Didn’t make it that far on Saturday. Day 1. We decided to stop at Port Townsend after the delay at the locks and getting diesel topped up. We would have arrived late and we have time so we decided to drop anchor at Port Townsend. Normally we stay at the Marina there. It’s one of Afra’s fav spots and her favourite marina of all. But for a change we decided to drop the hook right across from the public dock down town.
We walked the town got some steps in with a few cycles of their steps downtown and then headed back to the boat.
I was woken in the morning by a scraping noise. It was about 6.15am. Panic. I thought we’d slipped anchor and had grounded so I grabbed a robe and ran upstairs. There was a huge sailboat pulling anchor and he was about a foot off our bow. I wasn’t even awake yet so processing. Turns out they were pulling anchor and despite us dropping at least 500 feet away from his boat he had caught our anchor chain on his anchor.
The noise I had heard was the anchor chain grating on his anchor. Apparently he had 500ft of chain out.
Anyway they were friendly enough and nice about it. He was anchored first so maybe I was too close I just didn’t expect someone to have that much rode out. They knew what they were doing and used their main sail winch to hold my chain while they redropped their anchor. Sorted !
NOTE I do not know why the following images are the wrong orientation. I have re-uploaded with every different rotation and it does the same. They are from Afra’s phone texted to me. I blame her for sure
All that drama had me up at 6.30am. Unheard of for me!! So we pulled anchor and set off.
The strait of Juan de Fuca was beautiful. It can be a bitch and the last time we crossed it was 10ft waves and no fun at all. This morning it was dead dead calm! We cruised slowly heading for Sidney to clear customs.
Stopped at Sidney and waited on the phone for 10 mins for customs. Any booze? Any weed? Any guns? No Ma’am. And we were cleared in 2 minutes.
Grabbed supplies in Sidney. All the stuff you can’t bring in. Like salad and veggies and now we are headed to lady smith for the night.
It’s beautiful. The sun is shining. The sea is calm. And I just had a pint of Boddingtons.
All is good.