And a Crabby Attitude.
We’re within two weeks of departure which I think is significant for two reasons. First, comparing where we are now to last year is stark. We have much more confidence in our preparation and understanding of our little vessel. There’s a lot of unknowns but one ‘known’ is that we’re in a way better place than last year.
Secondly, I think (hope) the weekly updates are going to get more exciting. Instead of boat projects and dabbling in the sound, we may get into a chapter of big water, new states, grocery lists, and other high adrenaline topics. So feel free to share the emails.
We left off in Anacortes for some sail repairs. We carted our sail to a loft and had the professionals inspect our silent motor.
Our sail is ancient, but not without hope. The mainsail got a couple 2-mile walks in a cart, and some new material on the ‘leech’ (the back edge) and some patches. Also, a huge victory as this was the first boat task that came in under budget.
We opted to omit some sail maintenance to save money, knowing that we had needles and thread back on the boat. So crossing the straights of Juan De Fuca, I threw some stitches into our 3rd batten. Hopefully it’ll hold.
We had drinks with the other remaining Coho Hoho boat crew in Port Townsend, discussed logistics, inherited their hand-me-down anemometer (they’ve been a blessing. Their upgrades have resulted in our upgrades a number of times). Hopefully, by tomorrow, our ‘new’ wind speed and direction indicator will be mounted atop our mast.
We sailed (that’s right, sailed) back to Port Orchard. We had great wind all day on Wednesday and cruised down the sound, and even sailed through the narrow Rich Passage. It was nice to make progress toward a destination under sail instead of the norm: using the motor to cover miles, and the sails to entertain.
Here’s our sail, highlighting that nice leech patch that we sailed 2 days for and spent $300 on.
Our former boss (from our bartending days in Cincinnati) flew in for the weekend. Sunara’s the best manager I ever had (sorry dad) and has become an awesome friend to Taylor. We visited Seattle, saw Pike Place, ate seafood on the water, and conquered Elliott Bay. (We’ve had a bad experience in the Elliott Bay marina)
We sailed hard into Seattle. We also learned to warn our guests about how far we lean over and that we won’t, in fact, tip over. Sorry, Sunara.
Taylor was the ultimate sailing babe and I had to include some pictures of her. She’s the bee’s knees.
The big highlight of the weekend was borrowing Rydell’s crab pot, with newly acquired buoys. Sunara was the good luck charm because not only did the crab pot not drift away in the current, but when we pulled it up…CRABS!!!
Yes, we lost our bait box last week so I poked some holes in a Gatorade powder jar and stuffed a chicken breast in. (Sponsor us Gatoraid!)
Red rock crabs are not quite as meaty as the more sought after Dungeness, but they’re way more flavorful and in my humble opinion, more fun to look at.
We feasted on crab, sun-dried tomato pasta, and a green salad. That meal is easily a podium finish for most gourmet food in Scooter’s galley history.
My personal highlight and maybe the best example of the Lord providing, was on our hike. Backstory; I’ve been searching high and low for the right adapters to get our VHF radio antenna to work with our AIS receiver. AIS is a system used to see other boats on the water without the use of Radar (kinda like find-my-friends for all boats). I’ve poured money and time into trying to get our system functioning, and its the last outstanding safety feature for the passage.
On a hike on Blake Island, we stumbled upon the state park’s dump, full of old pipe, fire rings, and other metal junk. We poked around for fun. I just so happened to find the exact coax cable adapter in some garbage radio box.
Today, I connected everything and got AIS running on our boat. The system can read the area, convert the signal to Wifi, and send the data to our iPad which overlays every other boat’s position on our charts.
Some things just seem to be falling into place.
Required Eunice pic: The good captain approved of our sail repairs.