Landfall

Today the Widowmaker made her first proper landfall since her Resurrection: Waterfront Pizza, Port Townsend, Washington. 

Christine, Eric, Greg and I set out at an insanely low tide, certain that we would do more punting than sailing, at least until we got around Skunk Island and into Hadlock Harbor proper. It was like Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom in the resulting tide pool. There were sea stars (the artists previously known as starfish), anemones, crabs, and lots of little fishes. The starfish looked like day glow orange hubcaps. They were freakin' huge.

We poked our way out, set sail, and crabbed our way against the rising tide, and directly into the eye of the wind. Fortunately, Capn. Jacobsen (Christine) is a "wind whisperer". She can find the eye of the wind (the only direction you can't sail in) and point our nose right into it every time. Uncanny. At about 3 knots of wind the Widowmaker will barely sail forward; she goes about 3 feet forward and 2 feet sideways, with almost no steerage way. The "F$%#-off" jib pulls the bow around so far you have to spill its wind to stay headed in the right direction. A "F%$#-off" sail is one so gigantic it tells all the other sails to F-off. This is apparently standard Tall ship parlance. Christine has worked on various tall ships for several years, and is in charge of salty lingo and steering us away from snowball hitches, and directly into the wind.

Pretty quickly, we realized forward with oars was better than sideways with sails.

That's Port Townsend in the background. Its about 6 miles away from Port Hadlock Marina, our home port. This was taken about 30 minutes before we had to row for our lives to not be run down by a ferry. Tide and wind was against us, and we had to pass in front of the ferry terminal. But the boat seemed sooooo far away. It was haulin ass at about 20 knots, and we were draggin ass at about 1 knot. It was not too close, but close enough. I know the driver hates people like us.

Landfall! We strolled up and ordered a few pizzas, (Eric's nickname used to be TC--for Trash Can--he'll eat anything and lots of it). While we were gone, our rudder escaped and nearly floated away. Ahh. that's why there was a pin to attach it to the boat...

I got tired of getting up to keep the boat from floating away with the rising tide, so i tied it to my leg. Worked like a charm. See the mast slinking out of view, pull on the rope. Take a bite. What, me worry?

We tanked up, got sleepy, and headed home. It was a rocky start with some fouled lines in raising sail, as well as another boat bearing down on us, but we got underway and had a lovely run home in 3 knots of wind.

Greg did a fine job of running us wing on wing much of the way back. We almost made it back without jibing. When we got home, it was high tide, and it had raised 11 feet. It was nuts. No more pretty sea stars, but no more getting the dagger board stuck in the mud either.

We tucked the widowmaker in for the night, and planned for fabulous voyages ahead. Next time: Elevated Ice Cream.