Butchart Garden by Sea

    How easy is it to go to Butchart Gardens by boat?     It is so easy and close that you can make it as a day trip and not spend the night.  But I suggest that you spend the night so you can tour the gardens after dark. Plus, they have a fireworks display on Saturday nights.

Not part of the San Juan's or even the Gulf Islands, 

Butchart Gardens should be on everyone's bucket list.

         I'll cover some of what I think are important elements for this adventure, but leave your trip planning to you.

• We stayed at Jones Island the night before as our jump off point, but Roche or Stuart are closer. I wanted to be near to our Haro Strait crossing just in case some weather or other issues came up. Nothing did.

• We planned our nine-mile 1 1/2 hour crossing of Haro Strait to match up with low wind forecasts and slack tide waters.

• Port of Sidney was our obvious Canada check-in place.

• We did have a Canadian chart in our plotter, a larger scale would have been nice but certainly not worth paying for.

• You really should have a dinghy or kayak, but a dinghy motor is not needed. You only paddle a quarter mile or much less from where you anchor.

• I planned to get to the garden early enough to anchor by 5pm, and then tour on the same day (before dark), and then again after dark.

• Tod Inlet is big; you will have no problem finding a place to anchor.

• Coming back, we carefully listened to the weather report for Haro Strait and took off at 6:30 am the next morning to beat out high winds. We never felt any wind or waves.

• Checking back in at Roche Harbor less than 24 hours after we left was simple and quick.

• It would have been very easy to extend this Canada visit to multiple days and destinations, but we had other plans back in the San Juans. for us, this Butchart visit was simply a quick overnighter. We will be back.

        Crossing Haro Strait was a cake walk, we followed our gps pointer straight to Sidney. 
 We had no discernible current set to counter, no swell to deal with. 

 The Port of Sidney customs dock is the first float when you clear the marina breakwater.

 No other boats were there, so we glided in, tied up, and picked up the phone to check in.  Check-in took a few minutes, they asked for our names, ages, boat name, and when we were leaving. Oh, and of course, they ask about firearms.  They give you a long number which you write on a piece of paper and tape to your boat window.  That's it, you are free to go.
We were in awe at the beauty and flowers at the Sidney Marina, not to mention all the very expensive big yachts.

For customs, just pick up the phone.

More pictures and story>>>

Did you know you can land your Dinghy at Lopez Village?

    How do you get to shore at Lopez Village? 

What you need to know is that there is a short stretch of public beach directly opposite the village.  And, there is a public stairway running from the beach to the village.

That's the good part, the bad part is that anchoring the mother ship directly offshore subjects you to all the wake action of boats going to and from Fisherman Bay.

The solution is to anchor inside Fisherman Bay or take a slip at one of the marinas and run back outside in the dinghy.

 The property on each side of this beach is private, but the stairs are public. There is one other access place that I will locate in a minute. What this means is that you may anchor your boat and then come ashore by dinghy right in the middle of Lopez Village. You won't have to walk from one of the resorts, almost a mile away in Fisherman Bay.

 

 The beach beyond this stairway in the background is private, but you may land your dinghy here and find yourself in the center of Lopez Village. It's only a hundred feet to the restrooms and free showers. The grocery store is a five-minute walk.

This is a Google images snapshot of popular Fisherman Bay on Lopez Island. The red dot is located where the public stairs and beach are located. 

You don't need to walk over a mile from Fisherman Bay to get groceries.

The village is adjacent to the stairs, so you can get ice cream and fudge with minimal effort. The grocery store is about a one-block walk. Btw, only fifty yards from the stairs is the public restroom with free hot showers. Suggested donation is $2, the water is really hot, and there is no timer that shuts off in the middle of your rinse, now how welcome is that?

If you have a navigation chart, you will find the stairs are almost directly opposite the red dolphin nav. aid in marking the submerged spit at the bay entrance. (This means you will drive your boat within a couple of hundred feet of the stairs, you can't miss them.)

The other beach access is south of the red dot (toward Fisherman Bay), about 1-2 blocks, it's a low-bank gravel parking lot with about fifty feet of frontage. There are no signs. The stretch between the two accesses is not a public beach. Be sure to drag your dinghy all the way up and tie it to the stairs.  At the highest tides, the beach is pretty much gone. 

