We took possession of the boat at Friday Harbor on Friday, so we can say our first boat day on Hakuna Matata (not in love with the name) took place on Friday in Friday Harbor).
My wife, Glenda, was a champ and drove my buddy Matt and his son and I all the way up to Anacortes to Friday Harbor, helped complete the sale, helped us outfit the boat with provisions (most of which she took the time to prepare), then turned back and drove home on Saturday, and was waiting for us on the Doc on Sunday. Big shout-out to her.
Friday it was miserable rain all day, and we were just tried to stay positive, while all wishing it would just stop raining.
Saturday Morning we were up at first light to try and ride the last of the ebbing current down the San Juan Channel and through cattle pass right at slack ebb. We were greeted by a glorious morning and the forecast of the rain to stop during the night actually held true. We motored out onto and it was awesome, Matt had packed some breakfast-themed MRE's for a nostalgia breakfast and he served them up (using MRE heaters to complete the experience) while I motored us down the channel. 8HP outboard about 80%, running with the current ~6 knots. Light (negligible) SSW wind though the channel, no fog, perfect conditions. All according to plan and feeling good.
Cattle Pass was smooth and calm. As planned we were getting the calf not the bull today. Get through the pass, start looking for wind, it's coming down the straight WSW light but useable. Starting to think about getting the sails up. All of a sudden the motor bogs... and dies. We get her started again, nice smooth idle. Okay, put it in forward, check. Throttle up, bog down. Can't run at much more than an idle, making about 1.5 knots. We debate aborting and limping back to FH. We check the wind, we decide that the motor is fine at idle, we'll sail on and still have the ability to dock.
Okay, sails up, motor off, we press on. Pretty great day of sailing. Especially for the shakedown cruise. The light winds and calms seas were a very forgiving situation to work out the kinks and figure out the topping lift, etc. I'd taken the boat from Roache Harbor to Friday Harbor with the PO the weekend before, and we raised the sails to go through the motions, but there was no wind and what wind there was to be had came on the nose (as always it seems).
The rain line started at Port Townsend so we were just happily sailing dry in the sun out in the straight. Awesome time, except that nagging clock, was ticking in my head. 100nm journey in two days. Sailing at 3kts, and destination becoming to windward as we inch closer to Port Townsend and those dark skies. Original Destination for Day 1 was Kingston, we call the abort and head for Port Townsend. We hit the rain line and lose the wind at the entrance to Admiralty Inlet, so we drop sails and motor/limp for the next hour in the rain and arrive at Poing Hudson Marina. I would rather not talk about getting into the slip, but I would be remiss. My first docking experience on HM, all "knowledge" went out the window and I eff'ed it up royally. Banged the dock, had to fend off the neighboring vessel. I aborted, backed all the way out, started over, did much better, but still struggled with a breeze pushing me off the finger. But with the help of a friendly soul, and Matt being a champ, we made it none the worse for wear. Only my ego was bruised.
Matt's son had gotten terribly sea/MRE sick during the day, so our wives actually met us at Port Townsend that evening and took him home, we knew we were going to get more waves with a fresher breezed predicted and SW and the flood tide a good part of the morning. The rainy conditions convinced his daughter that she didn't want to take her place, so then there were two.
The marinas all seemed to be in various states of closure, some you could dock but not use the restrooms or showers, some just had closed the showers. We were lucky to land at Point Hudson, we had nice restrooms and HOT showers, it was glorious.
Sunday morning it was clearing up and forecasted clear for the day, with SW winds and a morning flood, mid-day ebb, evening flood. We knew because of the slow start we were going to need all day. We went through the motor, definitely seemed like a fueling problem, Matt was able to coax about half speed using a quarter choke, we decided to live with it. We prepped sails and got underway. More misadventure/learning backing out of the slip.
About the time we rounded Marrowstone the motor spit out whatever it was choking on and took off! We put the choke back in throttled up to 80% and were in business. We decided to just motor to make up time, we went straight downwind, cut every corner we could cut. We had pretty big wind waves down the east side of the Kitsap for a couple of hours. We were just pounding through it while being overtaken by what seemed like the Seattle Yacht Club who were hitting us with side wake at the same time. We were glad that Matt's son had used discretion, he would have been miserable.
Fueled up at Kingston, and emerged to find the sea had calmed down considerably. Just the droning of the motor and trying to cut corners and dodge shipping traffic to occupy us the rest of the afternoon. We were sail-shamed going by Shileshole as there were about 50 sailboats out enjoying the perfect conditions, we motored on.
By 1630 we are just off Alki and debating if we can make it to Tacoma or if we should grab a mooring ball at Blake Island. The flood was restarting about that time, we were picking back up speed and the wind was starting to quarter. I stowed the jib, hoisted the Main, and we were going over 6 knots with the current. We decided to press on.
The wind all but died, but it kept the main full all the way to Brown's point. The water was glassy when we rounded Brown's Point and motored the final 30 mins to our new homeport at Tyee. It was 9 pm and the sunset was just one of those postcard moments. We had made it and had gotten a little bit of everything along the way.
Oh, and this is just the beginning!
PS - I docked fine at Tyee ;-)
