Puget Sound – Riveted

Port Townsend to Eagle Harbor

Laura Domela — Sun, 29 Jan 2017 04:27:38 +0000

On Thursday we drove from Portland to Anacortes, and then on Friday morning we cruised from Anacortes to Port Townsend. It was nice chill cruise down Rosario Strait and across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Port Townsend. So calm and boring that I didn’t take one single photo. We arrived in Port Townsend and went for a walk around town for a bit, stopping in the little shop I like called “Getables” and picked up some Eaglemount Rhubarb Cider. We made dinner aboard, then in the morning Kevin attempted to diagnose the float switch/gray water pump/float switch issue we’ve been having (pump runs and pumps out the gray water, but then keeps running after it’s empty so you have to go turn off the breaker to it to get it to stop). We eventually left Point Hudson Marina and stopped briefly at Boat Haven so we could walk up to West Marine and get yet ANOTHER float switch. The brand new one we put in (to solve the same problem) a few months ago appears to have been bad. (Learned after taking apart the cabinetry in the head to remove and then test the gray water pump itself…which was fine).

The marina at Boat Haven has temporary dockage just past the fuel dock, and it’s an easy walk to West Marine — if you ever need to stop in.

We got what we needed and Kevin finished the float switch replacement while we were underway. Gorgeous cruise today…down through the Port Townsend Canal (with about 3 kts of current with us, woohoo) and into the sound. The light was soft and silvery and the water was mostly calm.

Barge loaded with crushed cars looked pretty cool chuggin’ along in the VTS lanes just north of Seattle:

We thought we might go down to Blake Island today, but since we got such a late start from Port Townsend (~11am) we instead opted for Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island. No room in the marinas on a Saturday night, so we tied up for the night on the City Dock and walked down to the Harbour Public House for dinner and a beer. Dinner was just okay. I had fish tacos (pretty good, nothing fancy, fish definitely the highlight) and Kevin got a boar burger. The yam fries with the burger were cold (they brought another order) and the burger was just so-so. We’ve always gotten fish & chips here…maybe that’s the secret!

Tomorrow morning we’ll head across Elliott Bay and into Seattle for some Seattle Boat Show festivities. Should be a fun and busy week!

On to Port Townsend (and another thing to fix)

Laura Domela — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 22:15:22 +0000

I got up this morning around 7 and turned the generator and the electric heat on and then got back in bed until things warmed up. With the extra Pendleton on the bed we were cozy all night…but it got down to 48 degrees F inside last night without the Wallas heater running as usual.

Bunch of seals coming into foggy Port Gamble Bay:

At 9am Kevin called Scan Marine in Seattle about our Wallas diesel heater. The guys at Scan Marine were SUPER helpful. They described to Kevin over the phone how to pull the bottom of the unit off and remove the glow plug. They said once we did that and verified that was the issue, to call them back and they'd overnight a new glow plug to us. (We ordered two so we'll have a spare.)

Kevin and I worked this one together. The positions one must achieve to work on boats is pretty crazy sometimes! The Wallas is inside this little vent in the wall beside the steps down to the front stateroom. Not a lot of room to maneuver (and with tools!!) in there:

Glow plug removed:

Glow plug. (It's the thing that lights the diesel fuel on fire, by getting red hot, to make the heat):

So once we had that all worked out and got a bunch of other "work" work done, we pulled anchor and headed for Port Townsend.

Exiting the entrance to Hood Canal:

The Olympics above the fog:

We could see more fog up ahead, so we made sure we had our radar going.

And pretty soon, bam!

But boy, when it cleared (mid-Marrowstone Island) it was just stunning.

Mount Baker:

Marrowstone Point:

We got our same slip at Point Hudson Marina that we usually do (Slip No. 2) with a great view of the Olympics to the south and Mount Baker and the cascades to the north. We walked into town to get a few things…the things we got included a bottle of champagne for tonight. Tonight is Night No. 300 aboard Airship since we bought her in September 2014, and we're right back where it all started, looking at those Ranger Tugs here in the marina from our Airstream that day. We plan to order pizza from (yum!) Waterfront Pizza for dinner and have a little pizza and champagne toast to all of the boating fun!

View from the back of Airship, as the sun is setting:

And then OMG this (no filter…this is straight from the camera):

We should get our overnighted parts from Scan Marine in the morning tomorrow, and then we'll decide whether to stay another night in Port Townsend, or head over to Deception Pass State Park a day earlier than we planned.

