Home Forums Fishing Saltwater Boating education in the San Juan Islands

I have boated a lot in the ocean when I was a hunting guide in Alaska. However it was remote and quite still water in the more protected and shallow runs back and forth from a bigger craft we used as base camp. I was primarily using an aluminum skiff or a zodiac.

This week was different for me. I put on exactly 290 miles in 7 days and burned 54 gallons of fuel. Some of the things learned may be simple and obvious to the seasoned guys running in salt, but for others considering this, maybe a couple things I mention will help them. One of the big items is RPM and MPG!

My fuel economy flying around at 40mph plus was about 3.5 MPG. When disciplined enough to stay at 4000 RPM which is 25MPH it was over 6MPG. This on average is over 100 miles per tank of fuel increase. Critical at sea where there is no fuel stop around every corner.

For starters my 48 gallon tank full of fuel makes the boat handle the wake from other boats much nicer. I think I could tell how much fuel is in my tank now just by the way it handles this. When another boat zooms past, get your boat to hit the wake head on, not sideways. Some of the bigger boats send a wake your way that will rock the boat enough to send items not lashed down flying when they hit you from the side.

Keeping a full tank also gets you more range and lets you go around islands and make shorter distant wide open rough water crossings. On the map you see the shortest distance to get back to the marina, but crossing the straights with 4-5 foot rollers can be nerve wracking to say the least. Heading up north to make that crossing a much shorter and more protected crossing is a far easier way to go. But not if you are now worried about fuel!

One thing that can help with this if your low on fuel and the water is rough, wait for the ferry that goes across, then get in behind it within a safe distance and ride the flat water behind it. The next thought is on the tides, which I had to deal with in AK as well. There may be areas that were safe to zip across in the morning that will rip out your hull in the afternoon. You gotta have a good depth finder, and maps. Also remember that the maps are likely in fathoms not in feet ( 1 fathom = 6 feet). Think about the route you're planning before you leave. Trying to read the little numbers on an LED screen while bouncing around on the sea at 25MPH is not easy.

Speaking of depth finders. For folks like me that are on the rivers 99% of the time, you probably set your sonar units to fresh water and to 100 foot or maybe less resolution on the screen. Using this in the sea will be a huge screw up. You must set the device to salt water, and change the resolution to at least or around 350 feet. Otherwise you will only have blank screen when the water is 250 feet deep and your screen resolution is set to 75 feet. Think about the settings and make them before you get under way. This was a big mistake for me last week. There are also areas of 60 feet deep then fall off to 200 feet deep with cliffs and valleys so when drifting bait you can be hung up and break the line or worse with a down rigger your lead ball.

When you see seals on the tiny rocky islands and the folks with you want to have photo's. Do this from the down wind side only. Do not shut down the boat or go into neutral to take pictures, the wind can get you into the rocks and spikes of stone just under the surface that are far from the island but still just under the water surface.

Doing this in the down wind side with just minimal throttle can keep you steady and the wind will blow you away from the rocks not into them. Don't get caught up in the excitement of the folks on the boat wanting pictures, just drive to the down wind side first.

One other odd situation that I cannot figure out, maybe somebody here can help me with this. We were on mirror flat water on the north end of Orcas looking at the fingers of the island north of us, traveling about 30ish MPH maybe a bit more. When just by luck I looked ahead of me and saw a wave coming about 4 feet tall, with no way of escape. We hung on and launched over it like Travis Pastrana on his dirt bike! The boat hit the water on the other side like a belly flop with a bang that scared me totally! Stuff flew off the seats, off the dash, I looked to see if the motors were dangling or just cracked off the transom!

Where in the world does one lone wave on an otherwise totally flat sea come from? This event screwed with me for the rest of the week. It happened again while we were fishing later in the week. The boat was off and drifting while we were jigging. My wife said look at this wave. It was about a 1 foot tall and ripping across the flat water coming towards us. Not big enough to matter, so I kept fishing. It was probably 500 yards away, hard to measure across open flat water. About 2 minutes go by and she says to me, " Hey look at that wave, you could surf on this". Holy crap! It's like 5 feet tall with white water boiling on the top edge. Now it's less then 100 yards away! I reel in the rod and start the motor, just in the nick of time to point the bow into the wave. We were not moving forward, just turned into this as it hit. We pointed what felt like nearly straight up and then eased back down the other side. That wave just continued on out of sight. I cannot imagine getting hit with that from the side! Both my wife and I have a significant paranoia from this now. We are like wave scouts constantly looking for these bizarre lone waves that come out of nowhere.

Over all our boat did everything I hoped. The solid back wall on the extended transom is fantastic. I would not have liked the wet well design in the salt water. The ocean stays out of the boat with the extended transom! Decelerating frequently to take wave impacts from other boats would cause the backwash to be a problem with a wet well (in my opinion). The big live well is priceless for sorting the crabs to keep the limit of the biggest ones. They can also live in there for days too!

Okay, so there is a few things from my 290 miles and 7 days of boating in the San Juans. The 18ft ET Pro V is a nice boat for this with some patience and staying alert to the conditions. It really inspired confidence after a few rough situations that showed us both we were safe in the boat even when the mistakes or conditions were not great!

Good post and good points. Common sense and safety is the only way to roll on the ocean.

The most likely explanation for the wave that you encountered is a tidally created wave and especially since it was single cresting wave that you could see approaching and continuing past. It sounds just like a bore tide which is similar (sort of) to a tsunami.

It's where one body of water that has a lower level (tide can still be outgoing) meets an incoming body water (flood tide) and creates a wave that progresses to the upper reaches of a bay or arm. Look it up on the internet for a better and more detailed explanation.

One thing to note on the tide chart is the difference in time of peak tides at different locations. The further away from the ocean the later the high tide occurs. This would also be more likely to occur with extreme high and minus low tides.

I'd be willing to bet that if you looked at the tide charts, a map, and noted the time of day that it was on incoming tide. The wave should also be coming in the same direction as an incoming tide but islands and wind direction could have an effect. Somebody with local knowledge would know about this phenomenon if it was a "tidal wave".

^^^ I used the wrong terminology. I did a brief google search and there are known areas around the San Juan Islands that are affected by "riptides".

Riptides are converging or opposing currents that create the wave and not necessarily two bodies of water at different levels.

One other thing. You might have encountered a standing wave/riptide that the current/wind pulled you into and past.

Well Riptides are an attention getting natural occurrence! Something that I will hopefully forever be attentive to. Getting hit in the side when they are 3-5 foot or bigger would be a devastating situation to say the least.

As it was hitting it head on was plenty scary!

A single 4' wave all by it's lonesome?

I live there an have traveled many thousands of miles in those waters but have never seen one of those.

Good to hear it's rare.
The one that was worst was at bird rocks, I was on the south west side and is came from the south at about 1PM

The other was at the north west side of Orcas while we were traveling to friday harbor.

You just got hit by a wake from another boat.

Wake can travel a great distance in the deep water around those islands. You often don't even know what boat set it up. For a real thrill, pass near a sub traveling on the surface - it can be exciting on a bunch of different levels.

Nothing to sneeze at though. A friend keeps his 35' sailboat two down from my slip in Port Townsend. Two years ago a big powerboat cut near him and the wake caught him off-guard. Fell against the binnacle & busted some ribs. Pretty tough guy though - decided not to see a doctor right away. He died about two days after the incident from a punctured lung.

You don't need to be smart or competent to drive a big boat. Given access to a throttle, a lot of guys figure they are re-incarnation of Nelson.