April 29, 2011 - MacKaye Harbor guy's trip

I (Steve) had my semi-annual guys boat trip this weekend.  There were supposed to be 4 of us going, but at the last minute one of my friends found out his Mom was in the ER over in Bremerton so he obviously cancelled.  That left three of us.  Mike and Ted arrived Friday afternoon at 4:00.  After standing around on the dock looking at our "new" boat for a while, and then getting a tour of the inside, we were ready to go.  We left the dock about 4:45 and took a short trip over to Kiket Island.  We dropped anchor and cracked open a few beers to celebrate our new boat.  Even though we've had Adagio for almost a year now, these friends had never seen it.

We spend the evening listening to music in the salon and catching up with each other's lives.  On Saturday morning I woke up at 8:00 and pulled anchor so I could get through Deception Pass at slack current.

Deception Pass coming up.

Mike and Ted slept in a little and got up just about the time we arrived at Deception Pass.  We continued on to MacKaye Harbor on the south side of Lopez.  This is a nice bay, but can be exposed to some really nasty waves that will roll you all night.  Fortunately, we had calm conditions.  In fact, it was actually glassy-smooth at times.  We anchored here and then had breakfast.  Coffee, scrambled eggs and sausage - yummy.

Ted was not feeling too good.  He had a sore throat when he arrived on Friday and it was much worse on Saturday morning.  So, Mike and I took a dinghy ride over to Iceberg Point to go hike around while Ted took a nap.

Mike at the end of the trail; Iceberg Point.  Time to turn around.

After we had walked the entire length of Iceberg Point and turned around we noticed several whale watching boats not far offshore headed slowly our way.  We stopped and watched them and then POOF, several Orca whales surfaced and spouted!  Wow, what luck.  The whales were between the boats and shore, fairly close to us, and coming our way.

One of the Orca whales we saw on Saturday

Three of the five (approx) whales that passed right in front of us

The fleet of whale watching boats following the whales

At times I think I counted five whales in this pod.  One had a very large dorsal fin.  There appeared to be one smaller whale.  I was quite exciting to sit on a rock at watch this free show for more than 30 minutes.  Very lucky!  Too bad Ted was back in the boat asleep.

Ted's not feeling too good.  It was 70 degrees in the boat.

That night we BBQ's hamburgers and watched a movie.  We stayed up way too late so we slept in on Sunday.  Ted was still feeling pretty lousy on Sunday so we took it pretty easy.  We headed back in the afternoon to made the slack water at Deception Pass around 4:15 and then anchored just off Hope Island to BBQ chicken for dinner.  After dinner it was back to Shelter Bay.

It was a nice weekend with some decent weather.  The whales were definitely a special treat, but its always great to get together with my long-time friends.  I know these guys will be a part of my life forever....