I took the first week of October off work. I moved the boat out of Gas Works Park Marina on Thursday evening, September 30th. Leilani officially took over slip 2, returning Pepper Anne to her home. Hunter and Tess helped Leilani and I shuffle boats around. There was an unused slip on Dock B I could put Moonraker in while we shuffled.
I pushed off from Gas Works around 8:00 that evening heading to the locks. It was already dark. My air horn was out of air. It took me time to find the manual pump air horn. When I found it it reminded me of how quiet it really is. I had trouble signalling the Fremont Bridge to raise. The boat battery was dead so my lights were out. Some rowers were out on the lake. I asked if they could signal the bridge. They didn't have a horn. I called the bridge number but no one picked up. The voicemail said you could leave a message and they'd get back to you in an hour. I left a message. They never called back (in the grander sense, I did not wait an hour to see if they would call back.) I ended up taking the boat super close to the bridge and sounding my tiny tinny horn again. They figured it out and raised the bridge.
Often going through the locks is stressful. There's usually a ton of people around and different boats have different opinions how to jockey for position. My sailboat is not as manueverable as speedboats or yachts. Speedboats especially have a habit of cutting in line. Freaking rednecks. I see other sailboats are better than me at holding position floating freely in water. You have to wait around a lot at the locks. When I go through the locks I like to tie off to a wall, establish where I am in line, and wait tied to the wall without worrying about floating into other boats.
This time through the locks was absolutely care free. I was running the boat solo and it was dark, so it was extra fun. When I arrived I pulled up to the small locks and waited. I hung out near a wall where I could tie off but practiced holding position floating freely. The new Tohatsu 6HP engine outboard I have is easier to control than previous engines. It has the gear select on the front of the outboard so you don't have to reach to the side to change anything. It is more accessible and easier to switch between forward, nuetral and reverse. Every other outboard I've ever had puts the gear select on the side of the engine. Gear selects on the side are just further back and harder to reach and switch quick between in a pinch.
The staff at the locks were nice this night too. During the day and when things are busy the lock workers can be aloof and jeering. I've complained in the past they don't offer as much help as they could. Sometimes I wish they'd help organize the order boats come in the locks. I've seen them make fun of people for screwing up tying or holding lines. Oh well! I don't mind. They've having fun on their job. I understand how a hand's off approach makes sense especially when you're dealing with everyone in the public and their own fancy yachts. Got to reduce liability you know.
Anyways, the dock workers this night were total chillers. They were hanging out smoking vapes blowing fat clouds. There's something to the night shift! That and since I was literally the only person coming through meant things were stress free for everyone. I chatted with one guy. I told him how I was moving the boat up to Bellingham. We remarked on the weather and hoped together it would be nice. I explained I had made this plan months ago so I'm totally at the whim of whether or not rain sun and wind will be good. He told me a saying, "Well man you've got to plan your sail and sail your plan!" Indeed.
The water went down. I took some selfies. The locks opened up. I pushed off. I didn't have as smooth as a take off as I expected! I was tied on the right. The boat veered out to the left[^1]. I didn't understand why I didn't have control. The water rushes out of the locks so there is some current that could be affecting me. Ah, I'm an idiot. The boat is in nuetral, not forward. I kept the boat point forward with some rudder pumping and then kicked the engine into gear and got rolling out. Damn if I didn't wish that went a little smoother! Now these vape boys think I'm an amateur.
[^1]: "The boat tied right and veering left," those are Port and Starboard for you fancy sea speakers out there. And fuck you if you think I don't know the proper order. I'm trolling you.
All in all I'm more confident going through the locks in the future! Funny though, that may not be for a long time now that I'm moving this boat up to Bellingham.
I finished out my work week on Friday. I could have pushed off and sailed as soon as Saturday or Sunday. Or Friday night for that matter. Instead I hung around town so I could check out Seattle Rush, a high-quality bike race put on by some local messengers. Shout out to Nick, Justin and Roz. These people always put on a heck of a race.
Instead of racing on Saturday I joined Ernie "Big Earn" Adapon Premium Rush 2 Ernie-2024-Sanders Adapon Jr. to run a checkpoint. Running a checkpoint just means hanging out on a street corner somewhere downtown. Bikers race through the different check points. When they get to one someone needs to be there to stamp their manifest to prove they came through.
The race started at 12:30. I rolled up and the race had already taken off. Oops! I checked in with Nick and Justin, got some patches to send out to Aaron Blazar and asked where Ernie was. I found out Ernie was running a spot by Cinerama on 4th and Lenora. I rolled there. Didn't see him. Called him up. Found out he didn't need to be at his checkpoint until 2:30. Everyone was hanging at Shorty's. Nice. Bloody Mary time.
