August PNW Cruise: San Juan Island
“Defiance departing slip 22 alpha”, “Sojourner on channel 78 alpha requesting a slip for 2 nights”, The VHF radio traffic as we approached Roche Harbor was non-stop. The harbormaster on the VHF radio was talking continuously, managing the extremely high volume of traffic leaving the harbor, moving into a slip, in a holding pattern waiting for a slip or in the final bucket of “you are way down the list, what is your phone number, we’ll call if something opens up. I really felt as if I had flown into a ma jor international airport with the radio traffic occurring with multiple accents and the staccato instruction of the harbormaster being continuously fired back. As we moved through the marina toward the fuel dock, we had to stop and hold short of an intersecting fairway to allow a yacht the size of a frigate to depart. Looking around us we could see that every available spot was filled, sometimes with 4 boats jammed into a space meant for 2. We lo...