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August 12 Give Up Car and We’re Off!
Now you can say we are finally off cruising for we left the dock
of Shilshole and headed north to Port Ludlow. We motored
as we were heading into the wind and the air was
light. We started our learning curve with our new Raymarine
E120 chart planner. Hank had done the way points on his
computer and transferred them to the chart plotter.
We
needed to know how to the radar worked and how to identify
targets on the screen. The autopilot would steer to the way
points if you pushed the correct commands. We still have many
more things to learn, but the time for reading the instruction
manuals has not appeared yet.
Port Ludlow was a delightful marina and was so changed since I
had seen it years ago. There are a lot of new homes and
condos in the area but the quietness of the setting has not
disturbed. We checked in and found that the place we wanted to
go for dinner was catering a private party until 7:30 pm. We
decided that a late dinner was OK. We rose early he next
morning to walk and
get our laundry done. The crabbing season was on, but it was
only from Wednesday morning to Saturday dusk. That would mean
that we would not be able to crab in Washington for it was
already Saturday.
August 13th Motor Sailed to Watmought Bay
Watmought Bay is located on the southeastern side of
Lopez Island. It is a rock strewn beach and towering cliffs of
Chadwick Hill. We anchored for the first time and I took
bearings to check for movement in the night. Our delta anchor
held well but still Hank got little sleep. Luckily he had
installed a repeater display next to his side of the bed so he was able to
monitor the wind without getting up.
We took the dink to shore and walked a broad dappled
path, overhung with foliage that followed a marshland before
looping back to the beach. It gave us a time to stretch our
legs and enjoy the undergrowth beauty.
Not an early morning departure for when we were
finally underway it was noon. We had had a small problem
retrieving the anchor for as Betsy pushed the windless control
the chain would not go easily down the hausepipe. We found that
a screw was left long and has the chain payed out it snagged the
screw and bent it forward. The problem was solved by Betsy
crawling into the chain locker and sawing off the end of the
screw with a hacksaw.
August 14th Watmought to Blind Bay
Blind Bay is located on Shaw Island. It is a
wonderful place to anchor and throw over a crab pot, pulling up
dinner a few hours later. Alas we would have loved to do that
but it was not to be. We found that we still were quick at
snagging a buoy with the use of our buoy snagger that is
attached to the boat pole. Thank goodness for boat shows where
one sees all these nifty little devices. Being on a buoy meant
Hank had a good night’s sleep. We rode around the Bay with the
dink and were awed by the beauty. The ferry lands at the mouth
of the bay so you want to be as far in as possible as to not
feel the constant waves.
August 15th Blind Bay to Reid Harbor, Stuart Island
Sailing was light and we tried to sail as much as
possible but most of the way we used the engine. We arrived in
time to anchor, put the outboard on the dink and go ashore for a
hike. Hank remembered buying a T-shirt at a serve yourself
box. We walked the 0.7 of a mile to the school house and saw
some T-shirt but they were not designed by the school children.
The little brochure on the island said that there were now 6
students at the school. We decided that they must now be old
enough to be designing shirts yet. This is an unusual island in
that the people chose not to have any electrical power, cable
hook-ups, or phone lines. The population on the island is about
40 people. A short walk from the school house is the island
cemetery with weathered headstones that recount the lives of the
island pioneers. We continued on the road toward the light
house and found the serve yourself t-shirt box. The box owner
wrote that this had been in existence for over a decade and the
honor system had been successful. We took the shirt with an
envelope attached so we would able to mail them a check for our
purchase. The harbor was well filled with boats when we
returned. This is a favorite spot for friends to raft up
together. We met three sailboats close to us that were from the Wala-Wala,
Washington yacht club. They had been on their boats for a month
and the 34 feet of living space were getting to them. They left
early the next morning to travel down the Oregon coast.
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