We Are Here! (Tues. 5/30/23)

What a whirlwind of a week it has been! I am currently sitting at the cafe at the marina in Roche Harbor, WA where I can get some Wi-Fi. So much has happened in the last week it’s hard to know where to start with this update! Our first day in Anacortes, we immediately started work to get the boat ready for the water. We dropped off the cap shrouds at Northwest Rigging so they could make a new one (one of the cap shrouds we had ordered from them over the winter was 2 inches too short). We loaded up some gas from the gas station which involved me passing the nozzle up to Weston who was on top of the boat. Back in the boatyard Weston spent some time in cotter pin purgatory getting the shrouds attached to the mast. The boat launch was quite exciting as its a sort of crane that you loop straps under the boat, it hoists the boat into the air, and “flies” down into the water below. So much easier than our typical trailer launch with the tow strap! Once in the water we motored over to our slip for the next two nights, ran a couple errands, made our first dinner in the boat, hit the showers and then bed.

On Wednesday we continued to prep the mast for raising. Everyone at the Cap Santa Marina is so friendly! Turns out the Rangers are pretty popular, at least fie different people stopped to talk to us about a Ranger they had owned and loved at one time. We met Jean Penny who had a Ranger 23 for 12 years and loved it! Her rigger, Will, was down at her boat and she brought him over to check out ours. Soon enough Weston and Will were running all around our boat and Will was so kind as to answer Weston’s questions and show him better ways to do things. I did some organizing and chatted with Jean while those two worked. Will ended up bringing down his work bench wagon and they got to fabricating a new main-sheet-boom-bridle made from dyneema. Will showed us a neat way to splice and taught us so much, just spontaneously taking time out of his day for a couple of hours. I even got to take his dog, Sticks, a 14 yr-old sailing pro, for a nice walk! If you are in the Anacortes area hit up Sun Coast Rigging and Adventures for any boat work or questions!

Our friend Forrest showed up on his way home from Bellingham. It was a real treat to see him before he moves to New Zealand for three years! He helped us raise the mast with the fancy crane. Then we went for a lovely walk up to the point and watched the Wednesday night yacht club race. We had one more project to finish - replacing the trailer jack as the handle had sheared off on our drive somewhere. Weston and I then drove down to Bellevue, WA, to our friend Jenna and Luke’s house to drop the trailer off. They and their roommates are kindly letting us keep it in their side yard for the summer! We had some delicious homemade pizza and quality time with them and their dog Skadi.

The next morning we drove back up to Anacortes, stopping for last minute errands at Walmart, Safeway, and West Marine. Finishing up loading the boat and getting her ready to go of course took longer than we anticipated and we left around 12:45pm to head over to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. We again had beautiful weather and had a pleasant motor over. One highlight was seeing a Canadian Navy ship up close as it crossed in front of us. A friendly sailboat nearby took some shots of us in front of it and we exchanged photos!

Weston’s dad, Eric, had flown in on a float plane to Friday Harbor and landed around 2pm. Since we left so late (shocking, I know) we made it around 5pm and unfortunately missed watching his plane land. It was fun being greeted by a welcoming face when we arrived! We found our slip and had a snack before wandering into town for some dinner. We enjoyed walking around the marina looking at all kinds of boats, especially a really cool old wooden schooner. The purple martins were flying all around singing their melodic songs (new bird for us!) and the vibrant oranges and yellows of the sunset slowly melted into darkness.

After a peaceful night's sleep we officially mounted the hard dodger (it was just cam strapped on for the initial cruise) and cut the last little gap at the bottom so we could fit the sheets through. Then we headed out for Cypress Island, passing through the Wasp Islands and on the south side of Orcas Island.

We raised the sails for the first time this trip. Man, that was a cool feeling. With the motor off and the sails full of wind and the sun on our faces, we truly felt the peace that finds you with a calm sail. The wind was in and out and so we lowered and raised the sails a few more times before we got into Rosario Strait and sailed the entire way across!

Rounding from the north to Cypress Island we found several available mooring buoys at Pelican Beach. I got to go up to the bow with the boat hook and “catch” the buoy. Then it’s a pretty simple process to tie on with a dock line!

We were itching to get our legs moving so we got the dinghy out and started inflating it with the Ryobi air inflator we had brought to make inflating the thing that much easier. Unfortunately we quickly realized it didn’t have quite enough psi to inflate properly, even after a couple of modifications by Weston. I was surprised to learn he hadn’t brought a hand pump. Weston truly thought of everything boat related for this trip. He has spares on spares for all of our working components and systems. He just hadn’t brought a spare inflator for the dinghy! We were able to get it inflated enough to float - but it was a little sad looking and we had to sit on the back rests to avoid our bottoms sitting in water.

We landed on a beautiful beach and went for a hike to Eagle Cliff only to find it was closed for habitat protection until later in the summer. We went to Duck Lake instead and found it covered in lily pads and lush with bird life. We heard pied billed grebes hollering at each other, picked up a new to us pacific sloped flycatcher, and watched red-winged blackbirds hop around on the lily pads. We even saw a beaver! There were these huge swordferns that reached up to our hips below the tallest canopy of cedars. We love how different the forests are here!

When we got back to the beach the hazy horizon had cleared and we had a stunning view of an alpenglow lit Mt Baker behind Meadowlark. All was peaceful in the bay until about an hour after we went to sleep. Then the swell and the wind came in and we were bouncing and bobbing in our little boat. We had the added pleasure of the anchor, mounted at the bow, clanging against the metal ring of the mooring buoy. None of us got very much sleep!

Saturday we headed back to the Port of Anacortes to drop Eric off at the truck, pick up some things that we had left in the truck, and make a couple more stops at the stores. We took showers at the marina before a delicious lunch at Anthony’s. We said goodbye to Eric and watched him drive his truck off. It evoked a bittersweet and strange feeling, knowing we had no more vehicle, no more close resources on shore. It was just us and Meadowlark. Everything we need for three months loaded up on the boat. Feeling that isolation was maybe the moment all of this started to feel real. We are really sailing to Alaska!

Meadowlark flies!!