the gallant fox - shakedown cruises

Continued from here. In response to our blog post on our Blake Island trip:

Gallant Fox:

For more short shake-down cruises, if you can maybe next spring/summer (best weather, but any season is OK) take a 4-day trip or longer down thru the Tacoma Narrows into the South Sound. Lots of state marine parks there that get almost no use. Alternatively, Filucy Bay is good for a 2-days-there-&-2-days-back kind of trip if you can't get any more time together. And you'll have a total blast getting down there if you time the currents right, going down Colvos Channel & into the Narrows....But don't forget some of the overnight/3-day trips closer to Shilshole: Manzanita Bay just a couple miles to the left after you go under the Agate Pass bridge; turn right to go to Liberty Bay & Poulsbo, or turn left, go south past Brownsville, & grab a mooring buoy at Illahee State Park. You can do those short trips all year round - great way to test the boat's heater capacity in February....We went to all 3 of those places a whole bunch because they were close, yet remote enough to feel like you'd actually gotten away from the city. Illahee's good because you can reach it either by going past Madison Bay, under Agate Pass & then turning south; or go thru the S-curves as if you were heading toward Bremerton (good practice dodging ferries & following buoys) & then turning north up the channel.