October 13, 2017

      This is the final entry of the sailing blog for this year. We are now home, back in Santa Fe since Sunday afternoon, October 8. I wanted this year, to bring all you readers up to date with the last of our sailing time.This summer manifested itself inwardly and outwardly as being a time of relative calm for me, free of too much busyness, our centering focus always the boat, a bit of a retreat from our sometimes over busy life in Santa Fe. Please don’t imagine we were totally isolated from friends and family. Originally this had been a worry of mine but it has never been the case. In fact we have made some new friends in the Northwest but they are all connected to boats in one way or another. We even had some friends from Santa Fe, the husband also a sailing enthusiast, visit us in Port Townsend. Outwardly our sailing was minimal. We encountered very little wind except for the glorious Sunday in Port Townsend Bay.

      The broken windlass and the baptism at which we had agreed to be godparents broke up our relatively short sailing time this year. A month on the water is what we had when usually it is a couple of months, some years even more than that. Plans to sail to Canada were quickly put to rest when the windlass failed. We explored new places in Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands instead. Because of the baptism we spent a very relaxing four days in Seattle with some of Mike’s family. We got to know our Godchild, Thea, a little better. She is a darling eighteen month old, full of curiosity about everything including the appearance of another set of adults in her life. When it was her bedtime she didn’t want to go. The presence of her grandparents and soon to be godparents was just too interesting! 

        After the baptism we returned to the San Juan’s for a few days. When we crossed the Strait of Juan de Fuca to get back to the Olympic Peninsula we arrived a day ahead of ourselves. On a whim I convinced Mike to go to a semi secluded bay for the night. It was a peaceful uncrowded anchorage and we had a lovely sunset. We both thought we’d be in the marina in Port Townsend  the following day. That was not to be the case as it was with so many things this summer. That saying, “ How to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” was almost a daily reality. 

           The next day as we pulled up anchor it was calm and sunny with clouds building in the southeast. As we motored toward Point Wilson it clouded up completely. Next thing we knew it was beginning to rain. We quickly donned rain gear as the wind picked up.  At first I thought we would have one last chance to sail this year. The wind however, kept building and rapidly. Just as we reached the outer buoy for Point Wilson we encountered waves smashing into the bow and spraying us way back in the cockpit. It was wild. The tide was on it’s way into the bay and the wind was from the opposite direction out of the southeast. We were dodging wave after wave, ducking behind the dodger. For the next fifteen minutes or so as we made our way past Point Wilson, I wondered if the wind would be less or equal once we were inside the bay. The tug of war that one felt at the outer buoy where current and wind seemed to be doing battle subsided a bit but the wind and wave action continued as we slowly made out way into the bay. It became apparent to us that it would be impossible to get into the marina. So it was decided that we would keep going to the head of the bay and find some sheltered spot in the lee of the land to drop the anchor for the night. 

       As we made our way slowly through the storm, we came upon three boats drifting with no one on board. All three had dragged their anchors. One was becoming grounded on a sandy beach. The other two were just floating wildly in the wind and waves. We  called the coast guard and reported the boats along with their registration numbers. The coast guard in turn would notify the owners of their boats whereabouts.     

      Slowly we made our way down the bay to Port Hadlock and found a place out of the wind. The anchor was lowered and hot coco along with a snack was prepared in record time. There had never been a minute to stop and eat lunch that day. By the time we’d finished eating and drinking we could see the weather was already beginning to calm itself. By the time dinner was prepared it was calm again. The stars came out that night and the next morning was chilly but the sun rose through the mist. We arrived in the marina mid morning to begin getting the boat ready for haul out the next day. Our bedding had gotten soaked the day before when the waves kept breaking over the bow and splashed through a hatch which we discovered was not water tight. So out came all our bedding to dry on the boom in the lovely warm sun. After a rather windless month on the water we finally had one wild and windy day on the water!