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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

James Island

After leaving Spencer Spit, we cruised over to the West side of James Island.  We found space at the dock and decided to risk it even though we had heard about the raccoon problem.  Across the dock was a Camino Troll named "Falcon" piloted by Paul and Sharron and a Yellow Lab named Luke.  We enjoyed visiting with them and look forward to seeing them on the water again soon.

Paul told us about his combat with the raccoons that visited him the previous night.  They were very aggressive and got a couple of lamb chops from his cooler.  They even knew how to operate the zippers on his camperback.  We decided to make sure we had no trash, food, or dog food in the cockpit.  We buttoned everything up secure and retired for the evening.  We slept extremely well, and were not disturbed in our sleep by the raccoon.  However Paul tells us the next morning that they did return.  I checked and could see that they in fact had unbuttoned my canvas and looked for food in our cockpit.  Since they found none, they left without leaving much but a couple of paw prints.

James Island has quite a bit of current that flows through the dock area during tidal changes.  It seems to have carved out a very deep cove.  We had some wakes mainly from a foot ferry that services Decatur Island.  Still a very pleasant spot to visit.  We walked the trails and checked the views across the isthmus to the East.  No early sun had us turning the heat on about 6:30AM.  Sleeping a little later than normal, something about a rocking boat.

Our return to Anacortes was uneventful, except for a large tanker that was being pushed down the Guemes Channel.  We gave them plenty of room.

Walldog, Willie and Jake.

1 comment:

Pat Anderson said...

Herb and Willie - James Island is a great spot! We had a harrowing adventure there ourselves one time when Halcyon was on the dock and we had to anchor out. Our anchor was WELL set, you are not kidding about the currents...we woke up in the middle of the night to see a sailboat mast directly above us! We dashed outside and found a sailboat trying to fend off us. He finally got rafted to another sailboat...guess it all ended well but it was sure exciting at the time!