May 4, 2017: Motoring (and actually SAILING) again at last!

We are FINALLY back on the water again–resounding cheers! After spending many hours over the course of eight months working on Braesail, Walt and I stowed provisions for nine days of travel and motored out of the boat’s snug slip in the Everett Marina at about 6:30 pm on a VERY warm and muggy May 3. After an hour of pleasant motoring, we arrived at the small, cozy marina on Hat Island (also called Gedney Island) and were shown to our overnight slip by the Harbor Master, who is back on her feet after suffering a heart attack only a week ago. Following a supper of salmon and salad, we spent a very peaceful night, and awoke to a quiet, misty morning.

The fog bank had left the marina and moved south by about 11 am, so we headed for Kingston on the Kitsap Peninsula, being treated to superb views of the Cascade and Olympic Mountains in all their snow-crested glory as we motored. We soon caught up with the fog bank, and were able to confirm that our radar and AIS systems were providing needed information about the locations and movements of other watercraft such as ferries and tugboats. I sounded our air horn every now and then, hoping to make anyone who could hear the blast aware of our presence in their vicinity.

We emerged from the cottony curtains of the fog at length, the wind rose to about 15 knots (about 17 mph), we raised our sails, and we enjoyed a comfortable sail the rest of the way to Kingston. As we approached the marina at about 2 pm, an inquisitive harbor seal performed an “up nose-a-scope” to greet us, and we were soon registered with the local yacht club to receive reciprocal mooring privileges (saving us the difference between a $4 fee for shore power and a visitor fee of $1/foot of boat length!). Warm post-lunch sleepy time found Walt in the aft-cabin snoring melodiously and me stretched out on one of the benches in the covered cockpit, enjoying the gentle rocking of the boat in its slip, watching the ink-stained storm clouds roll in, blinking as flash bulb lightning fired across the sky and bowling alley thunder followed, listening to rain drops drum their fingers on the cabin’s canvas top, and breathing in the freshly washed air. WONDERFUL!

After naps, we discovered that we’d left two hatches open above the boat’s cabin during the storm, and this provided me the opportunity to mop the floors and wipe off the leather covered chairs and settee, thus having them newly cleaned in preparation for Martin’s arrival on Friday from Vancouver, BC via bus and ferry. After a supper of “arroz con pollo” and a large salad, Walt and I caught up on email and I began this blog post while he worked on the ever-ongoing tool and parts clean-up and his engineering log. We crawled into our delightfully comfortable bed in the “Captain’s Cabin” in the boat’s stern after our “bedtime story”–an episode of the BBC’s “Father Brown” mystery series watched on Walt’s smartphone–and were soon sound asleep.