The Easter Drag

Saturday morning dawned bright, mostly clear, and without a breath of wind. We prepped the boat and cast off for a trip across Puget Sound to go visit my family for the weekend. I'd tell you it was for Easter, but really, it was for food. Mom was putting a ham in the oven and making baked beans. If my husband could have teleported to her house, he would have. The boat was the next best (though it must be noted - not the next fastest way) across the water.

We hadn't taken the boat out since Christmas. The cats had kinda forgotten that their house moves, but they were 100% clear that they DO NOT LIKE that their house moves. Despite a seasick cat making a mess in the master cabin, it was a perfect trip across. We made excellent time. A line of clouds lingered on the horizon, but the sun shone and it was warm. We consulted the tide tables because hubby really wanted to anchor out rather than pay for space at the city dock. I mentioned that the weather was supposed to turn. He squinted at the sky, shrugged and went back to calculating tides.

It's the time of year for big tidal run. On Saturday, when we got to Poulsbo, the tide was going out a long way - 11 feet in just a few hours. We were going from a high of 10 feet to a low of -1.5. He picked a spot and signaled. I dropped the anchor and 70 feet of chain to the mud bottom.

Maritime trials over. We shut down the engine and kicked back. The still air stirred, then began blowing in earnest. The clouds shuttered the blue sky and rain slanted in sideways.

KACHUNK

The boat trembled. I got up and glanced around.

"I think we just straightened out all 70 feet of our chain in one go," I said, running to check the depth sounder. "And we are super close to shore. Super, super close. 8 feet of water underneath us."

We didn't drag - which is when your anchor comes up out of whatever was holding it on the bottom. In the case of Liberty Bay, that 'whatever' is stinky, black mud. Our anchor held just fine. The problem was the rode.

Rode is what connects your anchor and your boat. It can be a line (rope) or chain. Most people use a combination. We have 70 feet of chain on the anchor end, and another two hundred feet of line. The theory behind using chain is that it's heavy enough to rest flat on the bottom, which keeps your anchor at the proper angle to the bottom to help it dig in so you don't drag. When we anchor in Liberty Bay, we drop the anchor and then let out all of our chain. We count out extra feet of line based on weather conditions and what kind of scope (the ratio of your boat length to length of rode you pay out) we think we'll need to stay safely anchored in one place.

Thing is, if you're a boater, you already know we missed a step in the anchoring process. We didn't set our anchor. That's when you drop the anchor overboard and then gently back up until the anchor catches and stops the boat. THEN you put out the rest of your rode. Not that it would have made any difference for us. We'd forgotten the cardinal rule of boating: The wind always wins.

Because the tide was going out, we imagined that we'd swing with the current. Instead, the wind blew us against the current, into shallower water. And when the wind REALLY kicked, all 70 feet of our chain went from piled up in the mud, to straightened out in the goo and we went from anchoring in 20 feet of water to 8 feet.

Hubby started the engine. I got on my rain gear and went on deck to haul up the anchor. We could have repositioned and set the anchor in deeper water, but it would have meant rowing the dinghy into the city dock in the wind and rain. Instead, we motored to an empty guest slip and tied up for the weekend. It made the cats happy when the sun came out on Sunday morning and they could get out of the boat to roll on the concrete dock.

Poulsbo to Oak Harbor

Keith at the helm, consulting his copilot. Note the blue skies. We were coming out of Poulsbo, headed north to the port of Everett.

Here's a close up of our copilot, Madam Erie. That's her basket beside the helm station. She's at her post every single morning, ready and willing to help manage the difficult task of sleeping through all the rough spots and of demanding belly rubs at critical navigational challenges. She's a true professional.

The Agate Passage bridge connects the Kitsap Peninsula and Bainbridge Island. It's a narrow passage and the currents can get pretty tough through here, but it's a walk in the park in comparison to some of the narrow spots we'll navigate further north. See our sails all still furled? See how smooth the water is? Yeah. Not a breath of wind.

