Stuart Island - Day Three

We awoke to a low tide with only 5 or so feet of water under the boat, which allowed me to wave at a large Dungeness crab as I pulled out the anchor. No stop at shore for us to use the facilities - we were on our way, to an as yet undecided location - either Stuart Island (still in the San Juans) or Bedwell Harbor on Pender, one of the Gulf Islands. Ultimately, the desire to put off going through customs, as well as a longing for an easy day had us stop short at Stuart.

Stuart is a private island with no ferry service. There is a 85-acre State Park with space for camping and mooring. We've stayed a few times before, always at Reid Harbor, though this time we stayed at Prevost Harbor to have a shorter trip to Canada. I was delighted to pass Seal Rock on our way in with the eponymous creatures lolling about in the sun.

After a picnic lunch, we hiked a short distance to the school library, which to my librarian's eyes could desperately use some weeding of mildewed volumes as well as some donations of new books. Visitors are welcome to "check out" books and return them before leaving the island. Some of the other visitors were squealing over the selection of TinTin books though, so I suppose there are some gems there.

The sun beat down mercilessly, so we rested in the shade of the stand selling t-shirts on the honor system from a treasure chest and gulped down paper cups of water from the adjacent container, left by some anonymous benefactors. Trent nodded off a bit, so I thought I'd take advantage of his grogginess and challenge him to a game of Bananagrams.

Afterwards, we returned to the boat for a dinner of albacore curry and rice. Rice is always a bit of a challenge on the alcohol stove, as the flame is not quite as controllable as the gas stove at home and this time I used the camping pan, which is thin and burns things easily. A small bite of rice was singed, but nothing too terrible. I had to make the curry and rice sequentially, as only one burner had fuel. I was careful to rinse everything with sea water before washing in the sink to avoid imparting a fishy smell for the remainder of the journey.

Trent was so exhausted, he fell asleep at 8 in our v-berth. Usually we leave the cushions for that part of the boat at home, but this time we took one out of the two along for napping purposes. We'll definitely repeat that next year. I read until 10 or so before falling asleep as well. I seem to sleep either much more or much less than my normal 7-8 hours on our sailing vacations.