Finally Mariann co-Authors a Blog!!!! (And we leave Seattle)

So we've finally severed the umbilical cord and left Seattle. We quietly slipped out of town around 9:30am the morning of Friday July 27th. We felt like we'd had way too many farewell-events already and didn't want to do it all over again by having everyone come down to the dock to see us off. (We'll swing back into town toward the end of August, so it's not really the "real deal" going away until then.) We made it to Port Townsend by 6:30 pm, after a pretty average day on the water with a lot of motoring in the AM and increasingly more interesting sailing the closer we got to the straits (of Juan De Fuca). Interestingly, the wind died abruptly when we rounded the headland at Port Townsend Bay, so we doused our sails... Then, of course, it picked up to 10-15 knots a few minutes later. The excitement peaked upon arrival to Boat Haven Marina when we encountered some militant dighy sailors who did not like the fact that we had taken down our sails for the final approach into the marina. They charged us full speed and maneuvered last second to clear just in front or behind us. They repeated this 10 times or so while yelling things like "Sailpower!" and "You're a sailboat!". We were pretty tired and tense at this point as there were about 30 little sailboats and 2 ferries to worry about so we didn't find this too funny at the time.

We pulled into the marina, which seemed to have a narrow separation between piers. After an, um, "experience" a couple years ago at Elliott Bay Marina trying to turn around in a stiff breeze, we've been reluctant to drive our full-keeled "don't-feel-like-turning-on-a-dime-or-at-all" old lady into such situations. So, we turned around in the wide entranceway and decided to anchor for the evening. Problem was, it turned out, that anchoring conditions were marginal throughout the bay: 8 to 10 fathoms (about 50 to 60 feet). Mariann learned the important lesson that even if she's been able to feed out the anchor and chain by hand so far in our anchoring career, 60 feet of chain plus a 45 lbs anchor gets to be a bit much to hold on to. Now we know why people spend lots of money on electric windlasses. . . It took us 2 tries to set the anchor to where it maybe didn't drag (Karl claimed it did slightly, Mariann thought that it didn't). We each spent half the night in a sleeping bag on deck making sure we didn't go anywhere (very fast anyway). The winds died down around 2 am, and we motored into the marina the next morning.

Dinghy Nazis aside, Port Townsend is one of the more interesting towns in the area. In particular, it is home to the Best Breakfast of All Time. Yes, this slightly sleepy burg holds the gateway to breakfast nirvana: the Landfall Cafe. What makes one breakfast stand alone atop all others? Pancakes. Unlike mortal pancakes, these cannot be expressed in words. You'll have to come see for yourself. Order a coffee, followed by a breakfast sandwich, and a full stack of pancakes (to share). Of course we also paid homage to the town's two breweries. We ordered a beer sampler at the Port Townsend Brewery's tasting room, and we both declared the Hop Diggety IPA the clear winner. No strangers to the Water Street Brew Pub (located close Point Hudson Marina where we spent 3-4 months working on our rigging 2 winters ago, we had to have a brew there for old times sake. Other than those highlights we've spent most of the time in town getting crew and boat ready for ocean sailing. Tomorrow (Tuesday July 30th), we plan to leave for Victoria to clear customs into Canada before continuing up the West coast of Vancouver Island.

We had some photos to illustrate this story, but the crew was so eager for shore leave that they forgot to bring the camera to the bar with Internet. Here are some historical pictures to keep you entertained.

Check back for more nail-biting excitement in a few days! As we get some extra time on our hands, we'll add some more pictures and more details about the boat and our trip as well.