Day 2 - Hope Is.

Friday, July 15, 2011.

The morning started off rough for Rocky our Blue Heeler pup falling in to the briny again.  He mis-timed his jump from the Zipper and I had to fish him out. He gets so excited to get from the Zipper back to the MV Independence.  I'm sure the cold water was a huge shock to him.  The older dog I think just seems to laugh and say "that's what you get for being a pup, you'll learn to jump off when Dad says okay."  I was mad at Rocky because I don't like to fish anything out of the water except for fish, crab, and prawns.

After that bit of excitement we left Eagle Island at 0700 to continue our trip north.  We rode a healthy ebb current through the Tacoma Narrows where I had to turn the radar on because of some light fog.  Didn’t really need the radar but it helped just in case there was something big or small out and about and I wanted to make sure I saw it.  By the time we got north of the Narrows Bridge the fog was gone and the skies were all clearing - at least for now.

About Pt. Defiance I had to abandon the helm to the crew while I completely rebuilt the aft head pump assembly.  I thought I had checked everything but neglected to check the head.  The marine head is kind of a crucial thing especially when you plan on being out on a boat for three weeks.  I worked the plunger only to recognize it was seized and when I pushed hard, it went, but then I could hear things rattling about inside the pump - not good.  Fortunately I or any of the crew hadn't used the head, so there was no "yucky stuff" to deal with.  Luckily I had a Jabsco head rebuild kit, otherwise we would have been toast.  I finished the head rebuild just about as we exited the north end of Colvos Passage.  Repairing a head wasn't what I wanted to do but at least it works great.  As a boater you realize there's more to boating than navigation, motors, and boats - sometimes you have to be a plumber too.  

We continued to ride a good ebb current up central Puget Sound past Seattle.  We called Kingston Cove Marina to see about a slip but found out all the reserved moorage was already booked.  We would have arrived at noon and probably could have found a slip, but it was too early to quit for the day so we chose to move on.  As a result we changed our course for Edmonds to top off the fuel tanks with diesel for the trip.   I got 80 gallons at 6099.3 hours.  I last got fuel at 6060.0 which calculates to be 2.03 gph.  Oooof, fuel cost was an expensive $4.13 per gallon!  I also got 8 gallons of gas for the Zipper.  Fully fueled up, we pulled out of the Port of Edmonds at 1320 to continue our trip north.   

Kiket Island anchorage

As we motored out of Edmonds the discussion was, "where are we going to stay tonight?"  We thought of staying at Langley but we pushed on for Oak Harbor.  I called Oak Harbor Marina to inquire about moorage for the night and the lady on the phone sounded so surprised.  She said, "Don't you know it's Whidbey Island Race Week?!"  I simply said "No" and hung up.  Well there went that thought.  So we pushed on again to anchor by Hope Island.  Around Strawberry Pt it started raining and it continued all the way until we anchored.  When we rounded the west end of Hope Island we saw plenty of boats along the north shore of the island.  Instead I headed to an anchorage up by Skagit and Kiket Island.  I've anchored there plenty of times before and found it to have good bottom holding and be fairly well sheltered from strong westerlies blowing in from the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  We dropped the hook in 28’ of water at just past high tide around 1920.  Whew, what a long day of motoring but at least we were safely anchored and we were ahead of schedule.  Across Kiket Bay, looking south, you could see that about 10 or so boats were anchored over along the north shore of Hope Island. We were anchored here pleasantly swinging at the hook by ourselves; this didn't bother me one bit.

We had a nice green chicken curry for dinner.  The after dinner whiskey ration tasted especially good after the long day motoring.  It rained through the night.

Stats: Ending engine hours: 6105.6, elapsed time: 12.5 hrs., 83.3 nm, average speed 5.7 kts, 11:56 of motoring.