Touring the San Juans by ship, longboat and bicycle

Two of my sons had summer jobs as members of the crew of the Hawaiian Chieftain, a gaff rigged topsail ketch (tall ship) from the Historical Seaport of Grays Harbor. http://www.historicalseaport.org/web/hawaiian-chieftain.html

Benny was the engineer last year (the ship has a couple of diesels) and the bosun this year. Teddy was an able seaman before the mast. They went aboard on 6/26, and sailed around the coast of Washington and the San Juans for most of the summer. The Chieftain and her sister ship the Lady Washington visited various festivals, hosted a couple of summer camps aboard and ashore in the San Juans and took visitors on excursions. They had a passage from Anacortes to the San Juans scheduled, so my other son Danny and I planned to take a ride on the ship and then do a (ferry assisted) bike tour of the islands.

I was thinking about a credit card style trip and some B&Bs, but ran out of time to make reservations. Danny has been intrigued by ultra light backpacking so we decided to try ultra light bicycle touring. I had my Rando bike with a large Carradice seat bag and an Ortleib

handlebar bag. Danny had his cross bike with two large Ortleib panniers and a rack top trunk. We each packed one set of on bike and one set of off bike clothes, sleeping bag and pad and an ultralight 8’x10’ nylon waterproof tarp Linda had made. The tarps, were thin and small enough

to stuff in the pocket on the Carradice. Combined with some stakes and some parachute cord we could have a shelter for only about a pound. We were going to be near civilization so we planned to eat in restaurants rather than carrying food or cooking gear. Getting the bikes and gear organized was a last minute exercise and we got out of Corvallis around 10 on a Thursday. We stopped in Portland for lunch and to pick up a map at Powells’ and then headed north to Anacortes, arriving in time for a great dinner at the Brown Lantern.

Friday morning I had to do some work (a conference call and presentation through the miracle of remote computer access and hotel WiFi). After that we had some time to kill until the ship came in so we rode across the Deception Pass and down to Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island. We had a great BBQ lunch, and a nice ride around the island while we watched the Prowlers and Hornets in the pattern at the Naval Air Station. We got back to Anacortes with a little time to spare, and managed to grab a shower and get aboard the ship as they were offloading a group of campers. We set our bikes on the galley roof and the ship headed back out to sea at 6 pm after only two hours in port.

The Chieftain and Lady had been booked for commemoration of the Pig War at English Camp on San Juan Island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War and they had to be there at dawn. The wind wasn’t favorable, so the diesels were used for the passage. Nonetheless, it was a great ride. We were happy to see Benny and Teddy, hear about their adventures and see how they fit in the crew. We had dinner as they threaded their way through the narrow passages and ship and pleasure boat traffic of the islands. Eventually it got dark and the Chieftain proceeded to feel her way into the narrow passage past Roche Harbor and into English Camp. The passage was not a lot wider than the Willamette at Corvallis and the ship is 80 tons and 104 feet long. There was no moon, the crew was posted as lookouts at the front of the ship and the mate watched the radar in the cabin below and called up headings to the captain. It was a tense passage, but eventually we found the bay and discovered it was full of small boats, probably there to see the tall ship. We dropped the anchor at around 1 am and settled in for a short night. We were scheduled to fire a cannon salute for the flag raising at 9:00 am.

We woke early and the Lady Washington arrived while we were having breakfast. The Lady is twice as big, has half the horsepower and only one screw, so they’d anchored outside the passage overnight and done it easily in the daylight. The Chieftain weighed anchor and carefully maneuvered among the anchored yachts in close to the fort on shore. As the appointed hour approached, the guns were prepared and run out. Benny was the gunner, so he did the work. Three 3” cannons were loaded with black powder and at exactly 9 am the first one was fired. The half pound of black powder made a flash I could feel 20 feet away, a cloud of smoke and a big bang that echoed back from the hills around the Bay. Another cannon was fired on shore and the Lady joined in as Benny fired the last two guns.

After the salute, the Chieftain was skillfully anchored close to shore with the aid of a lead line, two anchors and a line to a tree. The last demonstration of seamanship was when the bicycles and Danny and I were offloaded into the longboat and we sailed to shore. We passed through the

re-enactors in their 17th century wool with our bicycles and lycra and proceeded up the hill and out of the National Park.

The ride around San Juan Island was a low traffic road along the marine cliffs. We hadn’t gone a half hour when we saw an Orca (killer whale) paralleling our course. He kept a touring cyclist pace just offshore until we turned inland an headed for Friday Harbor. We had lunch and then caught the ferry to Orcas Island.

By the time we got to Orcas, the day was quite warm. Danny wanted to cycle that island because it was described as the “most challenging”. We headed toward Moran State Park over several steep rollers in 90F heat. We scored a spot in the “primitive campground” and settled in. We set up our tarp, grabbed a quick shower (3 minutes/50cents) and headed downhill a couple of miles to Olga for supper. We arrived at the well reviewed Olga Café at 6:15, to find they had closed at 6. The other café in town had also closed at 6, so we were faced with several miles uphill to get back to our campsite and our iron rations. When we turned around we noticed that clouds had been building behind us on the descent and we immediately heard thunder. Uh oh.

Danny and I pushed uphill at a pace which was a balance between beating the rain and eliminating the benefit of our showers. We finally ended up at our camp sweaty but ahead of the rain and settled in to test our ultralight shelter against the thunderstorm that was rapidly approaching. Our supper was 2 cliff bars, some peanuts and some crackers with peanut butter and water. It wasn’t deluxe, but we’d had a big lunch and only ridden 40 miles, so we figured we’d survive. We were snug in our shelter and could hear the thunder approaching

We’d rigged the tarps with one as a ground cloth and the other stretched between a taut line about 3 feet off the ground and some stakes. It worked fine as a sun shade and when the rain was light and vertical. The gust front showed the limitation of the fundamental design when it immediately swept rain in the open end of the shelter. Our first step was to lower the front. That worked for a while, but when the heavy rain started drops bounced off the ground and into our space. We realized at this point why tents are low to the ground on all sides. If we’d anticipated this, we could have rigged the tarp like an a frame, draped over the taut line. By now the rain was heavy and the ground was wet, so changing our architecture would be a damp proposition. We decided to bring Danny’s bike inside the tarp and stake it down between us as a central support and stake the tarp down on all sides. That worked pretty well as a fundamental architecture, and after some minor adjustments we endured an impressive thunderstorm.

The next morning was steamy and hot and we were hungry. A couple more Cliff Bars were first breakfast. Our bike clothes hadn’t dried overnight, so we put on our “off bike” clothes and cleaned up the camp. First objective was to climb Mount Constitution before riding into town for breakfast. The climb turned out to be quite steep, even with low gearing and an “ultralight load”. It was about two thirds of a Mary’s Peak climb. At the top we had a coke and climbed the lookout tower for the fantastic view of the San Juans and Vancouver Island. It was a fast chilly descent off the mountain and then rollers back to East Sound. On the way into town we saw a sign for a pancake breakfast at the American Legion, and “all you can eat” was just what we were looking for.

After breakfast we rode back to the ferry terminal at Orcas. We had a pleasant ferry ride back to Anacortes and then rode the long way around to our hotel to miss the ferry traffic. Next morning Danny dropped me off at SeaTac for a business trip to Chicago and kept the car for another week in Seattle and Tacoma. We’d had a great time on the boat, seen the San Juans and learned about ultralight bicycle camping. In three days we rode about 100 mile, and saw most of the nice roads. It was a good place to ride, but without enough roads to go very far. Next time we go to the San Juans, it’ll be sea kayaking or bare boating.