This is coming into Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island. You'll notice that just 24 hours after the photo above, we're back to slate skies and occasional rain. It's still pretty.

The town of Oak Harbor. It's tucked back up in a very shallow bay. Getting in is a bit dicey. The channel is narrow and dog legs a few times. In this gray, foggy weather, it's sometimes hard to see channel markers from far away and I like to see channel markers from far away. Really. Getting into harbor was a two person and binoculars navigation job. Bonus: Keith found a Chinese restaurant that delivered to the marina.

There are two channel markers in this photo - one red, one green. If you click on the photo, it may enlarge for you and make it easier to see them. We have to go between those channel markers. This is as we're leaving Oak Harbor the next morning. We'll take the red marker to port (we'll pass on the right hand side of the marker, taking it to our left). Cutting that marker means running aground on that point that seems so very far away from where the piling sticks up out of the water. We go slowly through here and watch the depth sounder to make certain we're keeping to the channel. This is habit, paranoia and best-practice. Our boat has dagger boards that will kick up if we touch bottom. Great feature - we go from drawing 6' of water to drawing 2'. But depending on what you 'touch' and on how fast you're going when you do it, you can damage the boat. Other sailboats with a fixed keel can do significant damage running aground. The lucky ones go aground in mud. The unlucky ones hit rock. And there's a saying about running aground. "There are those of us who have and those of us who will."

Next up (tomorrow, when I'm not falling asleep at my keyboard) photos from Cornet Bay, the aborted run on Deception Pass, and the diversion to Anacortes following the accidental inflation of my life vest.

Spreading the Sailing Bug

Jeffe Kennedy and her SO, David, came to stay aboard the boat this past weekend. They wanted to see what this living aboard thing was all about. Maybe I'd failed to mention the word 'cramped'.  After David banged his head a few times on the cabin top (tall person aboard a boat = perpetually bruised forehead) I suspect they'd worked it out. Or maybe it after they'd spent a night in the barely a double, aft cabin. The trade off is that the photo at left is the view from our foredeck.

Jeffe swore to me she brought sun with her whenever she vacationed. She did not lie. For three days, the sun shown and the skies stayed blue. Neither Jeffe nor David had sailed before, so we cast off, raised sail and took them across the Sound to Poulsbo. The moment the sails were up, Keith turned the helm over to Jeffe, who eventually relinquished it to David. We wandered Front Street, which is lined with art galleries, shops, restaurants and bakeries. Poulsbo's heritage is Nordic. The first settlers chose Liberty Bay because it reminded them of the fjords where they'd once lived. We poked through shops, found a restaurant with a deck in the sun and sat baking ourselves while we ate too much. We spent the night and woke to find the wind had risen in the night. We cast off after breakfast and headed back to Seattle. Keith handed the wheel over to David the moment we cleared the boats at anchor. We never got to raise sail on the return trip. The wind had turned from the north and was blowing out of the south east. Had we been on a monohull, we could have sailed, but the catamaran needed a better angle off the wind than we had. So it was a quick motor across the Sound.

Yes. Two cats were seasick. One on the way to Poulsbo, one on the way back from Poulsbo. This is an improvement over both being sick both ways.

A boat set up for people to live on is always more cramped than a boat with no liveaboards. Take all of our stuff, add cats, two litterboxes, a suitcase, four adults and shake. All in something short of three hundred square feet. Did I mention the head had kind of stopped working? Yeah. That was special. Once we'd docked and tied up, Jeffe and David packed up, anxious, I think, to get to their hotel where they'd have a bed the could sit up in without risking a concussion. Or maybe it was to find a toilet that flushed. Which ever.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. I got to hang with friends and Keith got to infect someone else with the sailing bug. Oh yes. A successful weekend on all counts. David and Jeffe departed discussing the merits of purchasing their own sailing craft. Keith and I count our twisted way of life validated.