A couple weeks ago was Heather's labs annual meeting up in Friday Harbor, which meant it was time for our annual sail from Seattle to Friday Harbor with Kevin. As Jonas has moved back to Sweden, we recruited Sarah to be our Scandinavian team member.
The trip started well, with sun and good wind. We made pretty good time heading north. Seems I still had a bit of the flu, though, and I spent most of the day freezing and feeling ill. Sarah, on the other hand, did well for her second ever day sailing and picked up the slack for me.
We made it in to harbor at Coupeville just after sunset. There was plenty of free space on the town dock, so we tied up and headed into town for dinner at the Tavern, then decided to call it a night. It was beautiful and calm and quiet when we headed for bed. At around two in the morning, however, it got crazy windy and we all woke up with the boat thrashing on the dock and wind blowing loudly through all the lines. That was it for sleep. See Kevins Blog for a sweet video!
In the morning, we had some time to wait in order to get the tides right, so we walked around town, had some breakfast and relaxed a bit. At this point, I decided that with my flu, and the fact that I was supposed to be at work the next day, I needed to go home, so I got on the bus for home, while the rest of the team carried on in order to get Sarah to Friday Harbor in time for her poster presentation that evening.
To get from Coupeville to Friday Harbor, you have to go through Deception Pass, and it is important to go through the pass at slack tide, as it is a crazy narrow pass, and gets super high currents and whirlpools when the tide is going either in or out. They ended up timing it perfectly and made it through with no problems.
And thanks to continued good wind, they made it in to Friday Harbor just in the nick of time. The rest of the meeting seemed to go without incident.
Leaving Friday Harbor was exciting, as the anchor had gotten caught on the remains of a shipwreck. This necessitated Kevin going snorkeling to free the anchor. Once underway, however, things went smoothly. Unfortunately there was no wind for the better part of the day, so it was a slow motor from Friday Harbor to Port Townsend. This led to lots of relaxing. There were several wildlife spottings, including this sea lion, who came and checked out the boat for fifteen minutes while Kevin was having a nap.
Heather took most of the photos, especially on the portions of the trip I wasn't on, although a few were by either Sarah or Kevin.
As always, thanks for looking.
Jim
Posted on 04-06-2009