Here's today's track (about 19 nautical miles):

Airship at Dusk

Laura Domela — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 13:26:00 +0000

We took the dinghy out for a little more Torqueedo testing as the sun was setting last night in Port Gamble Bay. I have to say, I do prefer the ride when we're going full speed (which tonight was about 4.2 kts). The dinghy rides so much flatter on the surface with this lightweight outboard…it's great! I really don't think "gunning it" is in the spirit of Torqueedo ownership though, which is why we'll likely get a backup battery. Good news about the batteries: they take very little time to charge.

Oh and this: it seems our Wallas diesel furnace quit working late yesterday afternoon. This puts a bit of a cramp in our boating plans for the next couple days…booo. We went through all the troubleshooting steps in the manual and got to "glow plug error" which is the thing that lights the little bit of fuel as it comes to the heater so it can make heat (and the fix is "Take heater in for service.") So as long as the generator is running, we can have heat. But if we want quiet — no heat.

Exploring Port Gamble

Laura Domela — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 21:15:07 +0000

We headed into the town of Port Gamble today around noon. We wanted to check out the town and have some lunch at the Port Gamble General Store and Cafe (well, technically brunch, since we skipped breakfast). We took off in the dinghy, loving the quiet, non-smelly electric Torqueedo (though I think we may invest in a second battery, to tame the battery complex we occasionally feel while far from Airship). We toured the shore looking for a spot to beach. The point there where the mill used to be, just beneath town, is now a big construction zone, but we saw some people walking along the beach so we decided we could beach there and then walk up the hill to town.

As we walked up the beach toward town, however, it appeared that we were "inside" an area that was fenced off from town. I called up to the cafe to see if they knew where we might be able to get some legal beach access, and they were not so sure, but the guy said he thought there might be beach access around the point toward the Hood Canal Bridge at a park near Salisbury Park. He said the construction area wasn't completely fenced off…and that there was a road going in so people could get to the research center around the corner. Just as we hung up, a gentleman in a big white truck drove over to, um, chat with us (through a giant wad of chewing tobacco he was shoving into his mouth as he was rolling down his window…gross). I told him we were anchored out and we'd just beached the dinghy but that it looked like we weren't supposed to be here. He agreed. He said this area is a (closed, non-operating) construction zone, and dangerous to the public. (Looked like just a big muddy lot to us, but okay.)

That pale yellow building on the hill is the Port Gamble General Store and Cafe. So close, yet so far.

I asked if he knew of a spot where we could beach the dinghy and walk up to town, and he said maybe around the point by the kayak shack, so we headed out into the choppy (but not too bad) water in search of beach access.

Looking toward town, the old mill in the foreground:

We could see Salisbury Point down by the bridge (it was far, and probably a bit of a walk to town from there) but as we rounded the corner a bit more, we saw a bunch of kayaks on racks and what looked like a kayak rental shack or something. Oh, and some beach!

Low tide was an hour ago, so we pulled the (now lighter without that big outboard) dinghy up quite a ways up the beach. (Turns out that was way more than we needed, but whatever.)

Sure enough, a kayak rental place. They were apparently closed so we just borrowed the beach for an hour or so.

We had lunch in the cafe adjacent to the Port Gamble General Store.

The food all looks and sounds great online, and their website is very nice. The food was good, but not go-back-for good. I mean, we'd go back, but our expectations would be different. We shared a burger that was fine (a little overcooked for our taste)…with bacon, bbq sauce, onion strings, white cheddar, and cornmeal crusted fried jalapenos. All that sounds great, and it was tasty, but overall needed more juiciness. The fries and homemade ketchup that came with it were fabulous though. We also shared a prawn tostada salad (Alaskan prawns, cabbage, lime cilantro dressing, avocado etc.) and for a $17 salad, I think we expected more than a small skewer on top with three small-medium prawns. It seemed excessively expensive for what you got. The prawns sounded like they should have been a highlight, but felt too separate from the rest of the salad. I think we'll try breakfast next time. ("Voted North Kitsap's Best Breakfast/Brunch" says their website.)

After lunch we wandered around town, and as we were halfway down the main street, we realized we'd driven through here before when we were camping in the Airstream on Hood Canal in 2010 and we drove the truck into Seattle to pick up our Hobie Tandem Island. The large expanses of green grass surrounded by bright white picket fences that makes up the historic part of town is hard to forget:

Woodpecker in a tree, doing his woodpecker thing:

Mrs. Muir's House of Ghosts and Magic:

Port Gamble is apparently famous for its paranormal activity and hosts an annual Ghost Conference in October.

