Day 344 Anywhere will do.

We left James Island about 1100 and headed through Thatcher Pass and over to Spencer Spit to hook up to a State Park buoy for a quick lunch.  As would be our normal, the wind was smack on our nose everywhere we went.  If we went West, that was where the wind was from.  As we headed up Lopez Sound toward Olga where we had planned to spend the night, the winds picked up to 25+ knots of course right at us.  More motoring.  With it blowing so hard and no end in sight, we turned left and headed to Guthrie Bay(48 35.56N  122.53.06W) to see what it was like.  The tour books tell of a chain that someone laid on the bottom part way in the bay that might snag your anchor.  We dropped anchor where the tour books said was safe.   It took two times to get it to dig in but we were in.  With the wind coming from the North and the bay opening to the South, it calmed down nicely.  The wind generator still turned making lots of nice power for our systems.  

As we looked over the bay, we saw an eagle harassing two sea gulls.   The gulls left but the eagle kept looking for more snacks.  With the kids on deck we kept a close watch on him while they were out touring the deck.  There are houses all around the bay so remote it is not.  At least one had people actually at their house.  Most we see are all closed up and I think rarely get used except in the Summer.   With all settled in, it was a nice quiet evening.  The skies were beginning to cloud up with a change in the weather forecast.   We'd been advised that the winds were to change by early today to come from the South and that would leave us exposed so at 0630, we were out of bed as we could feel the wind change as predicted and got ready to get out of there.  The other draw back was that there was no phone connection nor internet signal.  

We headed off for Blind Bay (48 34.577N 122 56.061W) were we are now.  It's protected from any South winds as it opens at the North.   A great distance of maybe two miles yet we get incredible wireless signal here.  We'd been here late last year during one of our shake down cruises and know that the wireless would be good here.  With rain in the forecast and more South winds predicted, we may be here a couple of days.  We can dingy over to the ferry docks and ride the ferries to other places in the islands for free so we may try that after we get settled in.

So far, it has been somewhat sunny but we will see what Mother Nature has in store for us.

Day 343 Off to James Island

The view across the Rosario Strait from Zephyr's deck.
From shore on James Island.

After rowing ashore for a bit of exploring at Watmough Bay, we took off to James Island (48 30.4580N  122 46.2348W).  The anchor had set so well at Watmough that I had to really cinch down the windlass so it could pull it out.  Zephyr's forward motion helped but boy we were anchored in deep.  I'm just glad the only mud that came up with it was what was struck to the anchor and that the chain was clear.  It makes cleaning the foredeck much easier.

We'd stowed "Puff"(dingy) on the deck and out we went.  We decided on James Island about 5 miles North of where we were.  Not the smartest place to stay as it turns out.  The West side of the island is subjected to lots of tidal flow and keeping an anchor watch if you anchor there.  The East side is subject to wave action from passing ferry and freighters.  We decided to tie to a state park buoy for the night on the East side as there were no buoys on the West.  There was a dock but we weren't sure we could get in there without hitting bottom at low tide.  There was a power boat there on one side as we passed but they didn't answer the call I made to them on channel 16 as to what the water depth was so we just went to the East side.   Just as well as after we tied up to a buoy and went ashore, we walked over and there were four power boats now tied to the dock.  They were rafting up to each other(tieing along side each other).  If we had stayed there, they probably would have wanted to tie up to us.

There was another power boat on a buoy on the East but other than that it looked great as you can see from my pictures.  Boy, were we wrong.  It's like a freeway out there with ships passing all the time and their wakes flowing into the inlet like an arrow.  Up and down, back and forth depending on how it catches us at the time.  Rocking and rolling into the night.  Enough that at times you have to hang on.  Luckily you get a bit of warning as you can hear their propeller sound for quite a while before the wake gets here.  We'd thought to spend a couple of days here but have changed our minds.  We'll be out of here later this morning and head for Olga on Orcas Island--maybe, who knows.  If we see someplace else that intrigues us we'll stop there.

We lowered Puff and rowed ashore for a hike and put our information in the State Parks box that we were here.  We have a year pass so we don't have to pay for our night which is nice.  It's only $10.00 per night so that's not so bad.  We need to find a dock we can tie up to.  That's when it really pays to have a park pass as it's $23.00 a night to stay on the dock.  We have our park book and will be scoping out parks all through the islands.  No point in having a pass if you don't use it.

The weather has been great since last Friday but is supposed to turn colder and have rain by Wednesday.  We'll find a nice place to hold up in for a day or two.

We tried to hook up an antenna to our TV last night but the signals out here are so weak that it's just about impossible to pick up anything.  We'll try again at a different anchor to see if there is a better signal not that there is that much to watch.  I've even started reading a book with a plot!!!  Plus another manual of course.  Learn, learn, learn.

We'll let you know where we end up tonight.

Have a great day everyone.  We're finally living the dream!

Day 342 Relax and explore.

 

We spent the morning either reading (Tracy) or napping (me).  The first thing I knew it was lunch time.  Now that's "living the dream"!!  

