This trip was called off on the morning of departure. Rich could not make the dates; the weather was not the reason. It is kept here because the planning is worth keeping — the anchorage, the scope arithmetic, the no-anchor zone and the power plan all hold for the next time this weekend comes round.
Every forecast number below is frozen as it stood at 08:50 on Friday 18 September 2026, the morning it was scrubbed. It is a snapshot, not a forecast, and nothing on this page is updated any more. For live conditions go to the area pages.
One exception, stated rather than hidden: Thursday’s card is as it was built on 17 September. The model does not reach backwards, so that day could not be re-derived on the morning it was frozen.
Two nights at anchor in the one harbor on this water where the pub owns the dock you tie the dinghy to — 27.1 nm each way, neap tides, and nothing above 10 knots in any of the three areas crossed. The generator is aboard now, so Thursday night is spent at the slip loading the stack and running the generator’s first measured hour against it. Friday night still runs on batteries alone, because that is the number nobody has yet.
Aboard
Thu 17 → Sun 20
Total distance
54.2 nm
Fuel at 10 gph
≈70 gal
Window
Neap · 10 kt at worst
Before you go
The weekend is four days now, and the first of them is a working night at the slip. Everything here ticks, and the ticks live in this browser — open this page in the shop and again on the dock. The galley list assumes plant-based aboard, which is what the shore plan already assumes.
Galley — shelf stable
Buy once, the rest stays aboard
Cold box
Buy Wednesday or Thursday, not before
Drinks & water
The tanks are a separate job
Day
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Thu 17
—
—
Aboard at the slip — pasta, marinara, chickpeas
Fri 18
Oats and coffee, 08:00
Underway — sandwiches, made at the slip
Ashore — Emmy’s 16:30, Harbour Pub 18:15
Sat 19
Bagels, cream cheese, tomato, red onion
Farmers Market 10:00–14:00, snacks aboard
Ashore — Harbour Pub or the Alehouse
Sun 20
Coffee 07:30, bars underway
Alongside Everett ≈11:53
—
Two dinners aboard stay on the stores checklist as backup. A Friday night at a fourteen-tap pub on an island is not a reservation, and on Sunday everything ashore is shut.
Every hot meal in that table assumes the propane is working, and it is not yet — that is a Thursday job, and it is on the checklist below. If it is not fixed in time, an induction plate off the APEX boils water at about 1,500 W: roughly 375 Wh for a fifteen-minute boil, call it 1,100 Wh a day for three hot meals. That nearly doubles the Scenario B base, which is affordable now the generator is aboard — about another 45 minutes of running a day — and was not affordable before it. Coffee is the one that will actually annoy you.
Clothes — on the water
52–70°F, dry all four days
Nights and ashore
Lows of 52–56°F, two dark tender rides
Personal
The things nobody remembers
Electronics
And the one tool the weekend turns on
Papers and money
Small and boring until it is not
Cookware
None of the recipes work without these
Thursday’s own load
What goes down the dock
The galley
Every recipe here uses only what is on the shopping list above, and every one is one pot or one pan, because the washing-up water is the water in your tanks. Where a recipe wants something that is not on the list, it says so rather than assuming.
Pasta, marinara, chickpeas — Thursday dinner
Time
20 minutes, one pot, serves two
Water
2½ cups, measured. That is the whole trick
Method
Boil it, add 8 oz pasta, cook uncovered and stir often until the water is almost gone — 10 to 12 minutes
Then
Do not drain. Stir in the jar of marinara and a drained tin of chickpeas, heat three minutes
Finish
Olive oil, chili flakes, salt. Vegan cheese if you bought it
The absorption method exists for boats. Draining pasta at anchor is how you lose the water, the pasta or your grip on a hot pot — and the starch you would have poured over the side is what thickens the sauce.
Coconut chickpea curry — backup dinner one
Time
20 minutes, one pot
Start
Two tablespoons of curry paste in hot oil, one minute, until it smells of something
Add
A tin of coconut milk, a drained tin of chickpeas, sliced carrot and bell pepper
Simmer
Twelve minutes. Spinach stirred through at the end, off the heat
With
A rice pouch, warmed alongside or stirred straight in
Finish
Lemon and salt. Both matter more than you expect
This is the one that reheats best, which makes it the one worth cooking the night the shore plan falls through.
Sandwiches — four of them, no stove
1 · The lunch one
Sourdough, hummus, avocado, cucumber, spinach, chili flakes, salt. This is Friday underway
2 · The bagel
Vegan cream cheese, tomato, thin red onion, black pepper, a squeeze of lemon. Saturday breakfast
3 · The one-hander
Peanut butter and banana on sourdough. Survives a pocket and needs no plate
4 · The second-day
Last night’s curry or beans mashed onto bread with mustard and a pickle. Better than it sounds
Always
Mustard or mayo on both faces — it is what stops the bread going soft against the tomato
Cut
On the diagonal, so it can be eaten one-handed at the helm
Make Friday’s at the slip before you slip lines and wrap them in foil. You will not want to be building lunch abeam Edmonds with a ferry on the quarter. Tortillas are aboard if you would rather roll them.
Black bean tacos — backup dinner two
Time
Ten minutes, one pan
Beans
Drained tin, warmed with garlic powder and chili flakes. Mash about half so they hold together
Tortillas
Thirty seconds a side in the dry pan, stacked under a towel
Top
Salsa, avocado, spinach, lemon, vegan cheese
The fastest hot meal here, and the one to cook when you get back from the pub hungrier than you went.