Lots of great Victorian architecture in Port Gamble:

We stopped in at the general store before heading back to the dinghy to pick up a couple things. I think they're really trying to up the tourism in this town…it's definitely cute and has the "blinky light" vibe and a few funky shops and museums that make for a successful tourist stop, but it's a bit of a hassle if you want to visit by boat. If they just had a little dinghy dock or a convenient public beach, that'd be great! Nearby Kingston has 'em beat with easy access to town by boat.

Now we're back on Airship working. Kevin's broken wrist seems to be healing up well after surgery. He's doing all the therapy exercises prescribed every two hours, and is spending some time out of the brace when he's kicking back doing something more sedentary. He's able to type with both hands now (not totally 100%, but he's writing his own articles, rather than dictating them to me for typing). This text with youngest daughter the other night was pretty funny:

Her: So, how is boating with your broken arm? Is it way harder, or just a little bit harder?

Kevin: Oh, it's WAY easier. Laura does everything. I'm like a queen. "Honey, after you get those dock lines and finish the dishes, could you give me a massage?"

Heh.

I have to say for me…boating with one hand down is definitely harder and more work all around, but it's way more fun for both of us to have Kevin happy and healing out here on the water than it would be hanging at home or in the home office.

Seattle to Port Gamble

Laura Domela — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 14:28:40 +0000

We left Seattle yesterday around 11am and headed north.

Passing Point No Point Lighthouse:

The water was calm and we headed up to Port Gamble to anchor for the night (just inside the entrance to Hood Canal).

Sunset from our anchorage:

We anchored just past the spit on the north side, near Point Julia. Great holding…very calm in here last night.

After we finish up some work here this morning we plan to dinghy over to town for some exploring (and more testing of the Torqueedo electric outboard).

Happy Monday!

Yesterday's route (31.5 nautical miles):

p.s. OMG I almost forgot (because there were no photos)! On Saturday night we met up with our friends Kathy and Pete, who took us to the most fabulous Italian restaurant over in Issaquah. (I know!!) It's called Montalcino and it's a tiny, intimate family-run spot (max capacity 35) and there was a guy singing Italian opera and it was lovely but holy moly the FOOD. It's fantastic! We will DEFINITELY make a point to return to this place. Goodness…we haven't had food like that since Italy! I had a special pasta with wild boar and wild mushrooms that I shared with Kevin (but I didn't want to after I tasted it). Kevin had a pasta dish with some kobe meatballs (also very good, just not as good as mine). Their family house Brunello was good, the house-made Bufala mozzarella…I'm full just thinking about it. (Check out the food photos on their facebook page.) YUM!

Lakebay to Gig Harbor, WA

Laura Domela — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 23:41:37 +0000

Another gorgeous sunrise in Lakebay!

We left our mooring buoy at Penrose Point State Park this morning around 10:30am and headed toward Gig Harbor. In this shot below, you can just barely make out Mt. Rainier through the clouds, to the left of the trees on the point:

It was a beautiful, quiet cruise over to Gig Harbor. Here we are just outside the harbor:

We stopped first at the Tides Tavern, tied up at the guest dock, and then headed up to have lunch. We both had halibut and chips and it was very good…we rank it right up there with the best we've had (and the tartar sauce was crazy good…they wouldn't tell us what made it so good/different though).

Airship at the guest dock:

Tides Tavern:

We took advantage of the 4 hour guest tie up and walked up to West Marine after lunch to pick up a few things (another fender in case we end up going through the Ballard Locks, so we now have a set of three for port and three for starboard). Then, we motored down to Arabella's Landing and got a nice spot on their guest dock for the night. We put a load of laundry in, walked back up to town to exchange a thing at West Marine, stopped in a couple shops on the way back, including the distillery Heritage Distilling.

We tasted a barrel-finished vodka and a couple of bourbons and brought a bottle of the barrel-finished vodka back to the boat (it'll make a great martini!).

