Saturday, July 31, 2010

Day 24 - Home

Saturday, July 31, 2010
We left our Eagle Island mooring buoy at 0655 under thick gray cloudy skies and a W wind about 10 knots or so. The current was flooding so we took advantage of it - although it was not flooding as hard as it was yesterday afternoon so the benefit to us was not that great. As we motored along I was hoping for more of a push from the flood current but it just never happened. So we took it slow - we were in no hurry to get home. Besides that, late yesterday I noticed that the temperature was a bit higher than normal, so there's probably a bunch of "junk" on the intake side of the oil cooler. Cruising through Central Puget Sound yesterday I noticed a lot of debris - eel grass, bits of kelp, algae, and other junk - in the water.

We had that persistent W - SW breeze all the way home; around Devils Head, down Dana Passage and into Budd Inlet. As it always is, it was relieving to round the Boston Harbor light and get your first glimpse of the state capitol and the end of our journey. I remembered the sailor's dilemma, "Can't wait to leave port, can't wait to get back." As we motored down Budd Inlet we started packing some things instinctively into bags and preparing for the end of our trip. Passing the #5 day mark into Olympia Harbor I started my chores of taking down the mast, radio antennas, and putting out the fenders. Just outside West Bay Marina Kim took the Zipper in and helped me bring the Independence into our slip. I noticed that we have two new sailboat neighbors on the other side of the finger pier and end of the dock. We'll haul the Zipper out this morning, since there's no convenient place to keep her for a day or two.

Well, it was a good safe trip. Once again the Independence took us the whole way up and back without any problems or concerns - she's a good boat. Thanks be to God for a safe trip.

All in all we traveled with the Zipper and Independence 667.7 nautical miles! We returned to our slip at 0940.

Stats: 15.3 nm, average speed 5.4 knots, running time 2:49, ending engine hours 6070.6.

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