phew

She said yes.

edmonds. no wait... kingston

After sufficiently thawing out from the evening prior, we weighed anchor and took off bound for Edmonds. We rounded Foulweather Bluff which did a better job this time living up to it's name. The wind started at about 15 knots out of the south (right where we want to go) and gradually built to 25 knots. Clearly, it was going to be a day to learn how Hello World points into the wind.

Turns out? Not well.

We spent most of the day tacking back and forth between Whidby Island and Hansville gaining very little ground. After farting around most of the day, it dawned on us that the wind was building and we were still not close to port. So we rolled the headsail in, turned on the engine and motored into the teeth of it. At this point, we just wanted to get to Edmonds before dark.

Well, that wasn't going to happen. We couldn't make much speed motoring into the wind and waves so we resigned ourselves to an after dark landing. Rather than attempt a night landing in an unfamiliar marina, we chose to aim for Kingston yet again. We knew the marina and the approach.

We chose a linear dock at the outer edge of the marina and lined up for it. When Christy and I double hand the boat, we typically land the boat like so:

• Paper, rock, scissors for who gets to drive. Loser handles lines.


• Line handler gets the lines set and kicks the fenders over the side. We have enough dock lines to rig both sides.


• Driver lines the boat up and brings her in slow. We prefer a port tie because of we get loads of prop-walk to port and like to take advantage of it. That being said, it seems like we are always landing on starboard ties. Which means judicious use of reverse so we don't end up at a 45° angle inside the slip.


• Under most circumstances, we dock the boat with a spring line running from the midships cleat aft. The line handler will step (never jump) on to the dock and cleat the spring line on the cleat farthest aft.


• Once the spring line is cleated, the driver puts the engine in idle forward and steers away from the dock. This will snug the boat right up against the dock and keep the bow from swinging around. Once you lose control of the bow, you're in damage control mode. We're not big fans of damage control mode.


• Next, the person handling lines than secures either the bow line or the stern line, depending on where the wind is coming from and which end of the boat it would like to shove into the boat next to us. While this is happening, the driver stays at the helm with the engine running.


• Once we have the spring, bow and stern lines fast, the driver can leave the helm and help with the final positioning of the boat. While we do this, we usually leave the engine idling in neutral to let the engine cool down.
  

This process will change for things like hardcore crosswinds but it works well under most situations. Coming in to the dock at Kingston, we were landing at night in a mostly unfamiliar marina with a 25 knot tailwind and the Coast Guard barking on the radio about a small craft advisory. I don't like to brag (yes I do), but we executed a wicked ninja docking maneuver, nailing each step in the process. Granted, we should have been more aware and not gotten ourselves into that situation in the first place. But still, ninja, man. Totally ninja.

After the boat was happily secured to the dock, we went down below and chugged a couple beers.


The only photo we snapped that day was leaving Port Ludlow. It was too friggin' cold the rest of the day to be taking photos.

47°47'38.1"N 122°'29'54.8"W

i'm turning into my father...

Recently, my dad has taken to baking bread. All sorts of different bread. He makes breads that I've ever only bought in stores (french bread) and some that people only dream about (cranberry walnut). His bread has become an alternate currency of sorts - he barters them for all sorts of things...farm fresh eggs among others. My grandmother thinks this is a waste of time and he could be doing things much more useful with his time. I'm thinking it's a better and better idea - save the walnuts. If we're going to be on the boat for weeks at a time, we're going to have to learn how to be a bit more self-sufficient in the most basic of ways. So I've started baking bread. Yup, I'm turning into my father.

The first challenge was finding yeast at the grocery store. I felt like a bit of a doof when I asked one of the Fred workers where to find it while we were both standing right there in front of it. Hey, this stuff is small. I made my best guess at the water temp since we don't have a thermometer aboard - turns out this yeast stuff is picky. Per the recipe, the bread was supposed to rise to double it's size - did it tell me how long this would take? No. I gave it an hour or so and after checking it every 2 minutes asking Jason if he thought it was doubled in size, I tried a different tactic and put it on the table above the heater. I've been known to put food products above heaters with some disastrous results, but this time worked - the yeast just wanted some warmth.

