I have been having a conversation with @jssailem about a recent experience that my wife and I had while crossing the Strait of Juan De Fuca. The short version is that sailing south on a light wind day, but on an ebb current, I managed to wrap my topping lift around my top spreader. But my question is to ask experienced Northwest sailors about insights and incidents when crossing the Strait. What is your preferred route? How do you avoid (or handle) the worst of the weather and current effects when crossing? What counter intuitive information can you share about strategies that we might think would be helpful but actually might be the exact opposite? For example, I tend to favor Whidbey Island and head for the Point Partridge buoy, but I also think that the incoming swells (if any) or large wind waves tend to pile up on the shallow shelf east of that buoy, so I'm not really sure if my practice is a good one or a dangerous one... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I have a friend in my wintertime location who is a retired cargo ship captain, who once told me that some of the worst weather that he has ever been in was in the Strait Of Juan De Fuca...
I have a friend in my wintertime location who is a retired cargo ship captain, who once told me that some of the worst weather that he has ever been in was in the Strait Of Juan De Fuca...