Day 2

This morning when we woke up at five and turned on the VHF to the weather it almost looked like we would be staying another day in Port Townsend. The NOAA weather had a small craft advisory out, with a 15-25 knot west wind pretty much all day in the eastern straits of Juan De Fuca, with a chop of four feet or more. All right across our route to the San Juan Islands. There was about half an hour of debate whether we should go out at all, but in the end, the decision was made to try it, and if it really was too rough, the West wind would blow us straight back to Port Townsend. So at 06:30 AM, with full foul weather gear on, dad and I cast off the lines and headed out, with two reefs already in the main, the #2 jib hanked on in place of the genoa, and headed out in the cold drizzle and fog of Admiralty Inlet.

            Just around the end of Port Townsend, within sight of the Sea Dart, we raised the jib and double reefed main, and cut the engine, making a good four knots to windward out through Admiralty Inlet. However, as we entered Juan De Fuca, the tide rips and crazy 2-3 foot chop set our boat speed back to around 2 knots, so the engine had to be restarted to push us clear. After the gut, though, the wind picked up to right around 15 knots, we shook out the reefs in the main, and Darwind took off close-hauled at 4 knots, riding a heavy chop, sometimes up to four feet, as easily as a gull.

            For another two hours dad and I had some fun upwind sailing, occasionally burying the rail and regularly making over five knots. The boat took the pounding easily and without a fuss, gliding over steep four-foot waves and cruising along under working sails with no more than 20 degrees of heel most of the time. However, around nine thirty things got even better as we started to bear off for Rosario Strait, taking wind and seas almost beam on, and really started to fly. We set the record boat speed for our trip so far at 6.58 knots, or just about hull speed, and for another three hours we didn’t drop below five knots for more than a minute at a time! About this time, the sky cleared up, we were able to strip off the many layers of foul weather gear, and eventually, as we steadied onto our new course, the crew emerged from the cabin and we really started to enjoy the sail.

            When we cruised into Rosario Strait, the wind dropped away to around 7 knots or less, and for a bit we played around with double headsails and using the new telescoping whisker pole to wing out the genoa, but eventually we settled at around 3 knots boatspeed under main and genoa, bucking a quarter knot current. Now we were really in the high life, lazy downwind sailing in the hot sun, with not too much current, and long hours at the helm.

            We sailed up the strait for around six hours, moving between two and five knots as the wind rose and fell. Around 1300, we checked out a anchorage at James Island, but decided to keep going to Doe Bay as it was still so early in the day. For a couple of hours before Doe Bay I finally gat a little rest, then at Doe bay, we actually anchored in the next cave to the south, where we anchored off a private beach in 2.5 fathoms with 75 feet of rode.

Safety Drill

            At the anchorage, we were totally alone except for a group of loud singing kids at one of the houses on shore, so we decided to blow up the trashed life raft we accidently got and had to replace in Seattle. The raft was so old and worn out that the deck was covered in flakes of rubber, and when it inflated we found that the flares expired in1985! It served as a perfect drill though, as you don’t often get to actually see a life raft inflate in the water and crawl around in it.