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Off the dock at last

footrope

Contributing Partner
Blogs Author
This has been a long winter and spring for us, but we finally got enough stuff done on and off the boat to return to the waters of Puget Sound.

Friday we left late in the afternoon and broad reached across the Sound from Alki to Restoration Point in about a 12-15 knot northerly. Stowed the sails for the trip through Rich Passage and up the west side of Bainbridge Island to Manzanita Bay. We anchored for the night there. In the morning we headed to Liberty Bay to visit the little Norwegian-style town of Poulsbo. After mis-reading the charts on the way in (minus 2.5 tide at 10:45 am) we turned around and had a quick breakfast while drifting north of Battle Point. I will post a pic later of the boat with the wish-bone mast (dual head-sails - that's all). It might have been an apparition, but the film will be developed this week and we'll see if we were seeing things.

As the blood sugars got back to normal we re-read the charts (three charts were consulted, all agreed) and proceeded in at low tide. The s-shaped pass is plenty deep in all tidal conditions, but Liberty Bay itself is very shallow. At -2 it's downright scary. But we crept further and further in and got within rowing distance of the town marina. It was so silty and stirred up that we had readings between 2 and 9 feet for the last few hundred meters. Next morning we figured we had 7 feet of water at anchoring time.

In the end we got stocked up on Haglschlag and had a very pleasant impromptu meeting and visit with Jerry and Jean and their friend Cindy on Raconteur, their very nice E32. Congratulations to them on their first overnight trip on the boat. We spotted another Ericson at the guest dock, probably a 35(?), powder blue hull, but didn't have time to stop. I think the name was Keira Lei or something like that. A third E-boat at the guest dock was spotted but we were not able to get a name.

On the way out Sunday morning, just past the Naval Undersea Warfare facility at Keyport, we saw another E boat, a 32 I think, named UNCLE FINER (we think). He was inbound to Liberty Bay.

A new shipment of horny Viking helmets was in evidence at a couple shops there in Poulsbo. Not sure if that was the attraction for all those Ericsons or not. We had a great time, ate, drank and slept well. Nothing went wrong with the boat or systems, so except for the dinghy painter incident, it was an unblemished weekend. And the cats survived at home alone for two nights, with their motorized litter box and a fan on a timer. For emergencies, we left a toilet seat up.
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Thanks for the nice narrative! The pastries at Poulsbo are legendary in the NW.
Trivia note: if your are in the Keyport area in your vehicle, there is an excellent Undersea Warfare Museum right off the freeway just at the entrance to the Naval base. They have historic undersea exploratory diving bells and vessels on display as well as all sorts off torpedoes. The docents are retired submariners... :D
Back in the day, we used to trailer our Ranger 20 to Brownsville to launch and circumnavigate (!) Bainbridge Island. That was in the late 70's, if you must know.

Thanks again,
Loren in PDX
 

mark reed

Member III
sorry we missed you

Craig & Ellen,
Glad you made it off the dock and had a good trip. Following my dad's passing (the Saturday of the rendezvous) Vicki and I made a too-short circumnavigation of the San Juans, starting and ending in Port Angeles. Best wind I've ever had in this area at this time of year! Great downwind run to Anacortes the first day, a nice day of tacking to Clark Island, a short motor to Sucia, a tide-driven romp (albeit with fluky winds) to Stuart, and then a huge ebb (but no wind) to suck us back down Haro Strait and across SJF - we averaged >9kts that last day! Ran into Andy and Sharon Beach in their E34 at Prevost Harbour. Those -2 tides sure kept us attending to the depth sounder! We toasted my dad with every sundowner - now we're off to his memorial service. Hope to run into you sometime this season, or else at next year's rendezvous.
 

footrope

Contributing Partner
Blogs Author
We hope this is the beginning of a good season. We are going to do a 2-week cruise in the San Juan and Gulf Islands this summer. We haven't picked the dates yet, but when we do we'll let you know. Hope to see you out there.

Thanks guys.
 
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