{"id":2450,"date":"2018-12-30T21:17:32","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T05:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=2450"},"modified":"2018-12-30T21:23:31","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T05:23:31","slug":"farther-faster-of-course-less-travelled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=2450","title":{"rendered":"Farther but faster, of course less travelled"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

by Erik Dolson<\/em><\/p>\n

This evening I plotted two courses from Friday Harbor to Victoria, B.C. I\u2019ll take the longer one tomorrow, the last day of 2018, and maybe get there sooner.<\/p>\n

The route around the southern tip of San Juan Island is 26.2 miles. The route around the north end of the island is 30 miles. All things being equal, the southern route would be about a half hour faster.<\/p>\n

But unless I\u2019ve misread tide and current tables, I’d be going against the flow most of the way on the southern route.\u00a0 <\/span>If I head north, currents should give me a boost first toward Roche Harbor, and by the time I get to Haro Strait, they should carry me south. Go with the flow.<\/p>\n

If that’s correct, the longer route should take about 3 hours 26 minutes from just outside Friday Harbor to just outside the breakwater at Victoria. The shorter route would take 3 hours 48 minutes, or so.<\/p>\n

A quarter hour is meaningless, of course. It\u2019s a sailboat. It motors along at about 8 knots under power, which actually isn\u2019t bad for a sailboat. But I was born impatient, and my other hobby rips along at 160 miles an hour. There the competition is against other drivers, and there’s competition with myself, the scramble for tenths if not hundredths of a second, the roar, the thrust, hanging on to the edge of traction.<\/p>\n

This is a different focus: repairing dorades so they don’t gulp water, placing mooring lines where they’ll be accessible when close to the dock, tying down solar panels so they don’t flap like wings in a bit of chop and wind; making sure the jib can be deployed if the engine fails, or the anchor if drifting close to shore. Look, think, be deliberate, step carefully. Prepare, execute.<\/p>\n

Taking the longer but faster route is really more about the challenge of seeing if I\u2019ve plotted the course correctly, read the current tables, done my homework. If not, I\u2019ll pay the penalty of a slow slog. I\u2019ve done slogs against the currents in Juan de Fuca, and it really stretches out the distance.<\/p>\n

Plus, I\u2019ve made the southern passage a number of times, never taken the northern route and would like to see something new. It might be a good idea to become familiar with a back-up transit, too, in case Juan de Fuca is particularly nasty some day when I need to be someplace.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s just a rationalization. I\u2019ve been doing that a lot, lately. Explaining myself to myself. Let\u2019s just put the new passage down to a mild case of adventuring, of seeking the heightened senses of not knowing exactly what\u2019s around the next bend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

by Erik Dolson<\/em><\/p>\n

This evening I plotted two courses from Friday Harbor to Victoria, B.C. I\u2019ll take the longer one tomorrow, the last day of 2018, and maybe get there sooner.<\/p>\n

The route around the southern tip of San Juan Island is 26.2 miles. The route around the north end of the island is 30 miles. \u2026 Read more\u2026 → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[249,551,550,345,549,552],"class_list":["post-2450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-out-my-window","category-uncategorized","tag-adventure","tag-against-the-tide","tag-friday-harbor","tag-sailing","tag-victoria","tag-with-the-currents"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3mcOb-Dw","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2450"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2454,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450\/revisions\/2454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}