Stovetop oats — Friday breakfast
Time
Eight minutes, one pot
Ratio
1 cup rolled oats, 1 cup water, 1 cup soy milk, a good pinch of salt
Method
Bring it up, stir, five minutes, then off the heat covered for two
Top
Peanut butter, banana, dried fruit. Dark chocolate if it is that kind of morning
The salt is not optional. Oats without it taste like the box they came in.
Tofu scramble — if the propane is fixed
Time
Twelve minutes, one pan
Method
Crumble the block of firm tofu straight into a hot oiled pan. Leave it alone for the first three minutes and let it color
Season
Salt, pepper, garlic powder, chili flakes
Finish
Spinach and cherry tomatoes at the end, off the heat
Serve
On toast, or rolled into a warm tortilla
Not on the list
A pinch of turmeric makes it look the part and nutritional yeast makes it taste it. Neither is bought
This one only exists if the stove works, which is the clearest argument on the page for sorting the propane on Thursday.
The 22:00 answer
Miso or a noodle cup, boiling water, three minutes. Nothing to wash and nothing to think about. Bagels and peanut butter do the same job cold.
Coffee
French press or AeroPress off boiled water — no power, no pod, nothing to fail. Which is also why no propane means no coffee unless the induction plate comes aboard. Of everything on this page, that is the one that will actually ruin a morning.
The window, per your own scoring
Three marine areas on each leg: 8-2 from the slip to Possession Point, 9 across to the Edmonds–Apple Cove line, 10 from there into Eagle Harbor. All three read Good on all three days. The numbers below are the last ones this page will carry: the 18 Sep build, taken the morning the trip was called off.
Day
8-2 · home water
9 · the crossing
10 · Eagle Harbor
Peak on the route
Fri 18
Good · 10.0 kt SSE
Good · 10.0 kt SE
Good · 10.0 kt S
10.0 kt, 09:00–11:00
Sat 19
Good · 5.2 kt W
Good · 6.2 kt NW
Good · 6.8 kt N
6.8 kt, 20:00
Sun 20
Good · 10.0 kt NW
Good · 10.1 kt NNW
Good · 10.0 kt N
10.1 kt, 12:00, in 9
Windcalm, under 3 ktlight, 3–6.5fresh, 6.5–8.58.5+, closing on your 10 kt linegray seas = zone ceiling, not a measurement
Seas read 2 ft on the zone forecast every day — the coarse NWS product doing what it always does over a 10-knot sea state. The wind limit is the one that governs, and on this last build it is the zone forecast driving all three 10.0 kt figures rather than the model: the model’s own worst hours are 8.6 kt SE in area 9 on Friday and 9.7 kt NW there on Sunday night. Neap on both sides of the crossing — 8-2 and 9 read little water moving — but area 10 never does, and area 9 still turns over 1.3 kt on the ebb.
Frozen 18 Sep 08:50, against the 1:38 AM PDT zone forecast and the 13:16Z model run. This is the last state of the forecast before the trip was scrubbed, and it is not the state the plan was written in. Two things moved overnight and both moved the wrong way. Friday came back up to 10 kt in all three areas, so the Excellent chips it carried on the 17th are gone. Sunday went from a 5–8 kt day to a 10 kt one — 10.0 kt NW in home water at 13:00, 10.1 kt NNW in area 9 at midday — which puts the northerly back on the nose for the whole return leg, on top of the foul flood. Had the trip run, Sunday would have been the day that needed watching, not Friday.
Read these wind numbers high, not low. The station aboard has now verified four completed days against what this site forecast for home water, and the forecast peak ran low by 3.5 kt on average — 17 Sep forecast 10.0 kt against a measured 12.2 kt gust, 16 Sep 15.0 against 15.6, 15 Sep 8.7 against 15.6, 14 Sep 6.0 against 10.4. Four days is a hint, not a calibration, but all four lean the same way. On the numbers above that puts Friday and Sunday both plausibly in the mid-teens in the gusts. Still inside the boat, and well inside the 20–33 kt Small Craft Advisory band — but not the “nothing above 10 knots” this trip was written up as.
And the fog got worse, not better. The morning it was frozen, the station read a dew point spread of 2.0°F — fog likely, against the 4°F watch line. The model had home water in fog 07:00–08:00 Friday, 04:00–12:00 Saturday, and 04:00–09:00 Sunday; area 9, the crossing, sat in it until 14:00 on Saturday. A weekend that reads Good on wind and seas throughout would have been run mostly on radar before lunch.
Day by day
Hourly model at 05:00, 11:00, 17:00 and 23:00, for the area that governs each day — except Thursday, which is today: its morning has already happened, so it carries the evening hours instead. Thursday is at the slip on shore power — it costs the anchor budget nothing, and it is where the generator gets proved.
Thu 17Aboard at the slip · EverettBest day · area 8-2
0 nm · shore power · propane · generator commissioning · lines stay on · measured at the slip 14:52: 1.7 kt WSW, gust 4.3, 69°F, spread 9.0°F
17:00
67°
WNW 5.6
Clear
19:00
62°
WNW 2.3
Clear
21:00
59°
ESE 2.3
Clear
23:00
57°
E 1.9
Clear
Peak 6.4 kt W @ 16:00 — already pastRain 0.00 inTide HW 9.1 ft 11:13 · HW 9.2 ft 20:46 · range 8.4 ftSun 06:48–19:18Generator window finish by 19:00
Load the stack
What
APEX 300 plus both B300K — three units, about 185 lb
When
20:46 — the 11:13 high has gone. Load near the top, not down a steep ramp. It is dark by then: sunset 19:18, so rig a light before you start
Where
Sited and strapped for the passage before anything is plugged in. A battery that slides at 8 kt is a battery you cannot reach
Then
Shore power to 100%. The weekend starts full
Fridge
Move it onto the 12 V house bank tonight, not Friday morning
Propane
Get the stove working. Every hot meal of the weekend hangs off it, and it is the one job here that cannot be done at anchor
185 lb is the published figures added up, not a dock weighing. Plan on it being a little more once cables and cases are in the count.
