We had a pleasant sail + motor from the Catalina meetup at Roche Harbor to Shallow Bay on the west side of Sucia Island on Sunday. Motored out of the bay, between San Juan Island and Spieden Island, then unfurled the sails for an easy, slow sail up towards President Channel, which separates Waldron Island and Orcas Island.

Not far out from the entrance to the channel, we spotted several whale watching boats and a few private boats all grouped up near the south tip of Waldron, Point Disney. Once my partner confirmed with her binoculars that she should see a dorsal fin, we immediately furled in the sails (the wind had just died anyway) and motored over to see what was going on.

Once we were close enough, we stayed behind the other boats and watched as the orcas moved past Point Disney into Presidents Channel and then disappeared.

After all that excitement, we motored on to Shallow Bay, where we anchored in fairly shallow water as the name might imply; with the tides we’ve seen between 7ft – 17ft under our depth sounder. We’ve now been here for three days, and will likely leave tomorrow to head to Sydney, BC to check in to Canada. There have been three other boats here, only one at a time, and none have stayed longer than a day so far.

On Sunday afternoon we took the dinghy to shore and walked the very short distance across the campground (unoccupied, this early in the season!) to look at Echo Bay, where there were only six boats anchored/moored, and I got a few pictures of this great blue heron.

This afternoon I took the dinghy for a spin around the anchorage to take pictures of whatever other birds I might see as well. I really like the electric motor, keeps things very quiet so I don’t disturb the wildlife.