After waiting a few more days for suitable conditions, we motored up to Kilisut Harbor a lovely secluded spot between Fort Flagler state park and Indian Island naval Ammo dump. About 2 miles south of Port Townsend, if neither of those show up on your map. The right conditions largely are made up of not raining and terribly cold with as much ebb tide as we can manage. We had to go through Agate Pass to get to Poulsbo and out it again to exit. It is a narrow, pass between land masses which has ripping tides of up to seven knots at times, which can make pretty slow going in a sailboat with a top motoring speed of about 7.5 knots. With an anticipated trip length of aobut 6-7 hours, you must get a favorable tide through the pass early enough in the day to complete the trip before light fails. The week end of July 9 had tides which would have meant leaving at about 5 a.m. or 5 p.m., So we waited till July head 12th to head out at 7 a.m.on a clear sunny day with light following breezes. Tried putting up the sails a couple of times, but with the tide carrying you the same direction as the wind, 8 knots turns to 4 in the sails. Beautiful place, very quiet with little traffic.
Next morning dawned to cool drizzly perfect for a 2 mile dinghy ride into town. The tide was out and as I wound my way out of the harbor, I saw a bald eagle on the exposed bottom with Hot Sauce in the back ground. Got to Port Townsend to catch a bus to Poulsbo to get the car. Had local craftsman make sliding tubes to go inside dagger board to allow us to pull it down from the cockpit, as the new board will be quite bouyant and won't go down on its own. The current board weighs about 400 pounds and is kind of hard to pull up with a winch, so it will be a switch. Should make a big diference in sailing performance too.
Had cables made up for electric winch. Got package from Jere with rings for us, so we can take off to the islands on Friday. Got back to boat for dinner and noticed shore was getting lots closer than it had been, so pulled up the anchor with a pice of kelp on it the size of a beach towel and a ton of eel grass. As the boat moves with the tides, it has to reset for each direction, but if it gets enough junk caught on it, it won't catch on the bottom again. Motored across the bay to anchor across from Port Townsend. Friday we got up, and went to town for some last minute shopping in town and to the state park for a shower. Coin op showers with hot water much prefered to cold sponge bath on boat. Set out around 9 a.m. for the San Juan Islands. Sailed along in light winds for a while beam reaching in 8-10 knots making 3-5 knots. The tug which was next to us in Bainbridge Island came by us and said hi. Small world indeed. Beautiful day, but wind dropped off and we had to motor most of the way to the lower end of Griffin Bay to anchor for the night. Anchor drug in mucky bottom with lots of eel grass. Took two tries to get it set again. Saturday dawned cold and rainy with fog. Sat tight and watched everyone work thier crab traps. Must be the first weekend ot the season, lots of boats running about the anchorage messing with their traps. Anchor drug again as the wind came up in the evening. I switched to the other anchor which set and stayed hooked.
Sunday morning was fogged in heavily, but burned off as the sun warmed up, very pretty to watch. Tired of the anchoring routine here, so we set off for Jones Island State Park which was all full of boats so we backtracked to Deer Harbor on Orcas Island to anchor out and get to a dock and showers. It was windy enough to sail, but we were freezing and decided to bail. Next morning we had breakfast at the dock and did laundry and had showers. Hauled anchor and set out for Reid Harbor on Stuart Island for a little sight seeing. About 60 boats in the anchorage including a training yawl about 100 feed long named Osprey, which anchored right in front of us. Not quite the serene cruising style we had envisioned. Set crab trap out at dusk and caught seven crabs, 4 keepers.
