Don't come to the Pacific Northwest. It's always gray and raining.

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Best-Negotiation1634@reddit

The all consuming dark.

You don’t want to visit. It is cold and wet. If you see a photo of sun, it is so incredibly unusual… someone took a photo

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morrowgirl@reddit

Sunset in Boston is around the same time but sunrise is quite a bit earlier (7:11 according to my watch). That's not a lot of daylight at all.

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BackwerdsMan@reddit

My fun fact to that reminds people how North we are. Most Canadians live South of Seattle.

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Vegetable_Guest_8584@reddit

And it's not because they are all living in the US 😉

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OldGaffer66@reddit

If you see a picture of the sun in the PNW between October and April it is obviously photoshopped. We do see it occassionaly during the so called summer, when the rain stops for a few minutes.

No, don't come here if you like sunshine and don't like rain.

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PalmOilduCongo@reddit

Just visit between June and September.

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light24bulbs@reddit

Seriously, this post is ridiculous because it IS fucking horribly dark and rainy 5 months of the year.

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bryangcrane@reddit

I remember this from the ten years I lived in Seattle. 🤣

Flip side is it’s still dusk at 10:30 pm in the summer!

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BreaddaWorldPeace@reddit

I've lived in the PNW for a large portion of my life. It IS grey and rainy here. The atmospheric rivers aren't helping. Love the picture, though.

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Significant_other42@reddit

Looks like sweden. What's the temperaturein the water? Nice to see that there still are inflated SUP-boards ;)

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exobrain@reddit (OP)

Maybe that has something to do with how many swedes that settled here!

About 40°F/4°C right now. In the summer the lakes get reasonable---up to 70°F/21°C---though not the Puget Sound / Salish Sea (like Sweden's waters is also glacier carved fjords with plenty of current to keep it cold), with the exception of a couple inlets (Hood Canal in WA and Desolation Sound in BC) with some unique currents that become swimmable.

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george_graves@reddit

What marina is that?

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exobrain@reddit (OP)

It's Fremont Boat Co

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george_graves@reddit

Do you have a boat there?

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exobrain@reddit (OP)

Yes, its in the foreground :)

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Eddie_shoes@reddit

To be fair, I want to sail the PNW because it’s colder, foggy, etc. There are plenty of places to sail that are warm with blue skies.

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C19shadow@reddit

Literally nowhere have i felt safer on a over cast wet days if you wanna sail with out the sun beating down on you the PNW is hard to best imo

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lambakins@reddit

I grew up here but live in the mountain west now. Just got to my parents’ house for Christmas and was thinking how beautiful the sunset was and how I wanted to be on the water (ferry doesn’t really count)

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RunDownTheHighway@reddit

I grew up and lived in California for 50 years, moved to Colorado for 10 and now north of Seattle... There are 2 types of people Ocean people and Mountain people... I need the ocean!!

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lambakins@reddit

I did not know this until moving to Colorado - while I LOVE mountains, I’m definitely an ocean person. The PNW is wonderful because you don’t have to choose between the two!

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External_Tension_272@reddit

I live in one of the top ten rainiest cities in America. Almost every city more rainy than us is also in Florida. Yes, Florida

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tarrat_3323@reddit

yo! stfu 🤫

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dudes_rug@reddit

Which marina do you recommend? I like Ballard mill for proximity to tractor tavern and restaurants but don’t know about difficulty of the locks. Thinking 35’

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LegitMeatPuppet@reddit

All the moorage in and around Seattle is similar in price because almost everyone just charges what the Port of Seattle changes at Shilehole. Which sucks because the Port of Seattle raise moorage every year regardless of the state of the economy. So, if you want a deal you need to look further north or south.

Money asside, people usually debate between sailing on Puget Sound vs Lake Union and Lake Washington. IMHO the Ballard Locks is fun to do once in a while but not every time you want to get out on the water, not to mention the various draw bridges which open less and less these days. Personally, I prefer Puget Sound, and amazingly while Ballard and much of Seattle has gotten denser and denser fewer people are actually out sailing. This is a bit of a bummer for smaller sailboats.

Shileshole does have a great orientation as the typical wind is either north or south. I believe the marina at Magnolia, Elliot Bay Marina, has East and West pointing slips. (I could be mistaken). The facilities at Shikeshole are also very new and nice, it's just the money issue that gets under my skin and that they seem to be constantly measure you boat to charge more if you have anything protruding.

