Hi Dick, We missed you by exactly a week! We did our annual cruise (on the Flicka this year) to Vancouver Island to see family, and returned via the west side of San Juan Island and through Cattle Pass on Friday the 23rd. We decided to wait the turn of current through the pass, and drifted off of Eagle Point for dinner. We weren't there for more than 10 minutes when an entire pod of Orcas ('K' pod maybe?) came right at us (I am aware of the restrictions regarding maintaining distance, but there is not much you can do when they insist on coming to you!). They put on quite a show--spy hopping, breaching, and finally, swimming right up to, and under, the boat. At least two youngsters and a really big male were present in the estimated 5-8 whales immediately around the boat. 6-7 others stayed a few hundred yards away. Quite moving, to say the least! We lingered for about an hour until they finally moved on. It was one of those amazing, flat, hot evenings (80 degrees F. at 7:00p) in the Strait, and we rode the flood all the way through Cattle Pass and back to Friday Harbor (9+ knots over the bottom per the GPS!). Ditto your comments regarding being careful out there. In contrast to our surreal summer evening, I have seen waves so steep and short in duration just south of Cattle Pass as to really put the fear in me. It can be deadly out there when there is a southerly blowing against an ebb current. Even riding the relatively benevolent flood in through the pass saw the Flicka dancing all around in the eddies and tide rips! Drop me a line when you are back in Silicon Valley. Scott M15 #478 'bebe' PSC Flicka In a message dated 8/1/04 11:14:10 PM, montgomery_boats-request@mailman.xmission.com writes:
Larry, on Friday I returned to Port Townsend from the Gulf Islands via
Cattle Pass between Lopez and San Juan Islands. As I exited the pass in
smooth water but a 4 kt ebbing current I could see what appeared to the
naked eye to be white cliffs about 2 miles ahead, using the binoculars
I could see that it was really a giant tide rip and a 40' cruiser was showing it's rudder and propellors as it tried to negotiate the maelstrom. I could see that about 30 deg east the "cliffs" were somewhat
lower and then beyond the waves was a fog bank so I installed the radar
display, battened everything down inserted the hatch boards and donned
my life vest. The lesser rip lasted for some 5 nm with Swoose rolling and pitching violently, I considered raising the sail to damp the rolling but on going forward to do so I found the deck to be dropping away from under my feet and decided it wasn't a prudent move at my advanced age and just motored steering to best quarter the waves. My dog
Bonita didn't like it one bit! Just north of Smith Island I spotted a big radar return about 5 miles away over my right shoulder, turned out
to be a Korean frieghter overtaking me at about 20 kt, no communication
on the VTS channel, thank goodness I had fired up the radar. As they say on the cop shows, "be careful out there". Dick