The measured hour
Before
Shore power unplugged, so the only thing feeding the stack is the generator. Note SoC on all three units
Place
Aft deck, exhaust over the transom, cans in the vented rack on deck
Run
Exactly 60 minutes, energy meter in line
Measure
Wh in on the meter · input watts the APEX reports · SoC on all three units before and after · fuel used
Also
Try it with eco mode on and with it off. Eco hunting under a varying load is the failure you want to find here, on a dock, in daylight
After
Shut down, let it cool, then shore power back on to fill overnight
The generator measures the rate. Shore power does the filling. You get the number without spending the night getting it.
Two things to settle first
Check the Port of Everett’s rule on running a generator in a slip before Thursday. Plenty of marinas prohibit it outright, and hearing it from a neighbor at 18:00 is the expensive way to find out. If the answer is no, the test still works ashore — what is being proved is the charging chain, not the boat.
You are sleeping aboard. The generator is shut down and cool long before that, the CO detector is tested the same day, and gasoline lives on deck in a vented rack. This is the first night gasoline has been aboard a diesel boat.
Fri 18Everett → Eagle HarborGood · area 8-2
27.1 nm · 3h23 @ 8 kt · lines off 10:00 · anchor down ≈13:23
08:00
54°
SSE 6.4
Fog
11:00
61°
S 6.4
Mostly clear
17:00
68°
W 3.7
Clear
23:00
55°
NNW 4.5
Clear
Seas 2 ft — zone ceilingPeak 10.0 kt SSE @ 09:00 — and 10.0 kt in all three areasCurrent 1.18 kt flood @ 09:11 in 9, slack 13:15 — fairFog 07:00–08:00 at Everett, to 10:00 in area 9Sun 06:49–19:16Your window 10:00 on, and not much before
Underway
Slip
10:00 — late on purpose; on the last build Everett was in fog 07:00–08:00 and clear by 09:00
Possession Pt
≈11:00, 8.1 nm in
Abeam Edmonds
≈11:45 — ferry lane, 30-minute headways, cross astern. Area 9 was the last water to clear — fog there through 10:00, clear from 11:00
Wing Point
≈13:13, then the dogleg in
Anchor down
≈13:23, inner harbor west of the ferry yard
Departure was set by fog, not wind. On the morning this page was frozen the station read a dew point spread of 2.0°F — fog likely, against the 4°F watch line — and the model had Everett in fog 07:00–08:00 and area 9, the crossing, in it until 10:00. A 10:00 slip would have put the boat abeam Edmonds at 11:45, an hour after the crossing cleared, which works with nothing in hand. The standing answer was: check the spread before letting the lines go, radar and AIS on from Possession Point, and if Mukilteo–Clinton is running blind, wait it out alongside.
Night one — on the hook
Where
Inner harbor, west of the ferry yard, 30–39 ft over mud
Scope
175 ft at 5:1 — set for the high, it is generous at the low
Range
HW 9.46 ft 12:40 → 1.14 ft 05:20. 8.3 ft out from under you
Protection
All quadrants. Nothing in the forecast tests it
Ashore
Tender to Harbour Marina ≈16:00; back before 21:00, in the dark
Anchor light on, GPS alarm set. A resident liveaboard fleet holds the west end — anchor at the edge of it, not in the middle.
If it’s wrong
If the southerly overperforms on the way down, Kingston (Appletree Cove) is 3 nm off waypoint 4, and Port Madison on north Bainbridge is dead flat in a southerly and 3 nm short.
At the harbor itself, the Bainbridge city dock is 300 yards from the anchorage: first-come, to 70 ft, 48 hours in any 7-day period.
Sat 19At anchor · Eagle HarborGood · area 10
Layover · 0 nm · nothing above 6.8 kt all day · fog to 10:00, overcast to 12:00
05:00
54°
WSW 2.3
Fog
11:00
56°
SSW 1.7
Overcast
17:00
67°
N 5.6
Partly cloudy
23:00
56°
N 5.6
Clear
Seas 2 ft — zone ceilingPeak 6.8 kt N @ 20:00Tide range HW 9.65 ft 14:09 → LW 1.36 ft 06:28Fog 05:00–10:00 here, to 14:00 out in area 9Sun 06:51–19:15Market 10:00–14:00
The day
10:00–14:00
Farmers Market, Town Square — 15 min from the city dock landing. Go at 11:00, not 10:00
midday
Museum of Art, free, on the walk back. Blackbird Bakery for coffee
afternoon
Waterfront Trail, or the tender round the harbor
evening
Harbour Pub again, or the Bainbridge Brewing Alehouse
Saturday morning was the foggiest stretch of the weekend, and it got worse on the last build. Fog over Eagle Harbor 05:00–10:00 and overcast until 12:00, with area 9 outside sitting in it until 14:00 — home water was fogged 04:00–12:00. Nothing about that stops a market run — it is 0.4 nm in the tender — but it is 0.4 nm across a working harbor with a ferry terminal in the middle of it. The plan was: wait for 11:00 if it is thick, take the handheld VHF, a white light you can hold up and a whistle, and cross north of the ferry track rather than along it. Blakely Harbor and the old mill ruins are 3 nm south — a long tender run on two spare batteries, so only if the APEX budget is running ahead of plan, and not before the afternoon clears it.
