We’ve been cruising around the San Juan Islands for a week or so with Sam on Safe Harbour. We’ve all been working hard creating and recording more webcasts for you as part of our “Mastering the Inside Passage” series. You may have already seen our first installment is “Clearing Canadian Customs.” This will soon be followed by “Clearing US Customs,” “Overview of the Inside Passage,” “WiFi in the Wilderness,” and “Flying Drones from … Read more
January 27 – February 4, 2017 Will you be attending the Seattle Boat Show this year? If so, we hope to see you there! Our team at Slowboat will be giving a handful of free seminars at this year’s show. Come see us! Slowboat seminars, along with date, time, and location: iPhones, iPads, and Boats: Tips from a Twenty Something Cruiser Sam Landsman Saturday 1/28/17, 2:00 p.m. | Stage #4 Club … Read more
Welcome to the Slowboat Webinar Series! These presentations cover a variety of topics—preparing a boat for the Inside Passage, clearing customs by boat, obtaining replacement parts in remote areas, navigating tidal rapids, selecting weather windows, and so much more. Our goal is to demystify cruising in the Pacific Northwest and empower cruisers to explore further in safety and comfort. The full list of episodes (and future episodes) is below, or … Read more
The 2017 Slowboat Flotilla to Alaska was awesome! Six boats left Roche Harbor, WA in the San Juan Islands on May 21, 2017 and spent the next four weeks traveling up the Inside Passage through British Columbia and Southeast Alaska, arriving in Sitka on June 19. We traversed rapids, executed open ocean crossings, and outsmarted the notorious Pacific Coast weather. On the way, we encountered eagles, bears, whales, porpoises, seals, sea … Read more
Join us for the trip of a lifetime—a guided flotilla cruise from Washington’s San Juan Islands to Sitka and Juneau Alaska! Along the way, you’ll visit our favorite marinas, overnight at the most beautiful anchorages, and navigate through tidal rapids and open ocean. We’ll watch whales feed and waterfalls tumble into the ocean. Q: What is a flotilla? A: A flotilla is a group of boats. On flotilla trips, the … Read more
I am very fortunate to have been able to enjoy six trips to Alaska via the Inside Passage, five of which were as part of Slowboat flotillas. After my initial solo trip in 2017, I realized that cruising as part of a group with experienced guides would be a much safer and more enjoyable way to undertake such an epic trip. My first Slowboat flotilla in 2018 exceeded my expectations in every respect. It … Read more
Ford’s Terror might just be the most beautiful place on the planet. Cliffs—absolutely humongous granite walls, really—rise from water’s edge to snowcapped bowls and peaks 5000 feet above. Countless waterfalls, some trickles, others torrents, plunge from these peaks. Bears forage ashore. Dolphins frolic around anchored boats. The scale of Ford’s Terror is difficult to comprehend and impossible to convey. It’s like Yosemite, but with water in the valleys, no crowds, … Read more
It rained for a while this morning in Helm Bay, but when it stopped it was so still and quiet. After a little while, the sky cleared a little bit, the sun popped through, and it was just spectacular. Kevin fished off the dock a little bit with the new collapsible fishing rod with spinning reel that his mom bought him at Tongass Trading in Ketchikan while I made breakfast … Read more