Day 474 Heading West

Along the beach at Fort Worden.

The light house at Point Wilson right beside Fort Worden.
Here's our electronics setup that we use to help navigate our way.  The top piece is our Garmin 172C chart plotter and GPS.  I've tied it into our Robertson Autopilot that is right below it.  Now we have all the information we need as we sail(or motor) through the water.  What the chart looks like as well as what our speed and depth and longitude and latitude so we know exactly where we are and can pin point it on the paper charts we have with us in the cockpit.  We have plenty of electronic charts but still keep a set of paper charts with us pretty much at all times.   If there is a battery failure, we can still find our way with the paper charts and a backup hand held GPS we keep squirreled away for just such an emergency.  When the main alternator blew on the way back from Alaska, we might have needed it except we were lucky enough to be need a "big" city where we could get it fixed.  If not, we would have quickly run out of power for the built in GPS's and had to pull out the portable one. 

We left Fort Worden this morning about 0930 and headed West in the Straits of Juan de Fuca for Port Angeles.  Unfortunately, we had to fight our way through opposing currents and it slowed us down a lot.  There were times we were doing just over two knots while our engine was cranking away at 1750 rpms.  That much power from the engine normally lets us do over 6 knots and some times 7.  With  a strong current heading East and us going West, it was a fight to make any good time.

As we left Fort Worden, the strait was like a washing machine on agitate.  It was very choppy with lots of white cap waves.  A few miles farther West, it just stopped as we were past the area where water rushes out from the Seattle area and meets the water heading in from Juan de Fuca.  The tend to collide just off Port Townsend and can really stir up the water.

Once past the chop, the winds died and the waters flattened and we just move along nicely.  We got to Port Angeles a bit early so we went about 6 miles further to Freshwater Bay(48 08.891N  123 38.428W) and dropped the hook about 1720 hours and had a nice dinner of barbecued chicken.  Once we are off shore, we will try our luck at trolling for fish.  Since we don't have a license to fish in Washington state, we don't want to press our luck by doing it while we are in their waters.

Tomorrow, we are off for Neah Bay out at the far West end of Juan de Fuca and will wait for a good weather window for heading South.  So far, the weather window for the rest of this week looks good.  If any of you out there find anything different(weather wise) than what we think we know, please feel free to post it in the "comments" section  at the bottom of the blog.  We can use all the help we can get.  There are "weather routers" that people hire as their own personal weather person to get the most accurate forecasts for what they will be facing.  We listen to the weather and check the Internet to see if they know anything better than we do.  Sometimes yes and sometimes no!  We just remember our trip North a year ago and don't want to make that mistake!

All in all, out first day back in the water was alright.  Blues has lost her sea legs and is slowly drooling everywhere she goes.  Shadow has set himself up on the forward starboard bunk and isn't moving.  Blue has decided that's just fine and moved in along side him.  Snowshoe is, as always, out in the cockpit with us sitting one one of the chairs we use.  No way is he going down below decks.  He likes it out there.

Well, it's day two of our new journey and it's off just fine.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.  If you find out anything different about the weather, do let us know.  Till then, stay tuned.  We're about to head out into the Pacific in a few days and want to be prepared.