Night two — still on the hook
Range
HW 9.65 ft 14:09 → LW 1.36 ft 06:28. Same picture as Friday
Wind
5.6 kt N through the evening, peaking 6.8 kt at 20:00 — the quietest night of the three
Heat
Two hours on the 700 W setting before bed, thermostatted, then let the bedding hold it
Log
SoC and cumulative Wh at 20:00. Cabin temp at 22:00
Lows of 51–56°F, and the fog means a wet deck at dawn all three mornings. This is a blanket problem, not a kilowatt problem.
If you want heat anyway
Take the city dock for Saturday night, plug into the 30 A pedestal, recharge the whole stack in a few hours and run the heater all night.
First-come and no reservations, so it is a maybe rather than a plan — and it costs you the battery-only number the weekend exists to produce.
Sun 20Eagle Harbor → EverettGood · area 8-2
27.1 nm · 3h23 @ 8 kt · anchor up 08:30 · alongside ≈12:10 against the flood
05:00
51°
N 3.9
Fog
11:00
60°
NW 4.7
Clear
17:00
64°
NW 6.2
Clear
23:00
53°
NNW 4.7
Clear
Seas 2 ft — zone ceilingPeak 10.0 kt NW @ 13:00, 8-2 · 10.1 kt NNW in area 9Current 1.28 kt flood @ 10:54 in 9 — foul, slack 07:45Fog 04:00–09:00 at Everett, 06:00–09:00 in area 9Sun 06:52–19:12Your window the morning — wind and current both worsen after it
Underway
Anchor up
08:30
Wing Point
08:40
Skiff Point
09:06
Abeam Edmonds
10:08
Possession Pt
10:53
Alongside Everett
≈11:53
On the last build, both constraints were back. Sunday had gone from a 5–8 kt day to a 10 kt one overnight: 10.0 kt NW in home water at 13:00 and 10.1 kt NNW in area 9 at midday, which is a northerly on the nose for the whole northbound leg. And the water ran the same way — area 9 goes slack at 07:45 and then floods, southbound, against you, building to 1.28 kt by 10:54 and not slack again until 14:15. Anchor up at 08:30 and you punch that flood for most of the passage: call it 15–20 minutes on the 27.1 nm, alongside nearer 12:10 than 11:53. Leaving later only made both worse, which is why the morning stayed the answer. Flood sets south in the main basin — that is the standard convention, not something the NOAA feed states: it returns no flood direction for PUG1611.
Before you slip the hook
08:00
Final SoC and cumulative Wh — the number this trip was for
Cabin
Temp at 06:00, against the 22:00 reading
Ground tackle
Rode rinsed as it comes up; mud holds
Registration
Nothing to settle — the anchoring stay was free
Everything ashore is shut on a Sunday morning. Coffee aboard.
If the northerly is early
By the last build it was neither early nor small: 10.0 kt NW in home water peaking at 13:00, 10.1 kt NNW in area 9 at midday, and 9.7 kt still blowing there at 23:00. That is the 10 kt line rather than past it — all three areas still chip Good — but it is on the nose the whole way and it arrives with a foul flood underneath it.
With the station running 3.5 kt under the forecast all week, the honest bad case was a 13–14 kt northerly against the boat for three hours: a slow, wet ride up the main basin, not a dangerous one. Had the trip run, Sunday — not Friday — would have been the day worth watching, and the third-night-and-go-Monday option below would have earned its place.
The unhurried answer is to stay a third night and go Monday — which the power budget can carry only under Scenario C, and that is exactly the kind of thing this weekend is measuring.
The route
Out through Port Gardner, east of Hat Island, round Possession Point, then straight down the middle of the main basin past Edmonds and President Point to Wing Point. Three marine areas, nine waypoints, 27.1 nm.
The passage, over USGS aerial imagery. Nine waypoints, the track between them, the three ferry crossings it meets, and the two harbors to duck into. Tap to enlarge.Enlarge ⤢Close ✕
Everett to Eagle Harbor. Dashes are the track; the dotted lines are the two ferry crossings it meets; the hollow marks are the two places to duck into.Enlarge ⤢Close ✕
Reading the track
The outlines are the WDFW marine-area boundaries — the same ones the conditions pages are drawn from — so they follow the shoreline where the shoreline is the boundary. The track is the rhumb line between waypoints, not a route around a hazard: check it against the chart before you load it.
0 → 3
Out of Port Gardner and round Possession Point, 8.1 nm
3 → 6
The long middle: 14.2 nm straight down the basin
6 → 8
Skiff Point, Wing Point, and the dogleg in, 4.8 nm
Waypoints 4 and 7 are the two that matter: the Edmonds–Kingston lane crosses at 4, and the Seattle–Bainbridge ferries use the entrance at 7.
#
Waypoint
Position
Leg
Cum
Brg
ETA
0
Port of Everett, 12th St Marina
47°59.17′N 122°13.57′W
—
0.0
—
10:00
1
Port Gardner fairway, Jetty Is. S end
47°57.60′N 122°15.18′W
1.9
1.9
214°
10:14
2
Hat (Gedney) Is. — 1 nm SE
47°56.10′N 122°18.12′W
2.5
4.4
233°
10:32
3
Possession Point
47°54.36′N 122°22.98′W
3.7
8.1
242°
11:00
4
Mid-channel abeam Edmonds
47°48.60′N 122°25.62′W
6.0
14.1
197°
11:45
5
Mid-channel abeam President Point
47°44.70′N 122°27.60′W
4.1
18.2
199°
12:16
6
Skiff Point, Bainbridge
47°40.74′N 122°29.13′W
4.1
22.3
195°
12:47
7
Wing Point / Eagle Hbr entrance
47°37.27′N 122°29.31′W
3.5
25.8
182°
13:13
8
Anchorage, inner Eagle Harbor
47°37.44′N 122°31.20′W
1.3
27.1
278°
13:23
Current is not a factor here
MA 8-2 maxes at 0.36 kt and MA 10 at 0.89 kt, and nothing on the track is a gate. Flood runs 08:26 to slack 15:26 in 8-2, so the first hour is very slightly against and the rest is a wash. This is the rare route where you leave when it suits you.