Click below for a satellite view of  the Lopez Village beach access stairway

This Years Baby Deer Crop in the San Juans is alive and well on Lopez Island

     San Juan Islands animal pictures    

We came across this little guy while riding bikes around Lopez Island, a minute later it joined up with its twin and trotted off.

If you would like to see more of the fauna in the San Juan Islands, click here >More animals pics

Jones Island Mooring Buoy Breaks Away

Can you trust the state-maintained anchor buoys?     

I would like to but, who is  really responsible for the safety of your boat?

  Wow, it almost got us! Well not really but maybe it almost got someone.

We visited Jones one night right after the Fourth of July, and we anchored between the park buoys.

 We set our anchor well and stern tied to shore.  During the night, it really kicked up, the wind came from the north, blowing straight into the cove.  We were up at 3 am checking things, it wasn't until mid-morning that things calmed down.

Bid deal you say!

One week later, we were back at Jones, and we anchored in exactly the same place, but the park buoy we anchored behind was gone, it was laying, along with a bunch of rusty chain up at the top of the gangplank.

Flashback to the night a week earlier and I remember a rather large yacht tied up in front of us, and we were worried about ourselves dragging onto the beach.

  No one even considered that a park buoy would give way and set a vessel onto us.  BTW, at Roche Harbor some years ago, a big Bayliner dragged into us. We know firsthand how difficult things can get when boats don't stay where you want.

Here's the buoy, The shackle pin is missing.  It's hard to see in the picture, but the chain inside the tube is also ready to give way.  SURPRISE!

I have suggested before that before leaving an expensive boat tied to one of these things, one should back down on them just like setting your anchor. Hopefully that's what the last visitor did to this one.

It's interesting that the parks dept. installed new pilings and floats at Jones Island but ignored the obvious deteriorated chains.

Much later, I happened to be talking with a park ranger and mentioned buoy maintenance, and he said they were handled by a different department. Oh well! I guess that explains it.  I'm backing down even harder.

Anchoring at Roche Harbor for the Fourth of July

     How do you have a drama free 4th of July cruise in the San Juan Islands?    

 All great cruises have things in common.

• planning and preparation
• safety, comfort, and ambience
• simple itineraries and activities
• relaxing pace with friends and family

     Our plan was to leave La Conner the morning of the fourth, and then stop for kayaking in Deception Pass. 

Next, walk around Friday Harbor, grab some ice cream and make it to Roche about five o'clock.

Arriving at Roche we were not shocked or surprised that the place was really crowded. 

 Being a believer that you can always find room for one more boat, we took a quick tour of the rafting lines and decided to find a place to squeeze in out in the bay. After anchoring and checking out our swing and the swing of those around us I upped anchor and chose another nearby spot, this time very close to shore, but also with a better view. I set two hooks side by side to keep us off the near by rocks should the wind come up. One anchor would have been fine but I slept better for the extra five minutes' work.
The fireworks, as promised were very well done, the wind conveniently spun us around so that our cockpit faced the show and the smoke blew away from us.   All in all no complaints.

This pic although lacking something, does convey it was sunset.

Our dinghy is the odd one with the cool wood seat and centerboard trunk.

Roche sculpture along foot path by county dock

More sculpture

No rust, must be stainless steel.

Seeing a price tag with a sculpture brings out the art critic and connoisseur; feel free to purchase.

We finished the cruise with a stop over and hike at Stuart followed by a hot dog roast and  windy night anchored at Jones. 

The next day we ran over to hike and sail Sucia where we spent a  rather noisy evening at the dock on Fossil Bay.

 The fourth day, after a quick hike on Matia, and a drive by of the salmon pens at Deepwater Bay (Cypress), we were back at our slip in La Conner.

This was a pleasant, low key enjoyable little trip of about 110 miles.
(I really like my new laptop gps)  read about laptop gps here
BTW, the news Wed. night (three days after arriving back home) was that one of the 85 foot for sale yachts we were all ogling on the fourth burned and sunk at the dock at Roche.  It's really shocking (a little scary too) to see news pictures of a yacht you had just admired, and now sunk with just its charred stern above water next to the dock.

Click below to see a satellite view of Roche Harbor