Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Straits of San Juan De Pucca

Wednesday

You think that I would learn to lay low on the booze when we are getting to do some serious sailing. Apparently not.

The previous evening had been blowing might hard in the Straits with a small craft advisory posted. We had to leave at 0730 on the last of the ebb so that we could catch the flood at Cattle Point. So we head out under moderately calm waters with a raging hangover. I think I may still be a little drunk. We motored a bit as Kathy made breakfast, but as soon as we rounded Point Wilson into the Straits the wind and waves really picked up. The waves were colliding with the last of the ebb and stacking up to 5-10' short steep mountain ... of course we were heading strait into to it. I decided to raise the main to stabilize things out just as our bow plowed into a particularly steep and nasty wave. It was interesting to be standing at the mast and to see Mike and Kathy way up in the air over me (they were in the stern). Anyway, we managed to raise the main and get some wind in our sales. That calmed things down considerably. After we rounded the point the waves ended more on our beam, with occasional rollers coming in from random directions. We were on a broad reach and doing 6-8 kts over the ground. The somewhat lightest winds didn't really stabilize the boat like I was hoping and we ended up rolling quite a bit. At this point Mike and I agreed that we had about a 50% chance of losing our breakfast (Kathy, on the other hand, felt fine and was remarking what a fine sail we were having).

We managed to make it to Cattle Point with our breakfast in tack and the waves immediately mellowed out. At this point the wind moved around to our stern and we decided to raise the spinnaker. Since the wind was dead on our tail, we had a hell of a time keeping it filled. We probably should have just dropped the main at this point but didn't. When we rounded Lopez we doused the spinnaker (no easy feat since I forgot to tie off the end of the snubber after I got the spinnaker repaired ... oops. We finally manage to get it stowed and had a nice beam reach into West Sound. We ended up anchoring right in front of Mike's Mother-in-Law's house. Mostly a fine day (37 nm in 6 hours ... 6kts avg!).

That evening Judy treated us to a fine meal in her fine house.

Thursday

This morning I feel exceptionally crappy and having been visiting the head regularly. I guess some random disease finally caught up with me. As an added bonus it is rainy and crappy out. Mike is hell bent on getting under way and we decided sail over to Sucia. It is only about a 3 hour sail and I manage to sleep for an hour of it (with Mike taking the wheel). It was pretty gray out and we had the radar on looking for wayward boats. We didn't hit anything so I assume it was working correctly. When we got into Fossil bay there where two mooring balls left, one at the entrance and one way back in the shallows. After shooing off a small sailboat we took the mooring ball. I was glad I didn't have to mess around with the whole anchoring gig. I promptly went back to sleep for a bit. When I woke, the sun was peeking out and I felt a million times better. Mike and I even managed a dingy ride around the south end of the Island to look at some of the "Fossils".

Sunday, June 13, 2004

Back to Bainbridge

We are packed and ready to go, but our house doesn't want to let us go. Turns out that a hive of bees has decided to take residents in between the joists above our kitchen. After multiple calls we found a beekeeper that would remove the bees and any honey and hive that happened to be in the house. As usual this turned out to be more difficult than you might imagine, since the bees decided to take residence between our deck joists which just happened to be blocked in with some seriously thick material. But after several hours of whacking and vacuuming the bees were removed and we were allowed to depart Fort Collins.

Now this summer we don't have anyone staying at our house. We will see how it goes and see how the house holds up over the summer.

The drive out I-80 was nice and we had a nice visit with Tony Mebane in Boise. We always like to be treated to Karen's tasty food. What a nice diversion.

We arrived in Seattle early the next afternoon and caught a ferry to Bainbridge ...

The next couple of days were spent provisioning, doing a ton of maintenance and visiting with our Dock Neighbors. We even managed to get a couple of fine afternoon sails in with the Sorenson's and the Lindheimers.

BJ & Tricia on the Nelle Bly - Kalliope's Sister Ship

Eric Chasing down Nelle Bly

Finally on the eve of our departure, BJ talks me into replacing my packing glands. This decidedly simple job should only take "15 minutes" ... not! The packing was about 8 layers deep and the final two layers of flax were so deep it took me half an hour just to get them out. Meanwhile water is gushing in through the prop like a small fire hose ... too much fun. After all of that, the packing gland I bought was the wrong size! The notes in the log book were wrong! Imagine that. Of course by that time the chanderly is closed, so no departure! The next morning Kathy and I got up and headed to Bremerton to buy some new packing material then stopped into Poulsbo for a nice lunch and a visit to the Garlic store to stock up on some goodies. When we got back I replaced the packing material.

The next morning we did manage to leave and set out for Port Townsend. Not much in the way of wind but it was good to get under way again. I met up with Port Townsend Rigging and picked up a couple of more supplies.

That evening my brother arrived on the ferry from Friday Harbor and we managed to tie one over with Dan and Lisa of Port Townsend rigging at the local Sushi place.