So, ta da! My first foccacia loaf - and it's not too bad, I have to say. I'm looking forward to baking lots more and Jason's looking forward to eating it...

Now...who wants to barter for some eggs...

:)

port ludlow

After enjoying some awesome crepes for breakfast, we shoved off for Port Ludlow. The wind was fluky and light, mostly from the SW giving us a slow motion down wind run. We rounded Foulweather Bluff and the wind came back around to the north. We'd never been to Port Ludlow so our blistering approach speed (2 knots) gave us some time to look over charts and our Puget Sound cruising guide. There's some rocks north of the entrance that we wanted to stay clear of and some shallows off the point to the east of the entrance that we'd also like to pay attention to.

We got into the harbor and drove around for 10 minutes trying to find a spot we liked. There was all sorts of room - only four other boats anchored - but the spot we wanted also has a cable running through it. We finally found a spot in 40' of water and dropped the hook.

Whenever we take off for a few days, we don't like to run the engine much to charge the batteries. And that means, we don't turn the fridge on. So 24 hours before we leave, we crank the fridge temperature down while we have shore power and get everything really cold. Well, we may have been a bit aggressive about the temperature setting. I settled in to make dinner for us - huevos rancheros from my mom's recipe - and pulled the eggs out. The eggs were frozen little golf balls. So rather than cracking them open, I peeled 'em like an orange and dropped them into the simmering tomato-ey goodness going on the stove. About 10 minutes later, one of them exploded like some sort of embryonic concussion grenade sending steaming hot tomatoes and onion shrapnel everywhere.

Here's yet another tip from the good ship Hello World: don't cook frozen eggs.

As the sun set, the temperatures nose dived down to around 25°. We had frost on deck by 6:00PM. No worries, we have a nice diesel heater that should keep us plenty warm. Except that it picked this evening to not work. I was up until 3AM babysitting the tiny ineffective flame, trying to coax it into something with any sort of heat. The problem is, if the flame goes out, the diesel fuel keeps getting pumped into the chamber and in the morning, you wake up with a heater chock full of diesel. Bad. So at 3AM, I weighed the amount of time it would take me to disassemble the heater, remove it from the bulkhead, and throw it overboard. Turns out, that time was better spent sleeping so I shut it off and went to bed. At some point during the evening the cat crawled onto the bed and vocalized his displeasure with the temperature by yowling his fool head off. We grabbed him and shoved him under the covers with us. It took him a bit to realize this was a better alternative, but once he did, he stayed under that comforter. In fact, he didn't come out until we pulled into a marina slip again the following day.

See, everyone? Sailing is fun! Dammit, I say it's FUN!


Enjoying the view from the bowsprit. It's seriously the best seat in the house.


Some Pacific Northwest suntanning.


Clearly, my retinas are not used to the sun.





Once we dropped anchor, we coaxed the cat out from under the settee with tuna juice. Works every time.


The frozen egg/slushball.


Shithead finally finds peace and warmth underneath our down comforter. He wouldn't come out from under there for 16 hours. No peeing. No eating. Just huddled under the blanket. Poor kid.

47°55'12"N 122°41'33"W

kingston redux

We have a history of sailing upwind. Both ways. On every trip.

For this trip, we had four days and were going to take off and explore the south Puget Sound. However, NOAA called for a small craft advisory with winds out of the south. We decided we'd take the sleigh ride instead of the bash and we headed north.

(You know what's going to happen next, don't ya?)

Right on cue, about halfway to Kingston, the wind clocked around to the NW. And once again, we're sailing upwind. Not as bad as the last time we tried an uphill bash to Kingston, though.

We did have some nice beam reach sailing on our way up, however. My slice of heaven is a beam reach on this boat. She hit 7.5 knots SOG in 12 knots on the beam. Fun. We docked in the marina in Kingston for the night and enjoyed the town. The creperie down by the ferry entrance is the awesome.

47°47.7'N 122°29.8'W