This summer was going to change that. I had taken two weeks off from work and we were going to head north towards Desolation Sound. We were super excited about the trip and the time away. Unfortunately, the last week of school one of my wife's students accidentally ran into her knocking her to the floor. My wife ended up with a break in the distal end of her radius. The orthopedist ruled that she wouldn't be able to make the trip this summer since some of the stern-tie anchoring takes two people to manage the boat. Maybe if we had been there before and I had more experience with that terrain it would have been different, but for now the trip is delayed once again.
However, this last weekend we did get a chance to get out. We have had an unusually hot and dry spring and summer here in the PNW. With weekend temps predicted to hit 90 degrees, I thought of what might be a nice spot to go for a quick overnight, McMicken Island Marine State Park .
We had anchored overnight here a couple years ago and I really enjoyed it. McMicken is a small, 11.5 acre, island in Case inlet that is is connected to Harstene Island by a drying spit at a very low tide. Behind McMicken there is a very shallow, wide basin of a cove which makes for a great anchorage since Hastene Island shelters you from the prevailing southerlies. Not that there was any wind this weekend however. As usual in Pugets Sound, when we have nice weather, we don't have wind.
Saturday afternoon there was a 15' tide change at McMicken. With low water in Gig Harbor at around 1:30pm, we decided to leave as close to low slack as possible and catch the current south through the Narrows. Just an hour before we left the house my daughter and son-in-law called an invited themselves along as well. We scrambled to get some more food and then headed for the boat.
With the current running South it took us about 4 hours to get to McMicken even with a fuel stop at Zittel's Marina at Johnson Point. (An indication of how little we have been able to get on the boat over the past year is that it had been 14 months since we last filled up with fuel.)
When we got to McMicken all the mooring buoys on the back side of the island were taken. We anchored in about 20 feet of water with a nice view of Mt Rainier peeking over the trees of the island.
With the very hot weather, the shallow cove, and the large tide change we did something that we hardly ever do in Puget Sound. We went swimming! The waters of Puget Sound stay right around 50 degrees F year round except in certain places under certain very unusual conditions. This summer is one of those unusual conditions. I don't like cold water and normally when I jump in the Sound I am just as quickly jumping back out again. This time, I swam around for 20 minutes and convinced the rest of the family to join me.
We took off the next morning to catch the outgoing tied and get back home before the 90 temps made our PNW brains bake. A very nice quick escape, not much over 24 hours but a nice time with the family and a chance to enjoy South Puget Sound.
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