It is terribly foggy, you can't even see to the end of the breakwater, so the "viz" is about 1/4 mile or less. A neighboring motorsailer left at 0800 only to return because it was so "pea soupy out there." Earlier I heard the Kingston ferry do a "5 horn blast" probably because of some boater being in the ferry's way. By the time we decided to leave the fog was starting to lift and I didn't even have to turn on the radar. We left late so we would make the Tacoma Narrows on time to take advantage of the flood current on our last leg to home. We left Kingston late at 1005.
We motored out of Appletree Cove and into the Central Sound. The morning's fog and clouds were rapidly lifting to another clear and sunny day. There were quite a few boats out fishing and we avoided them and by the time we hit President Point they were all gone. I made for a way-point just off of the east side of Blake Island. I turned the helm over to Kim for a bit and I rested on the settee. It really was kind of boring cruising - there was no wind or boats, just heading S in the open central sound. By the time we hit the Blake Island waypoint I took over to do my "Colvos Passage thing" - that is, cruise close to the W shore of Vashon Island to take advantage of the back eddy. Besides that it makes it more interesting to see all the houses and stuff on shore. We made about 6.5 - 7 knots along the shore. I deviated from my route about 2/3 of the way down Colvos - near the Colvos #3 day marker - since the back eddy was kind of waning and I wasn't getting the speed I wanted. So I went straight and followed my GPS course to Pt. Richmond. We made Pt. Defiance according to schedule at 1526 (3:26 PM) and proceeded to ride the flood current into the South Sound. We started to make supper by Hyde Point on McNeil Island. As we were passing Eagle Island in Balch Passage I noticed that a mooring buoy on the W side of Eagle Island was available. So we decided to take advantage of it and stay out one more night.
Originally we planned to be in Olympia on Friday night to travel to Wenatchee by car on Saturday to pick up a new pup. But just before Eagle Island the lady we were getting the pup from called and said that Saturday was not available to pick up the pup. This further justified our staying out one more night. Besides that it was a beautiful sunny evening and now we were not in a hurry. We tied up to the mooring buoy at 1700.
We had already enjoyed supper so we lazily motored around the island in the Zipper enjoying the evening and sipping some after dinner drinks. There were plenty of Harbor seals about and a pair of bald eagles. A pair of Kingfishers were not happy with our interruption of there fishing and let us know with a noisy call. I then finished off the day with a cigar on the bow of the Independence.
As the evening wore on to night the weather changed to lots of low clouds and a 10-15 knot W wind which ended any sort of a peaceful evening and sleep.
Stats: 41.4 nm, average speed 6.0 knots, running time 6:56, ending engine hours 6067.5.
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