Fall Cruise 2010: Plans Change

19th to 19th September: One Long Day!

It was an interesting day, our trip from Seattle to Port Townsend! The morning was nice when we departed early at 0630 to take advantage of the tides & currents, timing our arrival at Port Townsend Canal for slack! The sky cast a nice blue hue on Seattle as we left the Bell Harbour Marina.

Seattle Space Needle
Early morning departure on Kozad


Cruise ships abound!

Craig with boaters hair!
Nice shoes.... again

Yikes.....
Jan's boating hair!

Jan enjoying some rare sunshine!
We had a beautiful cruise to Port Townsend with calm seas.

Our friends Dave, Carol and trusty dog Jasper, on their Nordhavn 43 MV Navigator, called us on the VHF radio. We arranged to meet them on the south end of the Port Townsend Canal.

Port Townsend Cut

MV Navigator
Dave & Carol's Nordhavn 43


Captain Dave
At home on his N43 as well as his 120' Tug Boat


Carol & Jasper

Navigator had left Blind Bay on Shaw Island also at 0630. They travelled to Port Townsend in thick fog; but reported the fog was clearing at Port Townsend. Dave cautioned us about how bad the fog had been and suggested we poke our nose out at Wilson Point to take a peek! The fog does tend to lift between 1 and 3 and we may get lucky.... or so we thought.

We drifted along side one another catching up and then waved good bye as we headed to Port Townsend and they onto Kingston!

Fog clearing as we approach Port Townsend

Fog at Port Townsend

First rule of boating - No Schedules! This is where we made an error in judgment; we thought we had a schedule to keep and were factoring this into our thinking!

As fog usually burns off come noon time, or by 2 or 3pm; and as fog was being forecast-ed for the next day we thought if we waited one more day we would be in the same situation, at the same place and same time, the next day. We made the decision to push on.

Fog Bank, Admiralty Inlet

So, we decided to poke our nose out there and thinking that the fog was lifting (as it had at Port Townsend) we made the decision to continue to Friday Harbour!

We would be there waiting for our friends who were arriving on their boat... schedule kept!

Makes sense right! Wrong.....

Big mistake!!!!

We left Port Wilson and entered a thinning fog, thinking this is not so bad, only a small bank, soon to clear! Instead of getting thinner it just kept getting thicker. We consulted with Seattle Traffic Control on Ch. 5a, who advised we had no conflicting traffic as we were proceeding to cross the shipping lanes.

This was good visibility; at times we could not even see the water around the boat.

Well, at a speed of 3 to 4 kts and 3 hours later, we finally popped out of the fog half way up and 1/4 mile off the outside of Whidbey Island.

Fog Again, off of Whidbey Island

Big Sigh of Relief! This was only temporary though, as 15 minutes later we entered another very thick fog bank which seemed to last forever. Two hours later and still beating against the current, we popped out of the fog just south of Guemes Channel at 6:00pm.

As Guemes Channel leads to Anacortes and to where we have moored Kozad, we decided it would be best if we headed for our home slip at Anchor Bay Marina instead of Friday Harbour which was an extra 3 hours.

We arrived home, some 13 hours & 68 miles later, after departing Seattle. The decision to push past Port Townsend was wrong and luckily we arrived safely in Anacortes! We learned a few lessons on this trip; needless to say one of them was not to take fog lightly!

There is a saying; "God takes care of babies and fools" We are too old to be babies, but obviously, not too old to be fools! Lessons learnt....