This weekend's trip was focused on finally loosing our Straits of Juan de Fuca virginity.
Saturday, began with attempting to fix the roller
furler. As previously noted, a few weeks ago the main
jib halyard snapped and wrapped itself around the
furler head. I purchased a rope halyard to replace the wire halyard - which of course meant the job detail required climbing the mast.
While I have the ATN top climber, I am not keen of heights to begin with (keen as in deathly afraid of heights). Luckily Grady and Steve were over on "Slingshot" and decided to drop by. Grady squirreled his way up top for us.
The process was more complicated than just cutting the halyard as we had no real snippers to cut the frayed end off the halyards. So, we pulled the halyard to the pulpit and then taped up the replacement to the halyard at top of the mast - which meant when we pulled it through - no possibility of the frayed halyard to get into the mast and shred the other electrical wires.
As luck would have it - we had to get Grady down as quick as he went up as the swaying of the boat didn't agree with the hangover he had
.
The halyard replacement did pull through - however the remaining portion of the old halyard would not exit the mast. As such, I had to get yanked up. Mortified is not the word for it - but luckily after 20 minutes or so - I managed to get the wire halyard out of the mast and to the deck.
Roller
furler is still not working however - and after another hour or two trying this that and the other - and being exhausted, decided to call the first evening of the trip as a motoring event.
Dana, Sharon and her friend Sarah were the guests on this trip. All of them are nurses or doctors in the medical field. There is one thing to state besides the fact everyone is just all around bubbly - 5 large bags of food and tons of good beer / wine were brought by them. No real secret ingredients for the Iron Chef challenge less artichoke hearts; however since Sharon is allergic to a wide variety of stuff - challenging in that manner on its own.
We depart around 7PM on Sat evening, the goal is to hit Everett Marina by midnite. We accomplish that task with no major issues - less relying heavily on the
Raymarine charting to nail the narrow harbor entrance. The gals drove the boat as I prepped and cooked dinner. Roasted red peppers, and chicken over pasta (the pasta had artichoke hearts within it - which is how I tackled that ingredient)... We moored at the guest docks for the evening at Everett - wine and dined until 4:30 in the morning.
Wake up around 8:30 AM - do the showers, trash, and southern style breakfast. Noonish we are getting ready to depart, when as I was walking down the guest dock after offloading the last bit of trash - I noticed a small powerboat with two youngins onboard - trying to get the attention of passing power boats. Their engine had died. So - we towed them down to their slip vicinity.
Then it was onward to Deception Pass with a slight emergency maneuver within the locale around Hope Island. Amazing how shallow the water was getting - and again the
charts got us where we needed.
Deception Pass crossing was awesome and hair raising at the same time.
We took the south end of the Bridge, mindful of the eddies that were swirling like mad. A little bit of rocking and rolling but I really appreciated that deep keel as we stayed balanced and on course through and greeted the Straits of Juan de Fuca with beaming smiles.
Skyline Marina was our stop that evening - couldn't find guest moorage so we just stayed at the
fuel dock. Prior to entry we deployed one of the non D-ring
Mustang PFDs for training. I have two Stearns rope kits that I wanted to make sure that if for some reason any of the other three
Lifeslings we have could not be used or were lost that tying a rope to a
life preserver would work as a backup. Pleased to say - when we tossed - 10 seconds later - the PFD inflated...test Sat and verified that it could work in a pitch.
Did dinner (flank steak with rice) and a movie and called it a early night.
Woke up this morning at 6:30am - as we had to leave early to get Sarah home before her 7PM shift tonite. And as I write - currently entering Admiralty Inlet ....
Will post up pictures later...
Ironically - the sumer sailing season - began and ended with Skyline Marina. I didn't quite know where we were - until walking to the store - then it dawned on me this was where Charlie's boat was when I did the first sail of the season his "Oh Joy". Kinda cool actually!
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