Surfski Knowledge Base

Larry Goolsby
07/28/09 #6715

A few years ago, I had a friend visit from Germany and he was looking forward to a kayak trip in the San Juans. We loaded up my Libra XT and left Fairhaven Boatworks for a 4 day trip around Orcas Island. This was an Epic trip with big water in 3 locations and downwind runs. With July Madness going on, I wanted to retrace this route in the Libra XT except this time we would do it in one day. About 10 days ago I contacted Rick Lingbloom and he readily accepted the challenge.

We left Monday morning at 5:30 am from Fairhaven Boatworks with a lot of fluids and food and even sleeping bags in case the trip became too much of an endeavor. There was a flood tide so we had to start out going against it but the Washburn Tables showed us that we would have a push all the way around Orcas and back to Fairhaven. Our first stop was Cypress Island for a quick 15 minute break and to recheck our course. We were to pass through Obstruction Pass and finding this pass from the East side is no easy task: it's opening is hidden by some rock formations. Once we were in the pass, our speed jumped up to over 6 mph and we stayed there for the next couple of hours.

Our next stop was just before West Sound and again we were only on shore for about 15 minutes. By now we were about 24 miles into the 60+ that was our goal. By 11:30 am, we rounded the SW corner of Orcas and sought out the northerly current that the Washburn table had promised us. It wasn't there. The current was flowing against us like a river and to top that, a NW wind was also pushing against us. If we went very far offshore our speed dropped to 3.5 - 4, so we were forced to hug the rocks in order to maintain a 4.5 - 5 speed. This went on until almost 1:30 when we finally arrived at Pt. Doughty and took a 45 minute break. Pt. Doughty is one of my favorite camping spots with 300 degree views from 40 feet above the water.

At 2:00, the Washburn tables showed us a strong current going down the East side of Orcas so we set off hoping that this time we would have an easier push. The Libra XT has a 35“ beam and has a dry weight of 95 lbs so we had a lot of weight to push on this trip. We finally got the speed up to 7+ mph through this section and headed straight down to Lummi Rocks for our final stop. Rick was still paddling very strong when we arrived but the two of us didn't have enough arm strength to get lift the boat out of the water. The big question was “How are we going to load this beast onto my car”? Thanks to technology, we made a couple of calls and got Peter Marcus and Shaun to meet us at the Boatworks when we arrived to provide us with the muscle that we definitely no longer possessed.

The crossing from Pt. Carter to Fairhaven was the worst water that we encountered through the entire trip. Up until then, almost the complete route had been pond water or minimal chop but now we had waves coming down Hale's Pass and pounding our beam. The Libra was unshaken though this section. With about 3 miles to go, a power boat pulled up alongside of us and the gentleman at the helm said that he had stopped us to tell us that “we were a little to far out from shore”. This instantly put a smile on both of our faces as I mentioned that we had just left the other side of Orcas and Rick let him know that we were on mile 59 for the day. We then ran into Morris (getting more mileage) and this was followed by a passel of other skis out playing in the incredibly warm water.

We finished our trip at 7:10 PM (after scaring Mike by charging his V-12 with the Libra)and were met by Shaun and Peter. Shaun brought down some beers and sandwiches, which was a welcome site. Thank you Peter and Shaun for loading my boat onto my car. Total distance was 62.3 miles and our time was 13 hours and 40 minutes with 2 hours spent taking breaks. Rick was a great partner to do this with and I'm grateful he agreed to do this with me.
Larry Goolsby