USA are us

Day 2 - Montague to Friday Harbour

We left at 8:05 AM again this morning, bound for the USA; in particular Friday Harbour on San Juan Island. We chose this port of entry because we knew we could get there by early afternoon, leaving us lots of time to clear customs and such. We have also never been to the San Juan islands, so this seemed as good a time as any to check that off our list.

We motored in dead calm seas for most of the way. We did put out the Genoa for 18 minutes (making a total distance under sail of .7 miles for this trip so far), before the wind died again. We arrived at Friday Harbour customs dock by 1:15 PM. We finished with customs at 2:35 PM (lots of paperwork involved in getting a cruising permit, or so it seems). We are now legally in the US of A, where we will most likely be spending the best part of a month or two. The cruising permit is good for 1 full year, just in case. The weather here today was great, +20 degrees and no wind.

 We took the opportunity to walk around the town and grab a late lunch (early dinner) at a local restaurant. I did find a free, unprotected connection to the internet, but it was so slow it was essentially useless. So back to sailmail for now.

Tomorrow we will press on to Port Angeles, across the busy shipping lanes of the Juan de Fuca strait. This is at the east entrance of the Juan de Fuca and probably the start of the real adventure. So far we have traveled about 54 miles of the approximately 1200 miles to San Diego. We are definitely going to have to speed things up a mite, weather permitting of course.

{GMST}48|32.2035|N|123|01|W|Friday Harbor, USA|Friday Harbor, USA{GEND}