I had to call Nobeltec on our navigation software problems since they have been trying to fix a few bugs we have developed.  They had sent me a new DVD of charts and needed to walk me through the installation since I'd screwed it up and the program would no longer even boot up.  Once Travis and I got together, he straightened me out as well as the program and with his help, we loaded all the new charts into the computer.  Since this was a new edition of the same program that I'd been running, we needed installation codes and unlock codes so that I would have access to the charts.  The old series of charts(Cape Flattery to Mexico was no longer a set area so he bumped me up to the entire West coast from Alaska all the way to Baja Mexico.  WOW!!! It was great.  Now we have all the charts we need to take us as far North as we want to go plus, the program works great.  So far, all the bugs are cleared up.  I'll be playing with it over the next few days to refine the information it shows me.

Once that was done, we launched our taxi--"Puff", loaded on the outboard "Dragon" and off we went for shore.  We putt putted around for a while and finally pulled up on a "beach"(gravel).  Since we were on private property, we didn't stay long.  Just time for a short hike and back into Puff for the ride back.  We did learn that it's better to wear boots when trying to get in and out of a dingy at the shore.  That water can be cold.   It was getting late and I still needed to tear down, lube and rebuild the windlass for the anchor.  Once back at Zephyr, off with the outboard(don't want it suddenly missing in the night) and on to the windlass.  

It didn't take long to strip it down, clean and lube it up with water proof grease.  Once back together, she rotates just fine and shouldn't cause us any more problems.  It can get frustrating pulling into an anchorage and the anchor won't play out when you need it to.  Our anchor weighs in at 65 pounds so that wheel was really stuck well.

We closed up the "patio" (cockpit) to keep in the Suns warmth and settled back with a nice bottle of wine and cheese.  A steak dinner was the menu for the evening.  A great way to spend our first day at anchor.  

Today, off to another inlet.  We'll see where the winds take us.

(remember, if you click on the photos they get bigger and easier to see)

Day 341 We're out of there!!

We left Port Townsend at 0950 yesterday morning and are setting our sights northward.  We motored till clear of PT and hoisted the sails.  8 maybe 10 knots of wind.  Not much but enough to keep us moving.  Primarily from the Southeast, it slowly shoved us along missing tugs with barges and container ships. 

With the wind behind us, we jibed a good bit.  For all you landlubbers out there, this means to put the stern of the boat through the angle of the wind instead of the bow.  As you change course going downwind, you slowly pull the mainsail and boom inward till it crosses the center of the boat just as the wind changes from being off the starboard side to the port side or vice versa.  Then you let out the boom with it's mainsail and it fill with the air from behind you and off you go.  Not really tough but it can take some practice to get the timing right.  Back and forth we went making about 3 knots.  Far from whizzing along but at least we were out sailing.  This was the first time we have had the sails up and really making progress since late last year.

Snoeshoe came up on deck for a walk around the deck and then went below for a snooze.  He had enough exercise for the day.  Blue came up, looked around and headed below.  Shadow just slept--smart cat.

By 1400 hours, at the speed we were going--wind had dropped to just about 0, we started up the engine and motored the rest of the way.  We're currently at Watmough Bay--for you Google Earth folks--48 25.5567N  122 48.3756W will put you just about on us.  We expect to spend a day or two here "resting" up from our big day yesterday.  Having been relatively sedentary for the past months--no sailing--we area bit sore from all the stretching, ups and downs, ins and outs that were required of us during our sail.  Our bodies have to adjust.  I told Tracy that we would be having exercises on the Lido Deck this afternoon.  That was met by a large groan and a chuckle.  Like that is really going to happen.

The only problem that occurred was that the anchor didn't want to play out when we arrived here.  While I had washed it off with a hose after our last journey, some of the mud and stuff had gotten down into the moving wheels and it was not about to spin free and let the anchor out.  I pulled and yanked and it finally broke free.  Once we were anchored, I partially took it apart and sprayed it with WD40 but plan of dismantling it today for a proper greasing.  While is may have looked clean, it wasn't.  Lesson learned.  Clean it properly and it won't happen again.  Of course, we don't plan of having such a long spell between anchoring again for quite some time.

We'll be launching our water taxi(dingy) this afternoon and row ashore.  No reason for the outboard I think.  It's not that far.  A hike and some exploring are the call of the day.

We're finally out and we're not going back hopefully for quite some time.  If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the "comment" section and I'll post the answers as soon as I can.

Have a great weekend everyone.  We are finally!!!!

Day 339 We got lucky!

We got lucky last night or this whole "living the dream" could have ended very quickly.  As we sat watching TV last night, we both suddenly sat up with the sudden smell of burning wires running through the cabin.  Yeah, I know, we thought we were past our problems with the electrical system on Zephyr.  Cushions flew and cords were unplugged and wires felt for heat.  As it turns out, the electric heater, one of two we bought at Costco about a year ago was self destructing.  The wires inside the unit were melting at the on/off switch.  Luckily we were here to unplug it quickly.  While nothing may have happened (other than a destroyed heater unit) with our luck, it could have ended in a fire.  Zephyr has already experienced one back in the 90's(you'd never know it by the look of her).  