If it goes wrong
Kingston (Appletree Cove) sits 3 nm off waypoint 4. Port Madison on north Bainbridge is dead flat in a southerly and 3 nm short of Eagle Harbor. Neither is needed in this forecast; both are worth having on the plotter before you leave.
Where the hook goes
47°37.4′N 122°31.2′W · 30–39 ft · mud · excellent holding
Eagle Harbor from above. The red outline is the federal no-anchor zone, plotted from the coordinates in the regulation; the green line is 122°30.6′W. The shaded water is where to anchor, with one boat’s swing at 5:1 drawn to scale inside it. Landmark dots are placed by eye off this photograph — near enough to find them, not survey positions.Enlarge ⤢Close ✕
Eagle Harbor. The dashed box is the federal no-anchor zone, plotted from the coordinates in the rule itself; the green line is 122°30.6′W, the circle is your swing at 175 ft of rode, and the dotted runs are the tender to each landing.Enlarge ⤢Close ✕
The zone boundary is plotted from the coordinates in the regulation itself. Everything else on that diagram is placed from published positions to show you what is where — it is not a chart, and nothing on it should be measured.
The anchorage
Eagle Harbor runs WNW about 1.7 nm from Wing Point. The public anchorage is the inner, western portion — west of the Washington State Ferries maintenance yard, east of the private tidelands at the head. Protected from every quadrant the weekend has in it.
It is busy. The aerial above is not flattering the place: the north half of the inner basin is marina docks and a standing mooring field, and there are boats on the hook in the gaps. Room exists, on the south side and east of the moorings, but it is the edge of somebody else’s neighborhood rather than an empty bay. Arrive with daylight in hand, look before you commit, and have the city dock in mind.
Depth at HW
≈30 ft
Bow roller
+5 ft
Total
35 ft
Rode at 5:1
175 ft
Friday HW 9.46 ft at 12:40 drops to 1.14 ft by 05:20 — 8.3 ft out from under you overnight. Set scope for the high and it is generous at the low, which is the right way round.
The no-anchor zone
A federal Regulated Navigation Area covers the capped contaminated sediment from the old Wyckoff creosote works — 33 CFR 165.1309. Anchoring, dredging, dragging, seining, bottom fishing and salvage are all prohibited. Transit is fine.
47°36′56″N 122°30′36″W
47°37′11″N 122°30′36″W
47°37′25″N 122°30′17″W
47°37′24″N 122°30′02″W
47°37′16″N 122°29′55″W
47°37′03″N 122°30′02″W
thence along the shoreline back to the start
Stay west of 122°30.6′W and you are clear of it — the same water the city points visitors at anyway. Chart the boundary before you go, not after you have dropped.
Setting it, and sleeping through it
Mud over a soft bottom, 30–39 ft, and a harbor that has been taking boats for a century. None of this is difficult water. It is worth doing properly anyway, because the whole point of the weekend is that nobody is watching the boat but you.
The approach
Wing Point
Round it wide. The channel is narrow here and the ferries use it
Inbound
WNW up the middle, past the ferry terminal on the south shore
The line
Keep going until you are west of 122°30.6′W. That is the whole rule
Pick a spot
West of the liveaboard fleet, not in among it. 30–39 ft on the sounder
Circle once
Run a slow circle over where you intend to lie and watch the depth. Ten seconds of looking beats an hour of regretting
Setting
Head up
Into whatever wind there is — at 13:23 Friday there is almost none. The flood in Eagle Harbor turns at 11:24, so what you have is a light ebb, about 0.3 kt by 14:11. Use that instead
Lower
Under power, slowly, with the boat moving astern at walking pace. Piling chain on the hook is how it fouls
Pay out
175 ft, marked. All of it — 5:1 on 35 ft of depth plus freeboard
Snub
Take the load on a snubber, not the windlass. The windlass is a lifting tool
Back down
Idle astern, then 1200 rpm for thirty seconds. Hand on the rode: a dragging anchor buzzes, a set one thrums and stops
Mark it
Anchor alarm on the plotter AND the phone. Radius 250 ft — swing plus error
Through the night
Swing
211 ft of radius — 171 ft of horizontal reach plus 40 of boat. Not 215: some of that 175 ft of rode is going down
Depth drops
8.3 ft leaves overnight. 35 ft at midnight is 27 at dawn — scope goes UP as the tide falls, which is the right way round
Wind
6.8 kt N at 20:00 Saturday, and the north shore takes it. Sunday’s 10 kt northerly arrives after you have gone
Check
Look out once before bed and once if you wake. The plotter track should be a fan, not a line that walks
Light
On from dusk. It is a working harbor with a ferry running past it at night
Scope: why 5:1 and not 7:1
The number everyone quotes is 7:1, and the number on this plan is 5:1. Both are defensible; what follows is why this one, here, this weekend. The short version: the angle you buy between five and seven is small, the swing room it costs is not, and Eagle Harbor is full of other people’s boats.
Scope is the rode divided by the height from the seabed to the bow roller — not by the depth. Forget the 5 ft of bow and you pay out 150 ft thinking it is 5:1 when it is 4.3:1.Enlarge ⤢Close ✕
What the ratio actually buys
An anchor holds because it is being dragged along the bottom, which drives the fluke deeper. Pull it upward and the same fluke levers out. Scope is the lever arm: it sets the angle the rode makes at the shank.
