The plan was for me to fly out, get Kalliope ready and then sail her up to Anacortes. Of course, life was destined to throw us a bit of a curve ball. Kathy had a family emergency and we thought that we might have to immediately fly back east to take care of it. As it turned out, we had to go out, but we were able to wait a couple of weeks.
So I fly into Seattle on a Friday and make the rounds to a variety of Government offices so that Kalliope can be all legal and proper like. She needed to get some shiny new stickers to prove that she wasn't no tax dodging low class boat. Note to Washington, if you want to collect big piles of money from me, don't make it so damn hard. The weather is downright toasty and here I am wearing all kinds of pile jackets and sweaters. Did I mention that it was sunny. No stinkin' rain in sight.
On Saturday, Bainbridge is having their opening day and I seem to be nursing a bit of a hangover after one or two or three drinks to many at the local watering hole. I did meet a whole pile of interesting people though. There was the guy that was the IT guy from the Port of Seattle. There was a filmmaker that mostly did corporate gigs. There was the irritating gay lad that had quite an attitude, and there was the drunk older women making the rounds. Just another Friday night in the always rocking town of Bainbridge.
Sunday, was supposed to be a boat fix up day. I was going to do all of those early season boat things, like change the oil, clean the filters, stuff like that. But, the weather was blowing about 25 from the South so I decided to skip this little maintenance step and Philippe, BJ, and myself took her out of the slip. It was nice sunny, blowing like stink. What could be better. Except the motor would only push us along at about 3 kts. Yuck. No worries, though it was a big downhill schlep all the way to Port Ludlow. Ye hah.
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| Bye Bye Bainbridge - 25 kts, all downhill! |
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| The Big Black Cloud |
The funny thing about this cloud, is that you could just make out a couple of dozen boats headed towards us flying their spinnakers. Hmm, we were just flying our headsail. Hmm, they are flying their spinnakers and coming right at us. What's wrong with this picture. wind---> us <---- wind. So all of the sudden the wind shifted about 180 degrees and shot up to about 30 kts. We were just using the Genoa and didn't even have the main up. A quick furl of the jenny and an unfurl on the staysail brought thing under control, but we weren't really going anywhere. On the other had, we were practically hove to (or almost, maybe more like hull down!) After the initial blast, the wind shift more to the east and we were able to get her under control again, except now we were close hauled. But making 6+ kts in mostly the direction that we wanted to go, so all looked good. Meanwhile, the fleet of spinnakers ghosted right past us. Kind of eerie in the clouds.
The wind keeps on moving a little further to the SE and starts to die down to about 8 kts. BJ declares that the wind has probably settled in fot the day, so we decided to haul up the spinnaker so that when we make Point No Point , we can have a screaming ride to Ludlow. We are really moving along now. Routinely hitting 7 kts We end up passing a sailboat that is motoring North. Wimps! A little rain, a little black clouds, now is not the time to fire up the iron lung. As we approach Point No Point, the wind becomes increasingly on our nose. So much that we are now struggling to make the point. Just as we squeeze around the point, the wind seems to shift almost on our nose. So we douse the spinnaker, raise the main and the jenny again and generally fart around for 15 minutes trying to get everything stowed away. Meanwhile, the other sail boat has finally raised their sails and is actually gaining on us. We can't have that so we square everything away and bury the rail as we head north again. Nobody is catching us now.
The wind keeps on building and we figure that we are probably over canvased, but we are almost to the northern marker at Hood Canal. Once we clear that mark, then we can turn our buts into the wind and cruise on home. After a couple of more minutes of lee rail underwater action (in which my foot gets soaked!), we make the turn and cruise on in to Port Ludlow. Just then the wind start to mellow out and drops to under 8 kts as we make it into the harbor. We pull almost all of the way to the dock and luckily the Motor Fires right up and we limp into the dock.
That night we had dinner at BJ, Tricia and Blakes house. A truley cool sail.
Monday
The next day was penance day. I spend most of the day cleaning filters and doing all of the crap that I was supposed to do on Sunday. There was hardly a breath a wind most of the day, so all in all a good decision. Well probably a bad decision, but damn it was great sailing. That evening BJ came down for a brew and we ended up taking his boat, Nelle Bly (Kalliope's sister ship). It was dead calm in the harbor, but picked from the West once we cleared out. Again we had the rail in the water making a good 6+ kts to weather. Not a bad Monday.
Tuesday
BJ had to head back to work so it was just Philippe and myself. It was dead calm in Port Ludlow, but by the time we clear Colvos rocks, the wind started picking up out of the west, Eventually settling in round 18kts. Pretty soon we were up to our old trick, 7+ kts railed buried in the water.
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| Bustin' through the chop |
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| Philippe Taking a Tour of the Lee Shrouds |
It was no time before we were in Port Townsend and even sailed up to Port Hudson for a tour of the waterfront. The plan was to spend the night at Port Townsend Rigging's dock, but when we arrived a couple of boats were plugging the entrance to the travel lift, so we pulled up next to the fuel dock and head up to CJs for some much deserved lunch. That evening was spent dining at Dan's and Lisa's diner where the star attraction is a largish viking stove. Later that evening, we headed down to Bongo for a couple more brews. Life was good in PT.
Wednesday
Now you would think that I would have learned my lesson, but it seems that every time I want to cross the Straits of Juan de Puca, I seem to go out with Dan and Lisa the night before and then it seems like we open some wine and the some more wine and then ... Well, this time was no exception and we had to get up good and early so that we could ride the ebb out of PT and then the ensuing flood into Anacortes. Okay, I didn't feel as bad as that last story. Anyway, on this leg Eric (aka Anchor), joined us for the crossing. The winds were pretty light so we motored to get out of Admiltary Inlet. After we got out of the narrowest part and had a bit of lunch we raised the spinnaker and ghosted along at around 4 kts.
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| Thar She Blows - Ghosting along in the Straits of San Juan de Puca |
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| The Capn and Crew Crossing the Staits. |
Eventually we managed to get to Anacortes and Kalliope's new slip. Now the new slip really sucked rocks. It was next to a very unattractive power boat so that evening I went down to the marina office and picked up a new slip on the F docks next to a nice Babba 30.
Thursday
My flight wasn't until Thursday so Philippe and I decided to head up to Bellingham so that I could hook up with my realtor and do a little bit of house shopping. Again we had nice sail 20-28 kts out of the south. We just had the Genoa up and surfed all of the way into Bellingham, sometimes hitting upwards of 8 kts. Ye hah!
That night we walked downtown and had dinner the Pepper Sisters. Yum.
Friday
After a nice breakfast at the Mount Bakery cafe and a little house hunting, we headed back to Anacortes. This time the wind was blowing 10-15 kts on the nose. What the hell. We decided to beat our way back to Anacortes and regularly had the boat at 7+ kts close hauled. Kind of a personal best for Kalliope. Finally, all of the rigging is tuned the way I like it, the sails are only a couple of years old. It was very sweet.
That night I climbed the mast and removed my anemometer. It had developed a really irritating hum and just had to go. Of course, I couldn't get one of the bolts removed so I spent an hour trying to get it to work. Fun.
Saturday.
Back to Fort Collins. No houses yet. But we are looking.
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