Day 9 (Brown).
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Part of our plan for a leisurely trip home was to explore Deception Pass State Park a little bit, since we didn't have the chance to do that the first time we were there. So we paddled in to shore and found a hiking trail that went east along the water. Unfortunately neither of us remembered to bring any sort of camera. The trail continued east about as far as the point of land went, and then ended at a small beach. We overturned a grapefruit sized rock, and under it were 3 tiny sand crabs, ranging in size from about the diameter of a quarter, on down to the smallest which was smaller than a dime. It must have been a mom and two babies, cause when Deb bent down to look at them, the largest one reared up with its tiny little pincers out, ready to fight! Talk about courage in the face of overwhelming odds, that would be like facing off against Godzilla with a pocket knife. You could almost hear the little crab, "You want some of this??? YOU WANT SOME OF THIS??? I will CUT you!!!" We carefully replaced the rock, and nobody got hurt. On the way back, we came across a smallish deer eating by the side of the path. As we approached closer, it looked at us, and then went back to eating. We got within 15 feet of it before it casually turned and bounded off into the woods where it hid behind a tree and peered out at us. The rest of the walk was uneventful, and we paddled back to the boat to prepare for the next leg of our journey.
As we cast off and motored out of Cornet Bay, we looked back towards Deception Pass. The pass was invisible, completely shrouded in fog. I was pretty happy that we didn't have to go in that direction! We headed east, then turned the corner and motored south towards Skagit Bay. With the current helping us, we made good time. We were at low tide, and the north end of Skagit Bay becomes a huge, exposed mud flat in those conditions. As we motored past, Deb pointed out an eagle sitting on the mud. Then another, and another. In total we must have seen 15 eagles all just sitting there spread out across the mud flat! I'm not sure if fish get trapped in little pools there or if they just like mud, but it was pretty interesting!
Someplace near the south end of Skagit Bay we got some wind and put up the sails. We needed to go southwest for a bit, and then due west, and the wind was coming from the southwest. We'd be heading upwind, so not the fastest way to get there, but the wind was consistent, and we were happy to be sailing. We managed to average between 5 and 6 knots, a nice, comfortable, upwind speed for Renegade, and worked our way across the bay, dodging crab pot bouys. We saw one other sailboat and that was pretty much it. I guess nobody goes boating on a Wednesday. Eventually we were approaching the entrance to the channel into Oak Harbor, and we could see the first channel marker. We carefully motored into the channel, heeding the guidebooks note to "keep the markers close to starboard." However, it was now high tide, and there was plenty of depth, and plenty of room in the channel.
According to the book, you call the marina on the VHF, channel 16, for a slip assignment. Then they switch to working channel 68. I'm still a bit nervous using the VHF, mostly because I don't want to sound like the 75% of recreational boaters I hear who don't seem to know anything about proper radio use. Channel 16 is the distress/hailing frequency, the one that's monitored by every boat (or at least, supposed to be monitored by every boat...) as well as the Coast Guard, which added to my level of nervousness. What if I say the wrong thing? What if my inner Burt Reynolds surfaces and I say, "10-4, over and out?" Or worse, "C'mon back, good buddy???"
I set the radio to low power, then carefully keyed the mic, "*gulp* Oak Harbor Marina, Oak Harbor Marina, Renegade on one-six, over." I waited for the response. Nothing. Uhhhh... now what? We were getting pretty close to the marina entrance. I switched to 68 and tried again. Nothing. After a minute or so, I tried one more time on 16, and still no response. Finally I picked up my cell phone and called them. Again, no answer. It was about 4:50, and the office was supposed to be open until 5:00, but I guess they left early. I was now unsure what to do. Every other marina that I had stayed at someone had been available to assign us a slip.
"Let's just park in one of the empty slips in the guest moorage area," Deb suggested. My first thought was, "We can't just go park in any old spot, they won't like that." Then I realized this was a self-solving problem. If there was nobody around to assign a slip, there was nobody around to care what slip we were in. And if someone showed up who cared, well, then they could assign us a slip! So we followed the signs to the guest moorage area, found a slip that didn't have a reserved sign on it, and tied up the boat. Once on the dock, we found a small pay station with envelopes for after hours arrival. Ah, ok, I guess this is all normal procedure. Come to think of it, Langley marina had an after hours drop box as well, but in that case we had spoken to someone earlier in the day.
The next concern was that if we left the marina, how would we get back in? The after hours instructions mentioned returning your key card when you left, but there were no key cards to be found. We walked up to the marina office. There was another drop box there, but no key cards. There was also a big gate to the outside that had a key card reader, and the gate was closed. We found a sign for after hours help, and called the number, but nobody answered. Eventually a gentleman came through that looked like he worked there in some official capacity, and I told him of our plight.
"Oh, well, the gate locks, but the door actually stays unlocked until 11pm. Unless you need to be out after 11, you don't actually need a keycard." We went back to the boat, locked up, and got ready to walk into town for dinner.
I was excited to check out Oak Harbor. The other places we'd been on Whidbey Island were all really cool. Langley, Coupeville (not part of this sailing trip), Cornet Bay. The guidebook made it sound like a nice place. In hindsight, most of what the guidebook praised was about the marina itself, which was indeed very nice. They also mentioned that the town had a museum for the PBY Catalina, a cool amphibious plane from WW2 era. As we walked we came to the first bit of town, which had a "historic small downtown" feel to it. But as we walked through, it seemed that 50% of the storefronts were vacant, 30% were tattoo parlors, and the remaining 20% was a combination of really divey bars and nail salons. There were one or two totally generic restaurants that had no appeal. And, that was it, we passed through the "historic" section and found ourselves heading into less populated areas.
Sure that we had missed something, we got out Deb's phone to look up restaurants. There must be a brew pub or some kind of cafe or seafood place somewhere. After looking over the short list that The Phone presented, most of which were fast food or chain restaurants, we found a seafood place called Seabolts that had good reviews. It was another mile or so down the road, so we continued on. Soon we found ourselves in a busy, totally commercialized stretch lined with strip malls, chain stores, and fast food places. I generally despise these areas on a normal day, but after a week of quaint, unique, locally owned shops and restaurants, it was even worse. We continued on to Seabolts, which is basically a seafood market with some tables set up. Finally something with a little character! The food there was good, and the staff was friendly. If you find yourself in Oak Harbor, check it out, but my advice is to not ever find yourself in Oak Harbor.
After dinner we stopped by the grocery store to get some dessert items, and then made the long walk back to the marina. The moon was up, and the lights of the town looked pretty across the water. The marina was quiet, and without much else to do, we turned in for the night, with plans to visit the PBY museum the next day.
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