That angle is exact geometry — the sine of it is one over the scope — so it can be drawn honestly and measured off the page. How much holding each angle is worth is not exact: that depends on the anchor and what the bottom is made of, and anyone quoting you a percentage is quoting a specific anchor in a specific mud.
The returns diminish, fast
3:1 → 5:1
7.9° flatter. The difference between a hook that may skip and one that digs
5:1 → 7:1
3.3° flatter, for 70 ft more rode
7:1 → 10:1
2.5° flatter, for another 105 ft
The shape
Most of what scope does for you is done by the time you reach five
This is why 5:1 is the working number and 3:1 is the one to be suspicious of. The cliff is below five, not above it.
The same anchor, four scopes, drawn true to scale — no vertical exaggeration anywhere on this one, so the angles are the angles. The gap between 3:1 and 5:1 is visibly larger than the gap between 5:1 and everything beyond it.Enlarge ⤢Close ✕
All chain hangs in a curve, and that curve is doing the work: at rest the last stretch lies flat along the bottom and the pull at the shank is already horizontal, whatever the ratio says. Wind straightens it, and the angle in the figure above is what you get back.Enlarge ⤢Close ✕
Chain is why 5:1 is enough here
A rope rode is nearly weightless in water, so it runs more or less straight from bow to anchor and the geometry above is what you actually have. Chain sags, and the sag keeps the pull horizontal until there is enough load to pick the whole catenary up off the bottom.
Nothing this weekend gets close to that load. The highest wind anywhere on the route is 10 kt, and the anchorage itself sees 6.8 kt at its worst, on the Saturday evening. Chain at 5:1 in 7 kt is barely being asked a question — and it would still be barely asked at the 10 kt the station’s running 3.5 kt bias would put there.
When it should be 7:1, or more
Wind forecast up
Anything above about 20 kt. Let it out before it blows, not during
Rope rode
No catenary to spend, so the straight-line angle is the real one
Poor holding
Weed, shale, hard sand — anywhere the fluke has to work to get in
A lee shore
If dragging puts you on rocks rather than in open water
Room to do it
And this is the catch. More scope is free only when the circle is
None of those is true here, which is the whole argument. Change any one of them and the answer changes with it — more scope is nearly always the right call when you have the room.
Scope
Rode at 35 ft
Angle at the anchor
Swing circle
Fits here?
3:1
105 ft
19.5°
278 ft across
Too little. Skips
5:1
175 ft
11.5°
423 ft across
This plan
7:1
245 ft
8.2°
565 ft across
142 ft more, in a full harbor
10:1
350 ft
5.7°
776 ft across
Only in an empty bay
True scale, looking down. The anchor is the dot; the boat can be anywhere on its ring when the wind or the tide turns it. Going from 5:1 to 7:1 adds about 140 ft to the diameter of the circle you need nobody else to be standing in.Enlarge ⤢Close ✕
Set it for high water
Scope is worst at the top of the tide, because that is when there is most water under you. Friday’s high is 9.46 ft at 12:40 and the low is 1.14 ft at 05:20 — 8.3 ft leaves overnight.
At HW, midnight
35 ft under the roller. 175 ft is 5.0:1
At LW, dawn
26.7 ft under the roller. The same 175 ft is 6.6:1
So
Set for the high and the night improves as it goes. Set for the low and it gets worse while you sleep
This is the one that catches people, because the arithmetic runs the opposite way to the worry: the falling tide is making your anchor safer, not less safe.
The snubber is part of the answer
A nylon snubber stretches, and stretching is what absorbs the snatch load that would otherwise straighten the chain and jerk the anchor. It does at high load roughly what the catenary does at low load.
It also takes the load off the windlass, which is a lifting tool and not a mooring cleat. Neither of those is optional at 5:1. If you are going to run less scope than the textbook, run the thing that makes less scope behave.
Doing it single-handed
Two people make this easy and one person makes it a sequence. The trick is that nothing has to happen quickly — the boat at idle astern moves slower than you walk, and the harbor is flat.
Set up first
Rode flaked and free, snubber and its line already on the bow, boathook out, windlass breaker on, remote in your pocket
Pick the spot
Slow circle, watch the sounder, choose where the BOW ends up — not where the helm is when you stop
Stop the boat
Neutral, let her lose way completely. A boat still moving ahead lays chain on top of the anchor
Drop from the helm
The windlass remote means you never leave the wheel. Lower — do not free-fall — until it touches
Drift back
Idle astern, paying out as she goes. Count the marks. 175 ft is most of the locker
Snub, then set
Snubber on, then 1200 rpm astern for thirty seconds with a hand on the line
Fix your position
Two transits ashore, or drop a waypoint. That is how you will know at 02:00 whether anything moved
If any step goes wrong, put it in neutral and start again. Nothing is on fire, and the second attempt is always better than the rescued first one.
The drill, in order
1
Depth at the spot, at the state of tide you are in now
2
Multiply by 5, add the bow height, that is your rode
3
Head up, stop, lower to the bottom
4
Astern at idle, pay out to the mark
5
Snubber on, load off the windlass
6
Astern at 1200 rpm, thirty seconds, hand on the rode
7
Transits or a waypoint, alarm radius 250 ft
8
Look back at where you were when you dropped. It should be astern of you, not abeam
Eight steps, about ten minutes, and it is the same eight every time — which is the point of writing them down.
What good holding feels like here
Eagle Harbor is soft mud. The anchor goes in easily and holds well, but it comes up with half the bottom attached and it will not set in a hurry — give it the slow astern and the full scope rather than a short pull at 1500 rpm, which in mud digs a trench instead of a hole.
