The Plan

August 7th to the 9th,2021 (Saturday / Sunday / Monday )

We had Monday off and planned a 3 day cruise to nearby Blake Island. It was a double-birthday extravaganza for Lillie (turning 4) and her friend Jade (turning 6). Abbey and Calvin were with Sarah, Lillie and me on Spice. We would be met by three other families coming to the Island by sailboat and power boat.

Tide and Time Wait for No One

We can only leave or enter our slip at slack tides. We had planned to leave at 11:40 am. We all arrived around 10:00 am to put things away and to setup the boat. I went back to raise the dingy in preparation, then went to the transom to ensure everything was clear. I noticed a tell tale rainbow sheen on the water, then looked up to see a drip of oil on the propeller of my outboard. Raising the dinghy had triggered the drip. I quickly grabbed a oil diaper, cleaned up what had dripped and wrapped the engine up. It looked like we would not get to use the freshly repaired outboard for this excursion. I later came to suspect a shaft seal had failed.

As our departure window approached, the wind was ticking up and up. The wind started at just over 10 kts when we arrived, then was ticking up over 15 to 17 kts a bit later. At 11:30, the wind was gusting above 20kts in a cross-breeze.

I was pretty sure we could not clear the fairway or navigate the marina with the breeze blowing so strong. So I decided to wait. Calvin was anxious to leave the dock, but it looked like we’d be in the marina for the night. We killed some time by taking a tour of the USS Turner Joy, a Vietnam era destroyer which doubles as our marina breakwater. Back at the boat, the wind had settled down and the current was slacking. The next slack tide wasn’t until 6:00 pm, but by 4:30 pm the jelly fish where staying put in the water rather than whipping past our boat in less than 12 parsecs. The wind had abated too, now the breeze was 6 to 9 kts. We decided to give it a try thinking we could still anchor before sunset. We shoved off and navigated the fairway and made the big turn without issue.

Finally Underway with Variable and Vigorous Winds

We raised the sails and shut off the engines for a beam reach with 8 knots of breeze from the south. The wind was variable and shifty, making for some interesting sailing. As we got nearer to Blake Island, the breeze increased up to just above 20 kts, we had a full main and full jib, and I was getting a bit nervous, but I mostly feathered into the breeze to bleed off the big gusts. I was too nervous to crack off and see what the boat could do for fear of flying a hull or losing control. I don’t think these concerns were valid, but I still wasn’t used to the boat. Another mile or so and we were in the lee of Blake Island and ready to find our anchorage.

Tucked in for Night One

We dropped the anchor in 20 feet of water. Just as the anchor started feeding out, Sarah exclaimed, “I can’t stop it! I don’t know what to do!”. Thankfully, I did. During our survey, Pete our boat broker had pointed out that the windlass clutch can be tightened or loosened with a winch handle. I left the helm, jumped into the cockpit, grabbed a winch handle then ran forward to tighten the clutch before the chain ran out. Despite that little incident, and a bit of stiff breeze, getting to Blake Island was smoother than our first outing. We were all getting comfortable with the boat.

Clavin wanted to fish, so we dug out a rod and reel from the storage locker and threw it into the water. Well, we dropped the lure 20 ft to rest on a mud bottom. Despite a sometimes vigorous southerly breeze, our anchorage was comfortable. We were on the north side of Blake Island, not far from the west-most point, so we were protected from the southerly wind. We were flanked by two large container ships that were waiting for port of Tacoma or Port of Seattle to let them in. COVID was causing near constant back-ups in the ports, and this area was a favorite anchorage for large ships. We heard the constant low-frequency hum of their massive generator engines.

Birthdays, Treasure and a Sailboat Regatta

The next morning, birthday morning, we took things slow. We made our lattes and had a bit of breakfast. Abbey and Lillie worked on a treasure map

Our plan was to set out and sail. I wanted to run through our sail inventory, including the Code-0 sail, which we can carry fairly high on an upwind angle in lighter breeze. I also wanted to set our spinnaker. Ballard Sails had repaired the torn head and added dyneema reinforcement to the luff. Our friend Angus was bringing a boat full of babies and parents over to Blake Island for the birthday extravaganza. We planned to sail over to meet them, and then sail back to Blake Island. Angus keeps his boat Fiona at Elliot Bay Marina, so our course would provide us a lovely backdrop of Alki beach and downtown Seattle.

Dark and Stormies On a Sunny Day

We hauled in the anchor, got underway and set sail. Not long after, Abbey brought out the dark and stormies. Abbey and her family are infamous for their “Norris” pours. We setup the tillers and Abbey was happy to take the helm. We set course from Blake Island to Alki Beach and turned north to point toward Elliot Bay after an hour or so.

