Went for a very nice Halloween cruise. Late last Thursday evening, I looked at the weather and saw that it should be sunny till Tuesday. We threw together some food, clothing and grabbed the dingy and headed to the boat early afternoon on Friday. It was blowing a moderate to fresh gale (35-45kts) when we left the dock. I asked a guy walking past if he could hold a bow line to keep me straight with a bit of cross wind until I got clear of the neighbor's boat. He said " Are you sure you want to go out in this?", to which I said You bet! and Sue quietly said "I'm not so sure!". He then said "How are you going to get back into your slip" to which I said "Not coming back, we are anchoring for tonight." He just shook his head but we were off!
Down the channel we were on a broad reach with about 100% of genoa and making 7 knots. Once clear of that we needed to jibe and head down on a deep reach east to Strawberry Point and the channel to Deception Pass. With pretty good waves on the port stern quarter I rolled in a bit more of the Genny down to about 80% which slowed us down a bit and made it a little easier to steer to the waves. Pretty rolley but under control. After we rounded Strawberry Pt at sundown, the full moon came up, the wind dropped and we motored up to Cornet Bay and anchored for the night.
Day 2 we crossed Roserio with a combo of full sail with a little spinnaker in light air but it was sailing. Once inside Lopez Sound, we motored north and anchored for the first time in Sylvan Cove on Decatur. Sue commented that it was pretty open to the NNW to which I said "We never get a NNW blow inside the islands". Yeah, right! At 21:00 I pulled the anchor and motored across to the south side of Spencer Spit.
We planned to hang out there until Monday but the forecast for Monday was little to no breeze and on Sunday we had a 5-knot northerly. Out Thatcher and a great spinnaker run all the way down Roserio to the entrance to Deception Pass and we were only 10 minutes late for slack to ebb. Given the full moon which would build to 7.6-knots in the Pass, we barely made it through and made slow progress to the south side of Dugualla Bay by dark where I decided to anchor on the edge of the channel in 3-knots of current. Love that new 35-lb Mantus.
After the tide change, we swung 180º and the Mantus grabbed again in 3kts the other way. I decided that with the full moon, I might as well take advantage of the current and made an easy 8 plus knots back to Oak Harbor and we tied up at 02:00. All in all a very nice weekend cruise!
Down the channel we were on a broad reach with about 100% of genoa and making 7 knots. Once clear of that we needed to jibe and head down on a deep reach east to Strawberry Point and the channel to Deception Pass. With pretty good waves on the port stern quarter I rolled in a bit more of the Genny down to about 80% which slowed us down a bit and made it a little easier to steer to the waves. Pretty rolley but under control. After we rounded Strawberry Pt at sundown, the full moon came up, the wind dropped and we motored up to Cornet Bay and anchored for the night.
Day 2 we crossed Roserio with a combo of full sail with a little spinnaker in light air but it was sailing. Once inside Lopez Sound, we motored north and anchored for the first time in Sylvan Cove on Decatur. Sue commented that it was pretty open to the NNW to which I said "We never get a NNW blow inside the islands". Yeah, right! At 21:00 I pulled the anchor and motored across to the south side of Spencer Spit.
We planned to hang out there until Monday but the forecast for Monday was little to no breeze and on Sunday we had a 5-knot northerly. Out Thatcher and a great spinnaker run all the way down Roserio to the entrance to Deception Pass and we were only 10 minutes late for slack to ebb. Given the full moon which would build to 7.6-knots in the Pass, we barely made it through and made slow progress to the south side of Dugualla Bay by dark where I decided to anchor on the edge of the channel in 3-knots of current. Love that new 35-lb Mantus.
After the tide change, we swung 180º and the Mantus grabbed again in 3kts the other way. I decided that with the full moon, I might as well take advantage of the current and made an easy 8 plus knots back to Oak Harbor and we tied up at 02:00. All in all a very nice weekend cruise!
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