We are off! We left Elliott bay on Thursday (6/8) around 4p and made our way up to the Blue Ridge neighborhood to anchor for the night. Our friends, Derek and Diane, recently purchased a new home there and it was closing day so we came by to celebrate with them. Pizza and 30ish year old Yamazaki whiskey was the perfect way to celebrate a new chapter for both them in their new house and us heading off on our sailing trip!
Our second day (6/9) was fairly uneventful - with the exception of a few minor boat issues. We are still learning about the best way to operate the dinghy while on anchor and we ended up with a dinghy full of sand - lesson learned! Very little wind today - only about an hour of motor sailing with jib only and full motor with no sails up the rest of the time. We stayed at Boat Haven marina of Port Townsend and, while comfortable enough, it was not the most pictureque place to stay. We ended up in the commercial dock - which didn’t mean much except that it was a longer walk to the amenities (but a shorter walk to West Marine). I spent the afternoon fixing the boat speed guage, updating the battery monitor, and replacing a latch in the head. The VFH radio antenna was also giving us trouble - Radio was working fine, but the AIS was intermittent (would work for a few min and then cut out for a few min). I didn’t get to troubleshooting that one - so that’s one for the next marina.
Day 3 started with rain (it had been raining intermitently since noon the day before, but it rained with earnest last night). To time the currents, we wanted too depart around 10a or slightly before, so we took a quick walk around the marina and found a fun pastry shop to check out while we waited. It was so soggy, I think we needed the pick me up… We departed around 10:15a and were almost immediately greeted by dolphins! It was a good sign of the day to come. Today was a big day, not in terms of distance, but in terms of complexity as we had time point Wilson and Cattle pass to catch slack current and we were crossing the straight of Juan de Fuca - which can be treacharous if tackled in the wrong sea condition. We were fortunate - the sea was glass and the winds were calm. Unfortunately, my speed sensor was still not working but after a half an hour of troubleshooting the electrical connections I decided to pull the sensor and found out the paddle wheel was clogged with gunk - always check the easy thing first! We made it across the straight about 3 hours before we wanted to go through Cattle pass - so we pulled into a nearby bay and anchored for a couple off hours. Angela wasn’t feeling well and decided to take a nap while Sara, Oakley, and I headed ashore to explore. We saw Sea Otters on the pier and at least a hundred Geoducks squiring water the air on the beach. At around 4:30p we pulled anchor and headed into Cattle pass for an uneventful hour and a half trip into Friday Harbor. The SYC outstation was nice and everyone was very friendly. Unfortunately, we just missed the green box but we were able to chat with a few folks and get some intel as we go north. My AIS was still giving us trouble today - the game plan is to see if the weather drying out helps, in which case I’ll head up the mast and replace the antenna since it will likely be the connection there which is causing issues. The diesel heater is also acting up again, and my current hypothesis is that it’s a clogged fuel filter - I’m planning to get one tomorrow when we head into town. On of our marina neighbors found a ghost shrimp - that’s where the entire shell of the shrimp is completely intact but the shrimp is gone - likely eaten clean by some microscopic organism. Sara thought it was gross!
Day 4 was beautiful and sunny. We had a short trip up to Henry island (near Roche Harbor) today (11 nm) and there was some light winds on the forecast - we hoped for a bit of sailing. But first, we made a trip into town to get some random things that we realized we had forgotten (long underwear, kids rainpants, a belt) and see if I could find the deisel fuel filter (which I did). We also did some chatting with our neighbors and came up with some ideas to fix the AIS - I was able to get it working in the marina but got some errors undereway - it helped, but didn’t fix it. We did some laundry and got showers in before leaving Friday Harbor around 2p. It took us about 2 hours to make it up to Henry Island- slightly worried about how late we were getting it as we had read that Henry Island could be very busy. We did end up getting wind right at the end - about 45 min of decent sailing (assisted by a strong current) and we were flying on the last 30 min into the island. We also passed Spiden island - which appeared very dry on our side, likely due to the prevailing weather patterns. This is a private island and I had read that this island was used as a private game preserve for hunting back in the 50s/60s and some of the game was imported from all over the world. Apparenty there are still some exotic deer from Africa that live on the island today. The outstation had only a handful of boats and we had our pick of slips. Henry island is very quite - just across from Roche harbor, we barely saw anyone while we headed ashore.
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After checking in, we found out there is a trail we can take to a nature preserve and we decided that was our plan for the rest of the day. We made a few wrong turns and ended up doing a beach hike on the way to the preserve - which meant we were a bit to late to hike around the preserve before we needed to head back. Still, it was a fun hike and Sara found all kinds of treasures on the beach…
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There is a very pretty pavilion at Henry island - with grills and a fireplace - and we decided to pack up our hot dog dinner and head ashore for dinner on land. I was a lovely evening by the fire, complete with some playground time and playing with a big tub of toys for kids.
Tomorrow we head to Canada - eh!