We were checking in with Fiona to coordinate a rendezvous. Angus was a bit delayed waiting for the other family to arrive. We carried a high angle of sail to stay near Alki to kill a bit of time. This approach also gave us a favorable angle to use the Spinnaker when we finally turned down to Elliot Bay marina. I wrestled the spinnaker out of the hatch and rigged it up. Then we set the kite. A few moments later, we finally spotted Fiona, they had already crossed our path and were going with full sail pointing at Blake Island. Where did they come from and how did they get ahead of us?! It became clear to us that this was suddenly a race and we were losing. We took fast action to get the Spinnaker down in preparation for a u-turn and an upwind sail.

Our maneuvers were interrupted by five short and rapid blasts. This is a signal that no skipper wants to hear, it means you have a big ship bearing down on you and they don’t know how to avoid a collision with you. My first reaction was to think, “uh oh, some dumb ass is playing around in the shipping lanes” I looked up and around and saw a ferry bearing down on us. “Oh crap, that dumb ass is me!” We were sailing in a most unseamanlike fashion. We had let our pursuit sneak past us, and now all of Elliot Bay, Seattle, West Seattle and Magnolia was aware of our amateur maneuvering.

Abbey was at the tiller, I let her know that we were the recipient of the five short and rapids signal, and asked her to turn down. I looked forward and eased the main out, but we weren’t turning down quickly enough. Another five short and rapid blasts. Crap. “Turn down!”, “I am turning down!” “Oh, ok” We weren’t making enough way to turn the bows. In a slight panic, I fired up the engines. The throttles were in sailing position, that is locked in reverse to keep the folding props closed rather than open and spinning. It also meant that when I turned on the engines, they were in near full throttle and in reverse, not good for the engines. Oh lord! Jack Aubrey (of Master and Commander) would be most unimpressed with my seamanship. I grabbed the throttles, starboard forward, port reverse, and our bows quickly turned north (left turn), making our intentions clear to the ferry. Both engines in forward, and we cleared out of the ferry’s path. We were out of danger, but Fiona had further extended her lead.

We spun around, pointing upwind on a close haul. We unfurled the jib, dropped the dagger boards, shutdown the engines and the race was on. Abbey, Angus and I race quite a lot, and its nearly impossible to sail a boat any slower than as fast a we can. The urgency to sail as fast as we can is doubly increased when another boat is on the water. This was no exception, I had my eyes on Fiona to gauge her angle and speed relative to ours. We have more than 10’ of additional water line and we are a light displacement boat for the sail area compared to Fiona. We should have been gaining, but we were not. Abbey tried to find the groove to get our speed up, I tweaked our sails. We made some minor gains, but nothing like we should’ve. As we neared the southern tip of Bainbridge Island, Fiona tacked. We tacked.

It was time to try something new, we could not abide the embarrassment of losing so handily. I unfurled the Code-0 to see if we could carry the upwind angle. We could, we were finally closing on Fiona. After another thirty minutes, we were almost back to our anchorage and finally passed Fiona. We yelled greetings and a few incomprehensible words, we waved to all of the parents and kids. Then we broke off to find our anchorage for the evening. Fiona continued around the sandy northwest point of Blake Island to grab a mooring ball just in front of the camp grounds.

Beach Beers

The plan for the evening was beers and a potluck on the beach camp grounds. No beach fires allowed. There was a burn ban because July and August had been too hot and dry.

After settling into the anchorage, we prepared for ourselves and the dinghy for the longish row to the beach. Our engine was still leaking oil out of the center of the propeller. We didn’t want to use it and spew oil into the sound. So we improved the wrapping on the prop with more oil diapers and a plastic bag.

The motor was propped up and out of the water. We rigged the oars, and started paddling into the beach. We soon learned that our dinghy oars are really designed for last resort use only. I was getting to experience a bit of what Sarah was dealing with during our 4th of July anchorage challenges. The difference between Sarah’s experience and mine, was that I had a boat full of people offering critique as they watched me struggled to keep the boat on a straight heading and making way for ~15 minutes (hee hee). I got a good workout and we made slow but steady progress.

We finally landed at the north beach. We thought we might be able to use the wheels of the boat to make a short cut portage to the camp site. Sarah and I struggled with the wheels down for a few minutes only the discover the the wheels were rusted and totally seized. It was time for Plan B, I’d get back in the boat by myself and I would row around the point. We wanted to beach the boat near the campsite, and move it as needed to deal with the tide. The going was easier with less people, until I got around the point and encountered a strong current. After another 10 minutes rowing, I was finally near the campsite.