Good times at Shorty's. Kevin, Mary, Sophie, Mattface, Ernie, Tofu, Sean all kicking it. We had some bloody marys. We played a round of Durok and maybe we started to understand it by the end of the game. Definitely the highlight joke was Mattface promising to run for president and putting a man on the sun.
We had a great time hanging out then rolled out to checkpoints. Tofu, Ernie and I ran that Cinerama spot. We ran into Masando walking by later. The day was so nice. Sunny blue skies. I got some good pictures of Ernie chilling around.
We wrapped up the checkpoint and went to the after party, which was a total blast. the Seattle Rush crew had rented out the top level of a parking garage above Hot Mama's Pizza. What a great place for a party and what a perfect day for it with all the sun. Classic events happened: Carry Shit Olympics, Footdown, a Track Stand competition. Oh yeah, lock up really happened too.
Oof. This is supposed to be a story about sailing. I should get off this bike world stuff and get back to that. But, isn't that what sailing is really about? Just kidding. But actually yes. This is the story of how I wasted two good days of nice weather at bike events and set myself up to drink rain for all my actual sailing[^2].
Hanging out with bike people was fun on Sunday too. I got lucky that the after party BBQ hangout at the end of the day was close to my house this time.
[^2]: Remember: whenever I say sailing I really mean motoring the boat. I got distance to cover and less time than patience. I'll say once this boat is coming out of a home port.
Monday was another great day of weather. The sun peeled the clouds of the sky around 11AM and left it all blue. I should have been out in the sound sailing casually in the sun. Instead I spent all day packing, buying some supplies, loading up the aux "tender" boat to ferry between the sailboat and shore, fixing the toilet on the boat, taking junk off the boat, driving back from Ballard to Beacon Hill because I wanted to grab my bow and arrow to hit the range in Mount Vernon driving back from Bellingham. I didn't end up pushing off until 7:00 PM.
I saw a bit of the sunset and than sailed through the dark. Sailing at night is fun. There's not much you need to see. In fact everything actually becomes more obvious. The shores are coated in lights so you know you won't hit land. Other boats have lights on. They're super obvious to see. Every now and then lights from airplanes trick you into thinking the lit top mast of another boat is approaching.
It seems no matter when you cross a ferry lane the luck of the draw is such that you're always going to be quite near the ferry. I slowed down near Edmonds to let one ferry get ahead of me. I kept waiting for a big wake to shake my boat up but it never came. The Mukilteo-Clinton ferry shined a big spot light right at me because I was crossing close to its port right when it was going to take off.
Sometimes the water at night is pretty. This night the water was especially calm. I still get irrationally scared of sea monsters and one airplane I absolutely chalked up as a UFO. It had a slow steady pulsing light that I didn't understand. I thought it was a helicopter with a search light because it never seemed to be moving. Really it was flying straight at me so I didn't see the kind of horizontal motion you might expect from seeing a plane. I just saw a floating light pulsing and seemingly floating at one point.
Oh what else about Monday sailing. Ah right, the basics.
When I pushed off I needed to choose how far North to go. Leaving Golden Gardens AKA Shilshole Marina the options are basically go for 2 hours and port in Edmonds for the night, or push for 6 hours and port in Everett. I have the dog with me and at this point I'm not sure how well he's going to do on the boat. I assume he will pee and poop on the deck so I've brought a dedicated poop towel, a bucket and some bleach to clean things up.
Overall the dog did very good. I had a life vest and a leash on him the whole time. He never seemed to need to go to the bathroom. He tried to play with a bumper on the side of the boat (pulled up) so I had to stop him from doing that. I was worried he would fall out off the edge. Boomhauer liked putting his front paws up and looking over the edge. He liked watching the water, even at night. I kept a hand on his leash and handle on his life jacked especially when he looked over the edge like this. I held him whenever ferrys were near too trying to anticipate getting bounced rough by big wakes which never came. A real highlight of Boom is when he looked out the back and saw we were towing the aux row boat. He barked at it a bunch. Good dog. In his settling state he'd curl up and take a nap on a towel in a corner of the cockpit to stay out of the wind and warm up a bit. When we finally landed in Everett he was eager to get off the boat. I had to tie him off to make sure he didn't jump out while I tied the boat off properly.
We made good time landing at midnight in Everett after taking off from Shilshole at 7:00 PM. Five hours is faster than I expected! It was well worth bearing through pushing forward even at night just to get ahead of the game and be set to hit Oak Harbor tomorrow.