If it does not bite in two tries, move rather than argue with it. There is a lot of room west of the fleet and no reason to take the first spot.
Getting it back
Motor up
Drive up to the rode as the windlass takes it. Do not winch the boat to the anchor
Break out
Straight up and snub. If it is stubborn, a slow circle usually rolls it out
Wash it
Mud on deck for the whole trip home otherwise. The deck wash is the tool
Foul risk
This harbor has a century of junk in it and a capped creosote site. If it comes up with something attached, stop and look before it reaches the roller
If the anchorage is wrong
The Bainbridge city dock is 300 yards away: first-come, vessels to 70 ft, 48-hour maximum in any 7-day period, rafting two deep, 30 A and 50 A pedestals, free showers on the receipt code. No guest buoys. It is the fallback for weather and for power.
Housekeeping
Register
The city asks visiting boats to register — harbor@bainbridgewa.gov. 30 days max
Discharge
None, of any kind. Free pumpout at the SW end of the city dock, 24/7
Neighbors
A resident liveaboard fleet holds the west end. Anchor at the edge of it, not in the middle
Ashore
The tender lands free in two places, and the pub owns one of them.
Tender landing
Harbour Marina
233 Parfitt Way SW, directly below the Harbour Public House. Complimentary dinghy tie-up at the south end of the easternmost dock for patrons. Dockmaster 206-550-5340. This is the one to use
Waterfront Park
Free beach launch, and dinghies tie in the marked yellow section for day use. Closer to Winslow Way and the market
Sunset 19:14, dusk 19:45. The ride back is in the dark both nights — headlamp and a working flashlight in the tender, not a phone torch.
Friday evening
≈16:00
Tender in to Harbour Marina
16:15
Parfitt Way → Winslow Way, 0.6 mi, ~12 min, uphill on the way in
16:30
Emmy’s Vege House, 100 Winslow Way — plant-based, Mon–Sat 11:00–19:00. Closes at seven, so this is an early dinner
18:15
Harbour Public House, 231 Parfitt Way SW — Tue–Sat 11:00–22:00, 14 Northwest taps, on the water, full of people who live here
≈21:00
Tender back. Anchor light on, GPS anchor alarm set
Sunday everything shuts. Emmy’s is closed Sundays, the Harbour Pub Sunday and Monday. You are leaving at 08:30 anyway — coffee aboard.
Send this plan
A float plan is only worth writing if somebody ashore is holding it. This one is filled in from the rest of this page; the blanks are the things only you can supply. Send it to one person who will notice you are late.
FLOAT PLAN - Eagle Harbor Weekend
VESSEL OTIUM (renaming to TANGLEFOOT), 1987 Bayliner 3288, 32 ft
BERTH Port of Everett
SKIPPER Rich - mobile ____________
ABOARD ____________________________
RADIO VHF 16 and 68. MMSI ____________
DEPART Friday 18 September 2026, 10:00, from the Port of Everett
ROUTE Port Gardner, east of Hat Island, round Possession Point, down
the main basin past Edmonds and President Point to Wing Point,
then in to Eagle Harbor.
27.1 nm, about 3h25 at 8 kt. Marine areas 8-2, 9 and 10.
ANCHOR Eagle Harbor, Bainbridge Island - inner harbor, west of the
ferry terminal. Roughly 47 37.3 N, 122 31.2 W (approximate).
Two nights at anchor.
RETURN Sunday 20 September 2026 - anchor up 08:30, alongside at
Everett about 11:53.
EXPECT NO CONTACT
There is little or no cell signal over much of this route and none is
expected from the anchorage. Silence is not a reason to worry.
IF OVERDUE
If I am more than three hours past the return time above and you
cannot reach me:
1. Call the Port of Everett marina office and ask whether the boat
is back in her slip.
2. If she is not, call the US Coast Guard - VHF channel 16 if you
have a radio, otherwise dial 911 and ask for the Coast Guard.
Give them this plan. The route, the anchorage and the times above
are what they will ask for.
THE FULL PLAN - route maps, anchoring detail, hour-by-hour weather
https://tanglefoot.dev/trips/2026-09-18-eagle-harbor/
Fill in the blanks before you send it. Who is aboard, a mobile number and the MMSI are the three things the Coast Guard asks for first and the three this page cannot know. The anchorage position is approximate and says so — it is a description of where to look, not a waypoint to steer.
Power: the stack on its own
This is still the trip that produces the number. The generator being aboard changes what Saturday can afford, not what Friday night measures — the first night runs on the stack alone, engine off and generator cold. The budgets below are unchanged, because they are what you are measuring against.
Component
Capacity
Role
BLUETTI APEX 300
2,764.8 Wh · 3,840 W out
The bus. Everything AC runs off it
BLUETTI B300K ×2
2,764.8 Wh each = 5,529.6 Wh
Expansion
Total nameplate
8,294.4 Wh
Usable AC @ 88% inverter
7,299 Wh
Budget to 90% depth
6,569 Wh
Leaves 730 Wh in hand
At anchor 13:23 Friday → 08:30 Sunday = 43.1 hours = 1.80 days
A · everything on the APEX
Starlink
55 W × 18 h = 990 Wh
Fridge (AC)
60 W × 24 h = 1,440 Wh
Devices
45 W × 6 h = 270 Wh
Lights, pump, misc
25 W × 10 h = 250 Wh
Base
2,950 Wh/day
5,298 Wh over the stay. Leaves 1,271 Wh for the heater — 1.8 hours at 700 W, across two nights. That is not heat, that is a gesture.
