Port Townsend


This morning we woke up at anchor ready to go, only to find we were bucking to a two-foot chop in twenty-five knots of wind with the anchor rode iron taught off the bow roller. Thus we sensibly decided to stick around in Port Townsend for another day instead of fighting through a moderate gale with 4ft chop out in Admiralty Inlet, and so we moved into Boat Haven marina at 08:30 AM.
            This setback did not really disappoint me as in fact; I actually quite like Port Townsend, one of the few places left in the US where the true essence of sailing is truly understood and immersed into the culture. For instance, how many places are there restaurants in the shipyard, and it is impossible to walk own a marina slip without encountering a boat that could set out around the world tomorrow next to a wooden schooner built a century ago, which in turn is moored next to a classic sailing skiff or little weekender sailboat? To put it in perspective, in a harbor of around 400 slips, maybe half a dozen are taken up my motor vessels. (Walking down the dock to where Darwind is moored is like walking through a boat show!)
            Also, nowhere else is there so much sailing history in one place, and it is the commonest thing in the world. For instance, through my day and a half of wandering around I discovered the 21 foot Sea Dart, Tristan Jones’ boat that he sailed to lake Titicaca and then across South America in the seventies (the book Incredible Voyage by Tristan Jones is the story of that voyage), for sale for two grand in pristine condition! And across the harbor there is a replica of Spray, the first boat to be sailed solo around the world, as someone’s live-aboard cruiser; an in the boatyard, John Steinbeck’s boat from his book The Sea of Cortez, which was recently floated and rebuilt!
            As well as the rich maritime culture, Port Townsend allowed my dad and I to do some last minuet projects like fiddling with the ray marine autopilot that after all day and some soldering has been rendered as equally useless as it was before, but at least we can put that project aside for the rest for the trip up, and as my wind vane self steering also needs to be repaired, we will be hand steering for the nest 2,000nm.
            I wish I could stay here in Port Townsend a few more days, where we bumped into some friends from AK, made new friends around the docks, and just hanging around this awesome place. However, this was really only a weather stop, so we are heading up to the San Juan Islands on Sunday early morning, to start cruising in earnest and really begin the voyage after the shakedown cruise.
           

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