Hey, that was fun. As you may have assumed, I am home and safe. The remainder of the trip went almost exactly as we thought it would. NOT that we preferred our outcome, but in review we couldn't have done any better.
We managed to get out of Newport but it wasn't without quite a bit of stress. Right away we were questioning our decision as we were trouncing through some pretty big seas. The boat was not having a problem, but if we weren't assured that it would get better in a couple of hours, we would have turned back and waited it out. That would have meant at least another week sitting in Newport with only a slim chance the weather window was only equally as big. Our weather router said we had 24 hours to move 30 hours of distance. It was going to be messy on both ends.
That night it did get better, but only for a while as the next front was coming in. The wind was picking up quite a bit as we made the turn into Straits of Juan De Fuca the next afternoon and pointed us directly into the short windy chop. Every 5th wave sprayed over the whole boat. We really had to watch for logs when it got dark and when we finally made Pt Angeles it was plenty dark. There we stopped for the night and cooked up a couple of nice steaks on the bbq. This boat does feed us well.
The boat owner, Ken, met up with us the next morning and we started right off. Again we had a very sloppy day ahead of us, and at one point we were in sustained winds of 45 and it gusted up to 58! In between the downbursts we did enjoy the beautiful coastline of the Puget Sound. We reached the locks as it was getting dark and it started raining again. Our dock was just up on the other side a bit further but we were soaked by the time we got the lines and fenders out and finally tied up to the dock.
We had our bad weather days, and our good. There were a couple of days of fog where we could hardly tell the boat was moving. The entire crew was a gag to be around. We all worked well together. The boat performed very well with only a few hiccups that were easily managed. In case you couldn't figure it out...
I had a great time.
3 comments:
Glad you're back home safe.
If you do another trip like that one, I hope you can let us know a little ahead of time so we can try to meet you.
One of these times anyway...
Whenever I read about your seafaring, I'm insanely jealous. Then I remember how seasick I get. Oh well---the land and sky are pretty cool too. Maybe someday I'll be able to fly you back for a return trip...
I love boats and ships! I am also jealous! Not insanely, however.
I have been on a cruise ship, a sail boat, a speed boat and various small cruise crafts (harbor types) Carl and I both like the feel of the wind in the face from the front of any watercraft! I only got seasick once on the inside of the Fury II in Jr. High. We were told to go inside and lie down. Not the best for seasickness. Out on the front is way better!
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