B · fridge on the house bank
Base
1,510 Wh/day
Over the stay
2,712 Wh
Left for heat
3,857 Wh
At 700 W
5.5 hours
The single biggest lever on the boat, and it costs nothing but a decision made before you leave the slip.
C · B, plus Starlink 8 h
Base
960 Wh/day
Over the stay
1,724 Wh
Left for heat
4,845 Wh
At 700 W
6.9 hours
Starlink off overnight and off while ashore. It is a weekend, not a work week.
Recommendation
Run B, keep C in reserve. Wire the fridge to the house bank before departure. Heater on low, thermostatted, about two hours before bed, and let the boat and the bedding hold it. Forecast lows are 52–56°F — a blanket problem, not a kilowatt problem.
With the generator aboard the Saturday squeeze is gone — an hour on Saturday morning buys the day’s base back, two hours buys a genuinely warm Saturday night. Run Friday night without it anyway: that is the whole measurement, and you only get one first night.
What to record — 08:00 and 20:00
SoC
APEX state of charge, %
Cumulative
Wh out since departure
Loads
Which were on, and for how long
Cabin
Temp at 22:00 and at 06:00
Faults
Anything that tripped, throttled or got warm
Success looks like: the stack alone carries two nights with no shore power and no engine running, and you know within 10% what a third night would have cost.
The generator
It is aboard, and Thursday night at the slip is where it gets commissioned. The weekend itself barely changes: Friday night on batteries alone — the number nobody has yet — and the generator from Saturday morning. You get the measurement and a warm boat, in that order.
What it buys, in time
The APEX 300 takes roughly 1,800 W of AC input. A 2,000 W inverter generator at about 1,600 W continuous therefore refills at something near its own output, less conversion loss — call it 1,500 Wh into the stack per hour run.
Empty to full
8,294 Wh usable-ish ÷ ~1,500 = about 5½ hours
A night's heat
3,000 Wh of heater ≈ 2 hours of generator
A day's base
1,510 Wh on Scenario B ≈ 1 hour
Fuel
Roughly 0.12–0.30 gal/h depending on load — a gallon is a long day
Those are working numbers from the generator’s own published figures, not measured on this boat. Thursday’s measured hour is what replaces them with real ones. If the rate comes in under about 1,100 Wh per hour, every generator figure on this page needs redoing before Saturday.
When to run it, here
Not at night
Eagle Harbor has a resident liveaboard fleet and sound carries over water at anchor. 09:00–19:00 is the decent window
Not at the dock
If you take the city dock you have a 30 A pedestal — use that instead and leave the generator off
Downwind
On the aft deck, exhaust over the transom, never in the cockpit or a locker
Short runs
An hour in the morning covers the day. Running it to top off the last 10% is the noisiest, least useful hour you will spend
A generator at anchor is the single most effective way to annoy an entire harbor. In a place where people live aboard, it is worth being the boat nobody notices.
Gasoline on a diesel boat
The genuine risk of this whole plan, and it is not the anchoring. Gasoline vapor is heavier than air, it collects in the bilge, and a diesel boat has none of the ignition protection a gasoline boat is built with.
Cans
On deck in a vented rack. Never a cockpit locker, never the lazarette
Fueling
On deck, cold engine, blower off, funnel, absorbent pad underneath
Passage
Generator lashed down and cans secured — 47 lb of loose machine in a seaway
Spill
Into the bilge is the one that ends boats. Pad first, then pour
Carbon monoxide
The oil-filled heater is electric and produces none, which is exactly why it is the heater aboard. The generator does produce it, and at anchor with a following breeze the exhaust can come straight back over the transom and into the saloon.
Detector
Tested before departure, not assumed. It is a five-year part
Placement
Exhaust clear of the cockpit, the hatches and the swim step
Wind
If it is blowing onto the boat, shut it down. There is no run worth it
Sleeping
Never with it running. This is not a rule of thumb, it is the rule
If Thursday’s test goes badly — the stack refuses the generator’s AC, eco mode hunts, the rate is half what it should be — none of this section applies and the weekend is the battery-only test it was planned as. Scenario B above still carries two nights on its own, which is exactly why it is worth knowing on Thursday rather than on Saturday.
Fuel, and what the weekend costs
Leg
nm
Hours @ 8 kt
Gal @ 10 gph
Everett → Eagle Harbor
27.1
3.4
34
Eagle Harbor → Everett
27.1
3.4
34
Maneuvering, anchoring, margin
—
0.2
2
Total
54.2
7.0
70
The bill
Diesel
70 gal @ ≈$5.00 = ≈$350
Moorage
$0 at anchor — ≈$60–70 if you take the city dock Saturday
Ashore
Two dinners, the market, pints — ≈$150
Total
≈$500–570
Check the burn number
70 gallons of roughly 200 aboard — 35% of tankage for the whole weekend. Fill at Everett and do not think about fuel again; there is no reason to buy diesel on Bainbridge.
Record engine hours at departure and arrival. 54.2 nm against actual gallons is the cleanest burn number you will get, and 10 gph is still only an estimate.
Rules and the things that bite
Seasons
MA 8-2
Salmon, halibut
MA 10
Salmon, halibut, cabezon
Crab
Not open in either area — no pots on this trip
Shellfish
None planned. If that changes, check the DOH biotoxin map for Kitsap County first
Verify against the MA 10 and 8-2 tiles the morning of. WDFW emergency rules move.
Aboard
CO
Monitor tested. The oil-filled heater is electric and produces none — which is exactly why it is the one aboard. Do not substitute anything that burns
Anchor
Light on from dusk. Alarm set on the plotter and on the phone
Tender
PFDs, working light, bailer, oars, painter — the ride back is after dark both nights