With us living aboard and the Webasto heater having been on the fritz, we brought two of these from Denver--one for the main cabin and one for the aft stateroom.  They've worked great so far with no problems.  Since we are about to set off, we had taken one of the two to the storage room till we returned.  We figured that the Webasto would keep us nice and toasty(but uses some of our precious diesel fuel to run) while we were at anchor and the other would be used when we tied up at a marina.  I guess we took the wrong one to the storage unit.  I brought the second one back just a few minutes ago and will dispose of the bad one this morning.  We're just glad we were on Zephyr when it melted the wires.  We got lucky.  It could have been worse.

The freezer has stabilized at 9 with the frig at 35 now that everything is set properly.  We could make it colder but there is no reason to do so.  It's still using about 2.8 amps--half of the last unit and is much colder.

Yesterday was more rain and winds in the low 20's.  The next few days are supposed to be great so we expect to be off by Saturday morning for somewhere on the South side of Lopez Island.  We still have lots to learn and systems to check before we truly head North.  

I worked on our finances yesterday transferring funds to so that there will be enough to cover our bills for the next few months since we aren't sure where we will be and what our Internet situation will be.  At least we are in the final stretches of our refit.  The last piece of equipment --Hydrovane wind auto pilot--will be here some time in May.  We can install it once we return when ever that is.

And that is about how our day went--oh yeah, we also took showers!!  Wow how exciting!!

Have a great weekend everyone.  If we do get out of here tomorrow, I'll post as soon as I can acquire Internet again so don't be worried about us if I miss a few days.  The fun is about to begin.  With luck, now you'll get to read about what the cruising life is all about.  We're ready for it.

   

Day 338 More of the same

Rain, wind, rain, wind.  That's about the story of yesterday with the same on the schedule for today.

March was the coldest since 1976 with only two days that we hit the "average" temperature for the area.  Actually, the "average"temperatures we hit were the same as February's temperatures. I can't think of a day where we hit the 50's let alone the "average" temperature.   

Yesterday was just too yucky to set out so we just hunkered in and read and napped and watched TV (can get very boring after a while) for the day.

Other than that, yesterday was pretty much a wash of nothingness though it did feel kind of nice to just sit back and relax with no pressure for a change.  The fur people settled in with us, each with one on our laps.   Today is set for more rain and more wind but great by the weekend--so the weather people say.   It's bad luck to start a journey on Friday so that is out so I expect we will finally start out early Saturday depending on the tides and currents at the time.  We will see.

Soon--off the live the dream!!

OH, as to the stamp we had made.  Since Tracy's name on her passport is Diana, we felt it best to have that name on the stamp so as to not confuse the immigration folks.

Have a great day everyone.

Day 337 Come on Mother Nature--let's cooperate!

Mother Nature was on another binge yesterday with rain ending in the early AM and then within 10 minutes the wind started and it blew and blew and blew.  Into the mid 30 knot range just about all day and into the evening before it finally quieted down.  Today is set for exactly the same except stronger wind--into the 40's for today and maybe stronger as the day goes.  

With that kind of a forecast, we expect to be here probably one more day.  There is no reason to go out in that mess unless we have to.  As we drove up the hill South of Port Townsend and looked over the Admiralty Inlet, the wind was so strong that there was literally a mist of water on the top of the waves all the way across to Whidbey Island.  

So with the delay, we put our time to the best use and finalized lots of last minute things.  We took off for one last trip to Silverdale to get some more jeans for me.  I'd worn out the ones that I'd brought with me and really needed a few new pairs before we set out.  We needed a few more things while we were there.  We looked into getting our phones changed over for use in Canada but ran into roadblocks.  Just about every company we talked to said buy a cheap phone when you get there and throw it away when you leave.  A quick stop at Costco and back to Port Townsend.

We picked up our stamp for when we get into foreign ports and they need proper identification for their papers.  It makes us look more official.

The new cowl vent came into Brion Toss's shop so we picked it up.  There was no hurry as where we are headed the last thing we really want is cold outside air coming into Zephyr.  We have wooden corks in every vent inside just to make sure the cold stays out and the warm air stays inside.  It's nice to get it replaced as once we get farther South--much farther South, we will need as much air coming in as we can.  It gets quite warm down there.   All we have to do is paint it to match and there is no hurry to get that done.  I'm just glad it fit the threads of the existing ring we had in place.

I took the propane tank over to Admiral Supply and got it filled.  It was down to it's last few pounds of pressure and we want to start with a full tank.  We have a spare tank that we use for the barbecue grill plus an extra small tank we brought with us from Denver for that "just in case" moment.

Another stop at the storage building we rent to get rid of things we won't be needing till we get back and then a few more stops, we dropped the car off at West Marine where they are letting us park it till we get back and we were done.  Now we just have to wait for Mother Nature to give us the proper weather window to set sail.