played it cool though, I never asked "which light." That would have been insulting.

Sure as said, three mile beyond The Light, there be a well stocked boat store: no lattes, just good ol' boat stuff. And it came complete with a herd of grumpy old timers who think the Island went to hell the day they put in, "That Damn, Good For Nothing, Light! "

Unfortunately, the charts were not very readable - I hate 43 year old eyes.
So, I'm going to surprise Len. I'll take a ferry and give him a call when I'm on Vancouver Island.
This is when I find out just how isolated Len is from the good ol'USA and develope a real understanding of his difficult Donzi Quest. Round trip out of Anacortes (and I drove there to find this out) would have been 267 dollars US. With only two runs a day and 24 hour prior notification......OUCH! The Canadian Ferries need me all the way up into Canada at some town that isn't on any of my maps. Still 40 some odd US dollars each way. Double OUCH!

To get to the Port Angeles Ferry means driving all the way around Whidbey and taking another ferry to get to the Victoria international ferry: All at premium price, cause of the trailer and boat. So Camano Island didn't work as a central location after all. Fine, I'll just fix the boat and blast up to Anacortes next morning. On the phone, Len suggests the brilliant move of following one of the international ferrys into Sidney. Cool. I can do that. But the weather reports say Saturday was going to be miserable in the morning. And it was (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/itcomes.jpg), so we didn't get to meet up this year. I launched that morning anyway, and started running to Deception Pass, and was soaked to the bone (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/wetme.jpg) five minutes later.
So, I changed clothes after the weather lifted some, and decided to stay local in the now more familiar waters of Saratoga Passage. Eariler, Jeff (Blewbyu) had informed me by phone that locking thru to Lk. Washington was not really practical where I was at, as the canal speed was 7 mph and the big lock could take an hour or so to get thru. Strike Two for Camano State Park. It is a really beautiful place though.
So, I tooled down and around Holmes Harbor, looking for an old school buddy's place on Whidbey where we had outragious parties in the late 80's earily 90's. I didn't find it, but the sea lions and big jellyfish (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/jelly.jpg) freaked Henry out in an amusing way. The weather was clearing up nicely, so we ran (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/dogrun.jpg) down to Everett. Explored the Snohomish River (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/river.jpg) some and then tied up at city dock to look for a store. Everett doesn't have real stores on the water. It has "Shops" in a water front Mall. After waiting, what seemed like an hour while some woman demanded that her iced coffee be not stirred, I huffed back down to the dock with my fancy sandwitch, sodas and chips, to get back to the real world.
And behind Hat Island (Gedney), it was found. I might have been angry at something ill defined, I might have just been irked by Everett, but in any case, we played it behind Hat. Long beautifull rollers. Long setup times. Airborne freefalls you could count; one thousand, two thousand slam! And Henry........dear sweet Donzi Dog Henry, actually started growling (http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/biteyou.jpg) at me for this obvious abuse. I back off. He's pissed, and my arm is tired from holding him down. Ten minutes later, he is all licks and wag........ya gotta love a Dog's capacity for forgiveness.

Then near disaster while retreiving the boat. I landed and was backing the trailer down when I realized that that 70 foot yacht I had just watched go by, was making its mark on the shore. Too late to do anything, I could only watch as one-foot-over-the-gunnel walls of salt water crashed over and into my boat sending her high on the beach. Fortunately, there were a couple of friendly locals that helped pull/push the boat off the ground. Strike Three for Camano's unprotected ramp.

The next day we loaded up for Lake Washington to meet Jeff, Eric and Kathy. Another excellent adventure entirely......

:D

Forrest
09-10-2001, 11:10 AM
Looks to have been a great time. I always said that the Pacific Northwest has the greatest boating places in North America. One of these days, I want to make a Donzi run through the San Juans. I just don't think that my old Chevy van will make it from Tallahassee to Seattle on its own much less pulling a trailer. Miss Cleo (http://web6.mindandspirit.com/images/left.jpg) says it's time for me to stop foolin' 'round and get a new tow vehicle.

EricG
09-10-2001, 12:53 PM
Owen, as always, your literary Prowess amazes me!! :D

When are you going to get a book of your travels published, I'll be the first in line to buy it!!

EG

MXRoadster
09-10-2001, 11:29 PM
Owen, what a great story, I felt like I was riding shotgun the whole time.

Henry is very brave to take some of those photos :eek: http://www.epud.net/~owen/usethursday/wetme.jpg

David