Days of awe, alarm add up to swell time.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

DEER HARBOR, Wash. - Hand on the tiller, I was guiding our 22-foot Catalina sailboat, "At Last," between Orcas and Shaw islands. The sails were full, the sun warm, the water clear.

That's when I saw it: a 382-foot Washington State ferry heading for me like a heat-seeking missile.

Sailing Washington's San Juan Islands is a captivating ebb and flow of fascination and fear. One minute you're watching orcas, the next minute noticing a nasty current yanking your boat toward Seattle.

One minute you're lying on your back, finding Pac-10 school initials in the clouds, the next minute watching the wake of a 75-foot power cruiser break across your bow.

One minute you're bobbing gently on a buoy at sunset, pleasantly full from lemon herb chicken cooked on a side-rail grill and enjoying the delicious drone of a Mariners radio broadcast, the next minute jolted by the small-boat sailor's ultimate fear: You have to take a leak.

On a 22-foot sailboat - we saw only two smaller - that means rowing the dinghy ashore or using a pint-sized port-a-potty while on your knees. (Don't try this in your living room. In fact, don't try it at all.)

Being a sailor on a small boat is like being an astronaut in a space capsule: Everything must be done in an environment about one-fiftieth scale of normal size. I slept outside on a 2-foot-wide cockpit shelf for two nights, then inside on a similarly narrow perch for the rainy third. My sailing partner had a cushier setup in the galley, but then it was in my best interest to keep him happy: Between us, he was the only one who had a clue what he was doing.

He has taught sailing on San Francisco Bay, built two airplanes - he knows physics - and can decipher navigational charts. Me? I'm Gilligan in a Seattle Mariners hat. What we have in common is a love of sailing - and children who married each other.

One day, we decided to go ashore at the venerable Rosario Resort on Orcas Island, a dicey prospect given that it's private. The Skipper wanted to check it out for a later visit. I wanted to experience the wonder of urinating while standing up.

"We're coming in, sails up!" he announced as we neared the moorage. "Radio the dock!"

Sails up? Wouldn't that be a little like President Bush landing a Viking jet on the USS Abraham Lincoln? But, hey, orders are orders. I scurried below and tried to make my first-ever ship-to-shore call.

"Rosario, Rosario," I said, subliminally lost in some 1962 "Sea Hunt" episode, "this is 'At Last.' Do you read me, over?"

Someone with the Canadian Coast Guard asked, "Are you in immediate danger?" I didn't think "Yes, my bladder is about to burst" would qualify - plus we weren't in Canada - so I gave up.

Getting clearance, we landed safely. We later left Rosario under sail in a wild tack-and-pray exit that left our chicken sandwiches strewn about the cockpit and me sitting on a bag of potato chips.

On the final day, with rain threatening and winds light, we motored against a surging tide back to Anacortes, where we'd launched. The 8-horsepower outboard barely gave us forward progress, but, finally, we reached the landing.

"We've got a problem," The Skipper said - and it was more than a mast-top radio antenna having broken loose and decapitated our wind vane.

The water, sucked out by a minus-2.7-foot tide, was 15 feet below the end of the concrete boat ramp; we'd need three hours of a rising tide before we could pull out the swing-keel boat.

Given little other choice, we dropped anchor and enjoyed a final snippet of fascination and fear - how good a pot of Dinty Moore beef stew tastes outdoors. And how bad it feels to look up while you're eating that beef stew and notice a giant sign on shore that says: "DROP NO ANCHOR. CABLE CROSSING. Bonne- ville Power Administration."

For more by Welch on sailing the San Juans, see the July 31 Outdoor section.