Well it is Tuesday morning now. I've finished breakfast. I had bacon, coffee and cream, two english muffins with cream cheese and raspberry beret jam. There's still a banana next to me I intend to eat. And I plan to have some honey nut cheerio's too. I'm plugged in to shore power at the Everett Marina. That just means I've got an extension cord running out a window plugged in to an electric box on the dock. I was able to charge up my phone, my aux battery and the boat battery while plugged in last night. Being plugged in lets me run my toaster oven to cook bacon and toast english muffins. I've got pre-ground coffee (Coffee you haven't yet dropped on the ground) I can make in a French Press and I've got a water boilier.
It is currently 9:50 AM. I got up at 8:00 AM. I've fed and watered Boomhauer who's currently planted behind taking a nap. The rain let up a while ago. The forecast had showed it would peel off after morning. There's a surge of wind coming through around midday. Reports say about ~15mph. Normally that's great perfect wind that makes for very fun actual sailing, Sailing I'll write, with a capital "S." Well, I'm in Move Mode. I'm just trying to get this boat to a destination: Bellingham. Although Sailing is fun I'd rather motor-on and get to where I'm going. I'll put up the sails a bit today and see how fast I move but I think I'll move much faster with my motor.
I thought for a second that I should take advantage of shore power and make a lunch meal for myself. I've got rice, chili, mac and cheese I could whip up all together into a nice mush. Instead I think I'll lean on my deli meat and make a simple sandwich for lunch. I'm still not over a great sandwich I made at home the other day: turkey cheese mayo ranch. That ranch seduced me.
Last night at Everett Marina was fine. It was tricky coming in to port at dark. I don't know the area well enough to recognize what's going on. There's a lot of lights and shipyards. There's one light it took me a long time to figure out: the Anthony's restaurant lighthouse light. It is a great well-seen beacon. It just took me a while to figure out on my map what the heck I was looking at. It is near the entrance to the Marina and does ultimately serve as the perfect beacon to home in on but dang if it ain't useless if you don't know what it is.
I landed, took Boomhauer for a walk, plugged in my power and hung out in the cabin. I must have looked at the weather a bit and made a plan to take it easy this morning and wait the rain out. I had a funny dinner: sushi from QFC, a Dick's deluxe and this piece of "Salmon Bacon" a seafood guy sold me on trying when I went to buy dry ice at QFC.
I ate, hung out with the dog, surfed the net, checked my sites then put some TV shows and went to bed! Remember: always download TV shows. Netflix ain't on at sea. Well it is. But you know what else is? Boats. Get it? Yaarrrr you do.
Today I'll push off from Everett and put in a good 8 hours of moving. I'm aiming for Oak Harbor. This will be a very boring stretch. I'm on the inside on the east side of Whidbey Island and dang if it ain't a big island. There's two places to stop before Oak Harbor: Langley and Coupeville.
Langley has a good turkey cranberry sandwich (always a favorite) I'd like to get. Maybe their pinball place is open now too. Accessing anything in Langley requires throwing the bicycle together and pedaling up some hills, and what do I do with the dog? Leave him on the boat? I guess so.
Coupeville has a one-block-sized tiny old town town old area. There's a bar there I like where it is fun to snag a beer and sandwich, hopefully something like meatloaf? Another favorite. In sandwich and in music.
Oak Harbor has a big marina where I know there will be guest spots. I've had good times waiting out bad weather in Oak Harbor before. There's a bar further from the marina which requires a bike jaunt to get to. The bar is weird. Not cozy. Not divey. Just "towney." Last time I was there I talked to a girl with an Insane Clown Posse tattoo, so that was cool. I think I'll skip that bar this time.
The current plan is to put in time and move around a lot today to get to Oak Harbor. Then tomorrow pop out from Oak Harbor go through the Swinomish Channel and land in either Anacortes or Bellingham. The Swinomish Channel is an awesome trek. Very good sites. Basically a narrow canal. I don't even know if it is man made or not. Maybe engineers have expanded on something more natural. I'm not sure. Anyway the whole area is like a little piece of North West Washington I never knew existed until I utilized it last year.
There are two island I wish I could visit: Hope Island and Skagit Island. Two small islands east of Deception Pass. I camped on them last year with Owen, Zac and Noble. We had all good weather (except yeah I guess we got pissed on by rain at some point) and we literally grabbed crabs out of the water with our hands and cooked up a few. Props to Noble for knowing which crabs were OK to cook up and how to cook 'em up. I don't think I have time to dilly dally with those islands right now on this trip.
That's it for now! I bet I'll be in Oak Harbor at 9 or 10 PM.