Motored out early, tried to sail for a bit, but wind dropped off and current was dragging us off in the wrong direction. Motored past Waldron Island and the wind picked up from the South to 14-18 knots. Finally we get to do some actual sailing and try to figure out how to work this boat.We were immediately zipping along at 7-8 knots with a very smooth easy motion. On Rosa we would have beenheeled way over making 4-5 knots, what a change. After a few blown tacks the dinghy painter got caught under the rudder. The next tack we made, I realized the dinghy had gone its own way. We couldn't see it anywhere, so we sailed around looking for it for a while, and queried on the radio if anyone had seen a dinghy drifing about. Not too long after we gave up, a guy called the coast guard to report finding a dinghy adrift in the vicinity with possible missing occupant. We called the coast guard, identified the dink and were told that he was on the south side of Sucia and we could contact him by phone. We headed over towards the island and started the motor to drop the sails and go anchor. The engine ran for about 4 or 5 minutes and lost all power and stalled. The wind all but stopped, but we had only the sailing option at the time, as the water is about 400 feet deep between the islands. As we meandered toward the inlet, the wind dropped further making it seem pretty scary to drift into a rocky, tide swept pass with no power or helm control. There was a shallow spot outside by a rocky beach which he headed for instead. Got the anchor set in 30' of water, launched the kayak in hopes of going into the inlet and getting the dinghy. As I paddled toward the inlet, the wind picked up to 15-20 from the west making for a rather exciting kayak ride as I passed through the tide rips on the way in. No one had our dinghy in the anchorage, so I thrashed back out to the boat to find Joan on the radio with the dinghy finder. The wind shift put us in 3-4' breaking waves with a rocky shore about 60 yards behind us, not exactly a favorable position. The guy brought us the dinghy, but declined using his dinghy to try and tow us out to deeper water to set sails. He suggested vessel assist could fix us up. I made ready to try and set sails and sail off the anchor for a more sheltered anchorage, but Joan was pretty leery of trying such a maneuver with so little experience sailing Hot Sauce and the dire consequences which would follow if we messed up in such close quarters. Putting the boat up on the rocks had little appeal, so we did call vessel assist and they brought me a fuel filter, hung around till I got the engine started, and followed us into Echo Bay to anchor. They charge $225 an hour for their time from leaving the dock to return to the dock. As luck would have it, someone ran up on a rocky shoal and had to be rescued before we could settle up, so we got to share the travel time costs with them. Got out of it for less than $400, still kinda steep for a $35 fuel filter.. Hard to put a price on peace of mind, but staying on a rocky lee shore hoping the anchor felt like holding all night was not a very inviting prospect either. Had yummy boiled crabs for dinner, altogether a mixed bag for the day.
Went for a dinghy ride the next morning and it was very beautiful with only about 20 boats in the anchorage. Walked on the Island and it is really a beautiful place with campsites on bluffs overlooking the various anchorages and other islands. Spent another night there waiting for the Weather to change, got heavy rain in the night with the wind still from the south. We decided to go out and sail around some and head to somehwere that had spare fuel filters, so we would not repeat the prior episode. Had 15-20 from the south and ripped right along at aobut 7-8 knots, nailed the first tack and headed west back toward Friday Harbor to get some food and other necessities. After about 8 miles on the same tack with the wind shifting towards the north, The wind suddenly became northwest and we tacked to broad reach toward our destination. Perfect execution, except the wind died after about 10 minutes and slowly came back to the south at about 8 knots. So we switched to the "iron genny"" and headed south to Friday Harbor. After some wandering about we found a spot to anchor which suited us and settled in for a couple of days. Weather has been nice, sunny with a southerly breeze. The San Juans are a major tourist destination and this is the heart of the season. You can get a ferry to most of the larger islands and drive around in your car, so it makes it seem a little less off the beaten path than we had expected. There are boats from the inhabited islands that bring groups to the marine park islands, so there are always people around. Quite a few people get off the ferry with full camping gear and catch a boat to the park to camp. It seems that nearly everyone with a boat in northwest Washington comes out to the islands for summer vacation. They had Friday evening race right by our anchorage.
We are going to head down to Port Townsend and get back to work on the boat. We feel like getting more prepared to go offshore would be more in line with our goals than riding around in a dinghy looking at other boats and the islands. Made it to PT after about 7.5 hours mostly motoring. Long day,
Joan finally admits being happy with the boat.
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