Fair Winds and Following Seas...: The Grand Adventure

This past weekend has us busy with the boat. Saturday saw us getting the final things fixed up before we pushed off the dock on Sunday. Geoff sent me up aloft again to retrieve a halyard that the previous owners had lost when they failed to put a tag line on an anchor light they had sent up. I put an LED bulb in the masthead light and rigged a tiny block for a flag halyard. We gave the stern a good scrub and put the new name on ourselves and we must say it looks pretty sweet!

The 'Before and After' shots of the stern. We were unable to get the old name completely off without taking the finish off the boat so we just put the new name over it. Don't judge us.

Before we left for home, we did a decent sea-stow of everything and got everything ready to go so that in the morning all we'd have to do is show up and cast off the lines.

Sunday morning our alarms went off at 6:00am. The sun was just coming up and it was far too early. We dropped one vehicle off at our new marina and headed down to Tacoma. Geoff got the engine started while I got sail covers off and lines ready. We were fairly certain that we'd have to motor the whole way but it never hurts to be prepared.

After having a bit of trouble again with the outboard we decided to turn the boat around in the slip so we wouldn't have to force the engine into reverse and we could just motor straight out of the marina and be on our way. We left Tyee Marina at 10:23am, later than we planned. The Canadian Geese and Sea-lions gave us a fond farewell as we rounded the breakwater and away we went.

The sun was shining and all the mountains were out. It was in the 60's and was really quite nice on the water. The wind however was coming right at our nose and made our trip a bit more bouncy and a bit slower than we would have liked.

Our little 10 horsepower Honda outboard was a champ and did really well. At one point we decided to try and sail but our Jib had slipped a bit on it's track in the roller furler and the wind wasn't in the right direction so we went back to motoring.

We arrived at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, a.k.a. The Ballard Locks around 5:30 pm and waited our turn to slowly make our way alongside. Luckily our finicky outboard performed magically in the locks where we really needed it to. We were to use the large locks and they filed everyone in according to size, largest vessels first. We all tied up on the port side. We ended up alongside the gorgeous wooden boat Circe. As we were rafted up to a boat and not the locks we did not need to tend our lines so locking through was pretty easy. However going through the locks definitely made us feel incredibly good about our seamanship and how some of these people manage to get their pants on in the morning is simply amazing. Terrifying, actually, to think of some of these individuals on a boat and how something as simple as making a line off is a completely mind boggling task. Terrifying I tell you!

It took us 2 hours to lock through, with the loading, water rising and unloading of the locks. We're glad we don't have to do that every time we want to take the boat out.

As the sun went down we made our way through the canal. We passed boat yards and fishing vessels, marinas and Seattle's famous house boats. We went under bridges and even had one bridge open for us as our mast is too tall to squeeze under at 35 ft high. We made it into Lake Washington just as the sun set under the horizon. As it grew darker the near full moon lighted our way. We crossed under the SR 520 bridge and passed some impressive houses along the shore. We made it into the slip and tied off our lines at Leschi Marina at 9:45pm. We snugged up the lines, gathered a few essentials and drove back down to Tacoma to pick up the other car. We were slightly sunburnt and extremely tired from our day. Bed never felt so good.

We had 44 miles to go up through Puget Sound, through the locks and canal, and into Lake Washington and it took us more than 11 hours to make the trip. It was actually a lot of fun and kind of re-affirmed that we can work well together and make our dreams a reality. It's a small kind of accomplishment but it feels great to have it done and now we can enjoy our little boat any time we like with is being so much closer.

On Monday, our friends Ben and Kate Rogers arrived from England. We've had a great time with them so far and today we satisfied Ben's curiosity with a visit to the boat. He was slightly giddy and had a grand time checking each compartment and giving us his approval of the rigging. We meant to go for a sail, but with the rain coming down we all just lounged in the salon and had a tasty beverage to wash down some delicious Mexican food we had for lunch. While a small thing, it means a lot to have approval from another sailor. When we were in the locks, we chatted to the Captain of Circe and he remarked on what a great little boat Columbia 26's are and how we're going to have so much fun with our little Cake Walk.

Summer is coming and it's going to be a good one! One adventure down, so many more to go!

Till next time, fair winds my friends...