Friday-Sunday August 8th-10th:
As the crow flies it was over 30+ miles from Reid Harbor to Port Townsend, so the fleet was up and heading south by 5:30am. The fleet consisted of Palarran, Ghost, Pearl, two other boats in the harbor and another boat that joined us as we were passing Roche Harbor. We were all headed to Port Townsend to attend the Lats & Atts Northwest cruisers party for the weekend.
The wind was up and blowing pretty good, unfortunatly it was out of the Southeast, which was the direction we needed to go. At first we thought we would just motor into it and just get to Port Townsend, but the waves were getting pretty big and it was getting old slamming into them all morning. So we raised the sails and did what sail boats do……sail. We had a pretty good sail and some fun with a little tacking duel between us, Pearl and that last boat to join the fleet. Ghost and the other boat motored on without us.
Just as we were passing Lime Kiln Point on the southern end of San Juan Island, Pearl and the other boat took a tack out. We stayed on our tack to hug the coast of the island. Since it was taking pretty close to our rhumbline. This turned out to be the wrong thing to do. About 20 minutes later, the tide turned and the wind dropped a little and shifted and we got slowed way down and could not seem to make very good progress.
Just as the other boats sailed away from us, a big pod of Orcas showed up. So we watched them for a bit and continued our sail south. The sun came out, the wind died around noon as we passed Smith Island, so we lowered the sails and motored for a couple more hours. We got a little more wind about an hour or so from Port Townsend so we sailed right up to the entrance of Port Hudson Marina, where the party was.
Ghost and Pearl were already there and tied up.
For what ever reason, we did not take one picture for the rest of the trip.
My buddy Dan drove up from seattle and hung out with us for the weekend, the party was a good time and we caught up with some boating friend that we only see at the party every year or only every few months.
Sunday morning was the end of the weekend and everyone was either headed home or headed north for thier summer cruise to the islands or Canada.
We finally kicked Dan’s ass off the boat and sent him on his way:
What the hell is up with that hobo looking backpack thing??