By the time I arrived, most of the families had already settled in. This event was comprised of three boats and five families. Mostly this was Jade’s sixth birthday party, which also coincided with Lillie’s fourth birthday. There were eight kids in total, ranging in age from 4 years old with Lillie and Kai being the youngest. The rest were mostly five and six year olds. Two families were setup with tents on the beach. I was the last to arrive. I walked up the beach and was offered a beer which I happily accepted. There was a bit of baby chaos all around, parents were at various phases of lathering up kids with sunscreen or helping kids into their swim suits. In between all of the interruptions of kid-fights, crying, “hey look at me!”, “put that down”, “don’t climb on that!” and potty time, parents traded snippets of getting to know you conversation, shared tales of their trials in getting to their mooring and explained the various planned activities for the weekend. Really there was one significant planned activity, the treasure hunt.

Treasure Hunt

I was conscripted along with Angus and two other fathers to set clues along the trail so the kids could discover the path to the treasure. We had mini treasure chests, cards to write out clues and pickle-flavored taffy to go along with each of the clues the kids would find along the way. We also had a treasure map. We set off up the trail with a beer in hand, and a bag full of treasure-trail tchotchkies. We set the first clue, and headed down the trail. It was around this time that we realized that the map wasn’t quite of a scale and accuracy to support our trail-marking. Angus, with his 2 years of cartography training, was particularly miffed. He paused the trail-setting to redraw the map.

After a few minutes we were off again, planting clues and candies. We made it back to the north beach, very near where we made our initial dinghy landing. We had to duck and then crawl to stay below a short dune to stay out of site of the camp grounds. We found a hole in a large drift wood tree stump to hide the final clue and the key to the treasure box. Then we crawled further to the west to finally dig a hole and burry the treasure. We gathered rocks and sticks from the beach to fashion a large arrow directing the kids, and used rocks to draw a large X over the top of the treasure chest. With that done, we back tracked all the way around to the camp grounds.

We got back and after another 15 to 30 minutes of baby-wrangling and kid fights about who gets to carry the map, we were finally on our way down the trail. Lillie didn’t seem super interested in the treasure hunt, she hung back and wanted to take a different path from the other kids. This was surprising, Lillie talks about treasure maps and treasure hunts all of the time. But this wasn’t super unusual, Lillie sometimes just likes to do her own thing. We progressed, moving the baby-chaos through the woods, more tears and frustration of various sorts. Finally, we made it out of the woods, back to the beach.

The final leg of the hunt was at hand, the kids found the key and were hot on the trail of the buried treasure. Now Lillie was really hanging back, she was interested in various plants at the trail head, while all of the other kids were a 100 yards away, already sharing out the spoils of their discovery. Not even the promise of candy seemed to grab Lillie’s attention. Sarah spent some time trying to figure out what was wrong. Sarah then realized that an earlier event had caused all of this. When Lillie first arrived, she bounded up to a pair of girls digging up a dinosaur from a archeological toy. She asked if she could play, but the older girls told her, “You’re not welcome here”. We think that Lillie took that to mean she wasn’t welcome at her fiend Jade’s party. We didn’t realize that Lillie was taking that to heart. Lillie did eventually get her share of the booty, which included treats and bubbles.

Sunday Night Wrap Up

The rest of the night continued mostly as the day had. The kids were enjoying themselves, but there was some near-constant something that required one parent or another to intervene. Eventually it was time to head back to Spice. We loaded up in the boat and started the 20 minute paddle back home.

We got the kids to bed, and dropped the saloon table to make a “cuddle puddle”. This was a very large cushioned space on which to watch a movie and have a night cap.

Monday Morning

We had lattes and breakfast before loading up into the dinghy again. We made our way back to the beach to meet up with friends. The kids built a sand castle and played for a few hours.

Just as we were packing to head back to Spice to get ready to return to Bremerton, we got a surprise visit. Abbey’s parents appeared off of the north west point of Blake Island on their boat Cavu. Cavu offered to tow us back to our boat, and we were quick to agree. We loaded up and paddled to the back of Cavu to tie up and enjoy the free ride.

On our way back to the marina, I spotted a boat that was giving us a good hard look. I thought I recognized the boat, and I asked Abbey if that was her brother. “No, that’s not them”. Not long after, said boat was doing a u-turn and was closing on us. “Abbey, I think that’s your brother” They rolled up along side the boat. We yelled back and forth in a traditional sailor rabble. We made plans to meet up with them at a couple of anchorages the next weekend.

We got back to the marina, having timed the slack tide reasonably well. We had to kill about 15 minutes waiting for absolute slack tide. That gave us lots of time to rig up lines and fenders and talk through the plan. The return to the marina was smooth. On the way in, someone yelled, “have they moved you off of the public dock yet?!” It was a little odd to be recognized, and more odd that our far-away neighbors thought that our boat should be moved off of the public dock. Should we be worried? We motored past the large wooden tug, and made the 90 degree turn into our fairway. We used our traditional 180 turn in the fairway, positioned the boat, then went in stern-first. There was no wind and no current, making it a pretty easy task. A few people showed up to watch and help, but we had it handled. We were starting to get a hang of the procedure.