We spent the next day exploring Bowman Bay, as planned. It was an abnormally beautiful summer day in the Pacific Northwest.
No rain.
All sunshine.
Calm seas.
The breeze began to pick up later in the afternoon. I didn’t think anything of it, though I should have noted the direction from which it was coming.
They were westerlies, and Bowman Bay’s entrance was due west. Not having enough foresight to be proactive, I enjoyed the remainder of the evening and called it a night.
BANG! SPLASH! BANG!
We woke to 2 or 3 foot swells rolling into the bay, likely because of strong winds out around the Olympic Peninsula. The currents were being pulled out by the ebbing of Deception Pass. The combination of the two competing forces caused the boat to face stern-in to the swells. We were being pulled out of the bay by the current, but the swells were racing inward. Very odd. To top it all off, thick heavy fog had settled.
It was a mini-version of the southeastern coast of Africa—currents running south, and gale-force winds blowing north. The swells almost appear to stand still at certain points. I apologize for my over-dramatization of these moments, but as someone who has yet to experience these across-the-globe locations, I enjoy imagining what it might be like. Besides, if my 5-year-old can pretend he is on a ship journeying to a distant shore while really just floating in a canoe on the lake, then I can dream too.
The boat was smashing up and over the swell, and our poor dinghy, tied just off our stern, was the object of a twisted tug-of-war game between the current and the swell. It would stretch far aft as the currents pulled, and then come racing back towards us with each large wave. She smashed right into the stern a couple of times before I finally said, “Sweet Jesus! We gotta get the hell outta here!”
My brother got the engine running while I began pulling up our anchor. Oh yeah, something I hadn’t mentioned up till this point—we didn’t have a windlass. Pulling up the anchor was a hand-over-hand process, and even though an Islander 32 isn’t the largest of boats, I still had quite a bit of chain.
We got the anchor up and pointed the bow straight out of the bay, being careful not to smash her into Coffin Rocks—a gnarly pair of rocks that sat 2 feet under the surface just outside of the bay’s entrance. Luckily, as I mentioned, the tide was on its way out so I could see the white water breaking fairly hard over the rocks. This made it much easier to pinpoint their location in the foggy darkness.
We made it out without any real trouble, but it was only 4 a.m. Where were we going to go? We couldn’t see 10 feet past the bow, the swells were beating against us like amusement park bumper cars, and it was dark. I quickly ran below to check the charts. I only had a handful of them, but it felt like I was rustling through stacks and stacks of posters—oh, and did I mention it was dark?
I finally found it. Chart 18429. According to the chart, if I simply pointed us just shy of due west, we wouldn’t bump into anything for at least 5 hours.
I suddenly heard Captain Ron’s voice in my head saying, “…don’t bump into anything. I’m gonna get some shut-eye.”
Directly west of us was Lopez Island. We figured that by the time the sun came up and burned off the fog, we would be skirting the island’s southern coast. So we pointed her due west and bore off to the south by a degree or two, and settled in for the foggy ride.
As we got further from shore, the sound of crashing waves began to fade. Soon all we could hear was the water hitting the boat, the hum of the diesel engine, and an occasional foghorn. Josh was out on the bow with our horn, sounding off the occasional blast. The fog was even thicker in Rosario Straight than it had been in the bay. I couldn’t even see the bow anymore, only slight bits of movement as Josh repositioned himself from time to time.
I also had to keep a very close eye on the compass in the cockpit. There was a moment where I had been so focused forward, a bit in awe of the fog’s thickness, that when I looked back down at the compass I realized I had done a full 90º turn to port! It was amazing how little directional awareness I had in the thick fog. After that I began to test myself, seeing if I could hold a straight course without staring at the compass. I would set a heading, hold it for a moment, look away from the compass for 30 seconds or so, and then recheck my heading. Not once did I manage to keep us on course. The fog was really messing with my head at that point. Thank God for compasses.
The sun was finally coming up, but the fog remained. Suddenly, as if we had sailed through a curtain, we were in the open. I could see Josh again. I could see the water. I could see in front of the boat. I looked around and to my bewilderment realized we were in a round clearing—a patch of fogless ocean. It was about 100 yards in diameter, a perfect circle with no fog, and I had just sailed right into it. I looked forward at Josh just as he turned to look back at me, both with the same silly expression on our faces that seemed to say, “Well then. What the hell is this all about?”
It was at that moment the craziest thing happened to us. Just as Josh was turning forward again, the bow of a massive cargo ship burst out of the fog. She was cruising directly north, up Rosario Straight. I had completely forgotten that this was a massive shipping lane (I mean, it’s not like the chart has the words, “Precautionary Area” printed on it right where I was sailing… Oh wait. Yes it does).
“GO ASTERN! GO ASTERN!” my brother screamed—trying to sound as nautically correct as possible. I believe he yelled, “go astern” a third time, but it was completely drowned out—the cargo ship had finally decided to sound off its massive foghorn. Deafening.
I turned hard to port. At this point, we were only 40 or 50 yards away, and it felt like it. We were looking practically straight up at her off our starboard side. Her stern hadn’t even come out of the fog yet, and her bow was already back in the fog on the north side. She was at least 600 feet long.
It was then that I took my eyes out of the sky and looked forward again, remembering that these ships leave a pretty serious wake. Sure enough, there it was. Just as we were approaching the fog I could finally see the ship’s stern and the huge wake that trailed it. I aimed our bow directly at the wake, hit the front edge, nosed up, and came flying down the backside. Our bow plunged into the up-curve of wake on the other side—and then emerged, bursting forth like a beachball that was held underwater. Needless to say, we all got a bit wet.
The excitement settled, we had a good nervous laugh, and the fog finally began to melt away. Just as I thought, we were a mile off the southern coast of Lopez Island with Iceberg Point off our starboard bow, and the Cattle Point Narrows just beyond.
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