Island Hopping in the Northern San Juans

Despite the fickle winds and warm temperatures, we’d gotten four small island visits under our belt.

Article and photos by Sean Grealish

Getting knee X-rays in an orthopedic clinic was not my intended start to the small boat cruising season. A crash while mountain biking had left me with muscle contusions and bone bruising in my ribs and left knee, serious enough that it was weeks before I was walking and breathing normally again. However, nothing was broken, so while my plans to take advantage of the moderate temperatures and often decent breeze present during early summer in the San Juan Islands had dashed to pieces, I knew an opportunity would present itself to retake the water before the summer concluded. Since Lazydog (Haven 12 ½) displaces 1,600lbs and carries no motor, she becomes quite the beast to muscle off her trailer and rowing for hours. So, I dutifully attended my physical therapy sessions and slowly, at least it felt slow at the time, I began to heal. By mid-July I was feeling healed enough to step Lazydog’s 24ft solid Douglas fir mast, and the stars aligned for my girlfriend Brianna to join me for what would be her first sail-and-oar experience.

After more than a month of uncertainty regarding my physical abilities, it was an incredible relief to romp across Bellingham Bay in 10-15 knots of wind and quickly put the low slung Migley point of Lummi Island behind us as we crossed Rosario Strait. The Strait has well earned its reputation amongst small boat cruisers, my previous crossings in Lazydog had been a blister-inducing 4 hour row and a wind against tide small craft advisory, so it felt like a gift to cross in a “normal” breeze for once. The tide was slack, leaving wavelets that Lazydog’s buoyant bow could punch through with ease as we set our sights on Matia Island, perhaps my favorite in the whole chain.

On our way into Rolfe Cove, we rounded the upturned rocks forming the southeastern bluff of the island. These buttresses are from Chuckanut formation, sandstone bedrock formed around 50 million years ago from the sediments of an ancient river. It is this rock that gives the northern San Juan Islands their iconic honeycomb cliffs and sculpted statues of sandstone along the water’s edge.