C-32 Maiden Voyage in the PNW

[Rachel Ann]

I am new to the group and a new Cutwater owner. We just purchased a 2026 C-32 Coupe from Fluid Motion about a month ago. We are from Maryland and the Rachel Ann will be spending most of her time on the Chesapeake Bay, but her maiden voyage is going to be in the PNW. We are doing the factory delivery experience and are very excited about cruising the PNW for 10 days. Our current plan is to spend most of our time in the Gulf Islands, BC and the San Juan Islands…open to any advice. I hope to get some info from the folks on the forum that call the PNW home. A couple questions - I read a lot about deadheads and logs, what strategies do you employee to avoid them? How common are they? I’m looking for any thoughts advice you may have.

Steve and Kim

 

[Maggie Anne]

Congratulations on your new boat. There are some floating obstacles, logs and crab trap floats, in the PNW to keep an eye out for. We find it helpful to use binoculars (Steiner Marine 7x50) for one person to scan ahead, while the other is driving the boat. Birds often rest on logs so that can be a clue. Also, logs and other debris can be concentrated along tide rips and lines where currents meet. In the days after heavy rains, logs can be more prevalent.

 

[Rachel Ann]

Thanks, we purchased the exact binoculars you mentioned. Any other advice on things to keep in mind? Places to go or more important not go.

 

[Jesperjo]

Congrats on the new boat! A couple of pieces of advice:

1. Get a Waggoner guide. It has a lot of information about various places you can go, where you can get fuel, and so on. It’s a great resource.

2. Be really careful with food as you go over the border. You can bring many things into Canada, but in many cases you can’t bring them back to the U.S. legally even if they were bought in the U.S originally. For Canada, check out https://inspection.canada.ca/en/importing-food-plants-animals/airs. It will allow you to search for what you can and cannot bring back. The U.S. rules are much more opaque. For the most part, unless you can prove otherwise, you can just assume the U.S. bans pretty much all import of food stuffs. It’s not quite true, some cheese, some cured meats, and candies, are allowed, but it’s much more restrictive than Canada. This alone is a good reason to go to Canada and stay there, rather than hop across the border several times. I found that writing an AI Agent that allowed me to just send it a food item and have it add it to a table that shows whether I can bring it to Canada or bring it to the U.S., was by fair the easier way to figure this all out.

3. Don’t keep firearms on your boat. Canada doesn’t like that.

4. Yes, there are obstacles like Bob pointed out. Especially in spring there are a lot of logs. You need to keep a sharp lookout for them, but thousands of boats navigate these waters every week successfully. Just be vigilant. This time of year you also have the Tribal Commercial crab and shrimp fisheries to contend with. They tend to carpet a concentrated area with buoys that are often riding very low in the water and really hard to see. It’s hard to track exactly when these openings are. Not all the tribes publish their openings on a public site, and they are operated under emergency rules, so the openings may only be announced a day before and last for only 24-48 hours. If there are closures between two openings, they often leave the gear in the water in a non-fishing state. This is probably the biggest navigational hazard this time of year. Here is a list of the tribes and the places where they may post their openings. I’m trying to get time to write a tool to track them:
a. https://pnptc.org/
b. https://www.elwha.org/departments/natural-resources/lekt-regulations/
c. https://suquamish.nsn.us/home/departments/fisheries/tribal-fishing-hunting/
d. https://www.swinomish-nsn.gov/fisheries/page/crab
e. https://nooksacktribe.org/natural-resources/fishing-and-hunting/
f. https://www.lummi-nsn.gov/node/Website.php?PageID=892
g. https://www.puyalluptribe-nsn.gov/member-services/tribal-natural-resources/shellfish/#crab
h. https://upperskagittribe-nsn.gov/departments/natural-resources/
i. https://www.nisqually-nsn.gov/tribal-services/natural-resources
j. https://skokomish.org/skok-fishing-regs/
k. https://nwifc.org/

The islands are lovely. Use your anchor and hang out for a while. You’ll love it. I also recommend stopping in at Victoria for a day or two while you are up in Canada.

 

[Maggie Anne]

Some favorites in the San Juans: Sucia, Patos, Jones and Stuart Islands. Roche Harbor.
In Canada: Butchart Gardens, Sydney, VIctoria, Princess Luisa. False Creek in Vancouver.

 

[Rachel Ann]

Thank you Maggie Annie and Jesperjo for all the great advice and tips. We are really excited about the trip and are planning to cross the boarder each way one time. This will be my first boat with a LiFePro batter set up not a genny so we will see how that goes (fingers crossed).