Our second trip since we purchased the Bayliner 4788 started on Thursday evening of a long Memorial Day Weekend 2020. I finished work around 4:00pm and on Thursday and the tides were good to get out of the Sandy Point Marina entrance so we got loaded up and headed out right about 5pm.

Although there was a small craft advisory in force when we left, we really didn’t see any significant wind on the way out.

Our new port side starting batteries worked perfectly, thinking now that we may need to replace the starboard side starting battery also. We cruised west to Sucia island, first taking a look at Fossil Bay, which already had more boats anchored than we were comfortable squeezing in around in an attempt to anchor so we headed to Echo Bay instead which was not too crowded.

We anchored just outside of the first line of anchor buoys at echo bay. We can’t use the buoys since they have a limit of 45ft, and the 4788 is just slightly longer than that.

With the Washington State Parks in the coronavirus “stay-home” mode all of the park buoys, docks and camp sites are closed to overnight stays. That was okay for us since we had planned on dropping anchor anyhow.

Saturday morning I woke up to text messages from a client needing some help, and was able to get online using our MOFI networks router, which has really great connection speeds.

We knew that our new house battery bank was performing better than the old batteries when we had enough power to make coffee using the batteries and inverter, which is something that failed on our shakedown cruise with the original batteries.

Our morning view from the boat in Echo Bay. There was a slight ripple on the water, but nothing like the small craft advisory was predicting.

Friday morning we went onto the island for a hike. The first thing we noticed as the big signs, the State of Washington really doesn’t want anyone staying overnight. You might catch the china flu from a mooring buoy.

Saturday is the day that it got busy with probably more than 150 boats in Echo Bay, but that is a big bay and everyone seemed to fit just fine.

Sunday I installed 2 additional solar panels on the boat, that makes a total of 6. I still have 2 more to figure out where they will go.

Sunday night it quieted down again with a few people going home.

For our trip home on Monday we had limited marina access due to the low tide, so we left Sucia island and spent the afternoon at Matia Island. For most of the afternoon we were the only ones in the harbor.