Friday Harbor to Olympia
I departed Friday Harbor soon after my last posting and sailed in light wind up Upright Channel, between Shaw and Lopez Island. The wind completely died on the East side of Lopez, so I motored down Lopez Sound and anchored just opposite Lopez Pass. The next morning I motored across Rosario Straight and tried, unsuccessfully, to buck some current through Deception Pass, between Whitbey Island and Anacortez. So I doubled back to nearby Bowman Bay, where I picked up a mooring pin and waited for the tide to turn. My tide guide called for slack at 2:20, but when I got there, there was still some ebb current, which I was able to buck. I proceeded under power past the beautiful Skagit Valley and anchored for the night by the mouth of Penn Cove, Whitbey. The next day I motored past Seattle and down Colvos Passage, anchoring for the night in Gig Harbor. Friday I returned to Olympia, arriving around 2:30pm. I come home wanting to add shrouds to the lower masts to further stiffen the sail rig, but otherwise the boat performed just fine.
Here I’m facing aft inside Bella Darya, and you can see my laptop on the binnacle behind me, with my GPS position on the chart for Puget Sound. My hand-held GPS is on the rooftop, where it gets better reception, and it’s connected to the computer by cable.
Here you can see the 18′ boat in tow behind me. The red line is a secondary painter for it, but I’m also using the other end of that line to tie down the tiller, so that the boat is steering itself while I’m goofing around with the camera.
Here I’m approaching the old and new Tacoma Narrows bridges.
Here I am under the new bridge cables, with the old bridge behind.
Here I’m visiting with a seal pup near Eagle Island. Several of them approached me and swam around the boat.
I took the four previous images outside Gig Harbor Thursday evening, facing West, then North, up Colvos Passage, East at the Tacoma skyline, and South, down the Narrows, with the bridges in the distance.
My arrival in Olympia.