Sadly, most of my sailing friends just pick a marina that they can conveniently drive too in summer. Summer traffic to Ballard has always been bad and these days it's important that you have the boat at a location you can get too after work. I used to sail with people from the east side but for the past 10 years or so the drive has become impossible. 😕

If serious I would make some calls and find the various slip sizes and their wait list lengths and times.

I think I got carried away grumbling about the world. I'm much happier on the water. 😉

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exobrain@reddit (OP)

100% agree that other things equal, Elliot Bay is the best location. The biggest trade off is that it's not likely not that easy to get to from wherever you live (no busses, hard to bike to, and limited parking) and even the walk down the docks is nearly as far as my marina on lake union is from my house (only slightly exaggerating).

Shilshole isn't bad, especially in summer, if it's biking distance since even when it's busier, there's Burke Gilman doesn't really get backed up. But then you're indeed beating upwind or trying to go dead downwind, with the ideal route almost always being right through the shipping lanes, to get most anywhere most of the time. Still good sailing, but not the same level of effortless joy as coming out of elliot bay.

I'm _experimenting_ with having my boat on Lake Union at the moment, since it's \~15 minute walk from home and literally the same building as my office, so the hope is it'll be easier to get out with very very low barrier (even for just an hour or two in an afternoon), and not that bad to get out to Puget Sound for an overnight on Blake Island or something longer. So sailing putzing around lake union is practical regularly, while getting out to Puget Sound is ultimately about an extra hour of motoring and waiting for bridges and locks, minus \~30-40 minutes of driving, getting to the boat, and getting out of a much larger marina.

I don't think I would try this on a larger boat, though. Lake union is ultimately pretty small and by the time the sails are up and you're up to speed, you'd need to turn around.

When I was a teenager, my best friend's parents had a sailboat docked somewhere on the east side, and we somehow made it to Blake Island and back in a day whenever I sailed with them. Though, truth be told, I was usually napping in the cabin for most of the way through Lake Washington, the shipping canal, and the locks, so maybe it was a huge bummer for everyone else each time. But I didn't mind.

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millijuna@reddit

We used to keep our boat on Bellingham Bay. Was actually a pretty decent marina, and had relatively easy access to theto San Juans.

We moved the boat closer to home (Vancouver BC) in 2019, and are glad we did. But sometimes I do miss the easy access to the islands.

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-Maim-@reddit

Ballard mill is a shithole where boats go to die

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apathy-sofa@reddit

The locks aren't difficult, they're just a wildcard in your trip planning, because you don't know how long you'll wait to transit. And it does take time. The bigger barrier (vs the locks) is that the bridges don't open during rush hour.

OTOH, tying up in the lakes significantly reduces growth on your bottom. When I moored at Shilshole, I'd come up the locks for a few days before heading to the yard, because the fresh water would kill almost everything on the bottom.

If you're going to be doing mostly sailing on the Sound, and a lot of it, Shilshole is your best bet. If you're not going out frequently, moorage along the ship canal or on Lake Union is great. Also it's faster to come and go, and lake sailing is fun, even for a 35'er.

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Formaldehyde007@reddit

Red sky in morning sailor take warning.

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exobrain@reddit (OP)

Red sky at night, sailor's delight

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slamminng@reddit

Red sky in the morning looks like it’s gonna rain. /s

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OldGaffer66@reddit

Red sky at night looks like it’s gonna rain

Grey sky - it is raining.

Don't come here.

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ez_as_31416@reddit

Shhh. It's a secret.

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PalmOilduCongo@reddit

Little wind in the summer.

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Poococktail@reddit

I've lived all over the country and now live by the Olympics. It's the perfect mix of weather for me. You get the seasons but not too cold winter. A short ferry ride to one of the great cities in the USA. It doesn't get any better. For sailing since you have so many ports and easy access to Canada.

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Magnus919@reddit

And a lawless war zone. Don’t forget that part.

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Beneficial-Oven1258@reddit

You got the only sunshine pic in the whole region in the last 2 months LOL

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smckenzie23@reddit

YVR checking in, can confirm.

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Beneficial-Oven1258@reddit

Haha YUP

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Gallirium@reddit

I’ve got some…

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777oz@reddit

After 5 1/2 years on the Olympic Peninsula, as much as I loved (almost) everything about it, I couldn't take the weather. Days like this in your photo were therapeutic. In the 5th year, it never got above 70° all summer and rained 4-5 days a week. I almost never felt "dried out" and had to leave.

Beautiful photo, though.

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Maybe one day I’ll be lucky enough to move to Jackson.

Since this is the sailing sub - it’s a damn shame fiber hobies are getting so hard to find on beach vacations.

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