Mini-still:

There's a great marine supply/gift shop here at Arabella's Landing called Ship to Shore. We stopped in to check it out before going back to the boat, and I picked up a few more pieces of glass(plastic)ware so we could finish stocking the cupboard with Strahl–everything. This stuff is SO GREAT! If you prefer plastic over glass in your boat or RV, we highly recommend this brand. Almost every single guest who has held one of these wine glasses in their hand thought it was glass. It's such nice quality and feels great to hold (and has this killer little ridge on the bottom of the glass for your finger to sit in…hard to describe, but trust me, they're fabulous).

We have four 8oz (chardonnay) wine glasses, four 13oz (bordeaux) wine glasses, four of each of the small and medium old-fashioned style tumblers, and four tall "water" glasses. Love 'em! (They have several sizes of martini glasses too, but we've opted to use the small old-fashioned style tumblers for cocktails, rather than take up the room in our cupboard that martini glasses take up.)

Uh oh, while gathering links I just found these. They stack, and are martini-like. Done.

It turned into a sunny (warm!) day today:

We spent the rest of the afternoon working here on the boat, in the sun, in Gig Harbor, WA, in February, with the doors and windows open. Pretty sweet day!

Here's our route from Lakebay to Gig Harbor (light green line, kind of hard to see):

Lakebay, WA

Laura Domela — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 14:23:50 +0000

This is one of our new favorite spots in the South Sound: Lakebay and Penrose Point State Park. This is where we moored last night, on a marine state park buoy, and it looked JUST LIKE THAT. Amazing isn't it? It is so very still here.

We took the dinghy into shore (past the marina and cafe, closed during the week in the winter) and tied up to the state park dock so we could go take a look around.

That's our dinghy out there at the end of the dock:

Before we went to the dock, we headed for a shallow cove, but it proved too shallow (and too COVERED with oysters and shells) to nicely beach the dinghy.

We walked out on the beach a ways and I've never seen so many sand dollars (alive!) in my life. I think I only recently learned what they looked like when they're alive (at an aquarium on the Oregon Coast)…they're dark purple and covered in fuzz. Here's one:

(Though I can't be certain of its aliveness since it was on the beach, and not underwater.)

Many sizes of sand dollars (those little ones are about the size of a quarter):

The rocks on this beach reminded me of the show we saw at the Glass Museum in Tacoma last week. The colors and textures were endlessly cool:

We returned to Airship and took the chairs to the upper deck, popped open a beer, and just sat mostly in silence as we took in the beauty and stillness of this place.

Here's what it looked like early this morning:

It's starting to burn off now, and we're off to hike some trails.

Here's our track from yesterday – 36 nautical miles total. (Our friend Cari drove out to Jarrell Cove and we took her on a short cruise down to McMicken Island and back. The mooring buoys at McMicken looked great, but I'm glad we decided to go further on to Lakebay.)

Jarrell Cove State Marine Park

Laura Domela — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 01:26:29 +0000

After we left Allyn, WA, we headed for Jarrell Cove on Harstine Island, with an ETA of about 5pm.

So, let's talk about this island. I'd been writing it "Hartstene" when emailing with friends, but then on the chart I noticed it said "Harstine". Oops. My bad. So Harstine it is. Wonder how that happened!? Then today, on one chart (the Garmin on the boat) it says Harstine and on the other chart (on the iPad) it says Hartstene. When Kevin checked us in with a photo earlier, it pegged us at Hartstene Island. But when I looked something else up, it was Harstine Island. WTF? I Googled it, and look what I found on its Wikipedia Page:

"For most of the island's history, there wasn't a single standard spelling of its name. Even today, several different spellings are used.

"Of the several possible ways to spell the name of the island, Hartstene and Harstine are the most used and most popular. Both have been used nearly interchangeably in many published references including Wikipedia, and (http://www.co.mason.wa.us/). Alternate spellings of the name include Hartstene, Harsteen, Harstein, Harstene, Hartstein and Harstine. In 1997 Washington State Legislative action resulted in the name officially becoming Harstine Island."

So there it is. The reason for my confusion is clear.

Anyway, tonight we're moored at Jarrell Cove State Marine Park and it's lovely. There's no one here but us. We walked up the dock to register and explored the campground and cove a bit:

The campground is empty, but there are some gorgeous spots up there!

We got back to the boat and decided the weather was nice enough for a glass of prosecco and some cheese on the top deck. I made the cheese board while Kevin set up the chairs. Awwwwww, would you look at that!

View across the cove:

Oh yeah, and check out this cool boat over at the marina that we passed on the way in (Jarrell's Cove Marina, only open Memorial Day to Labor Day):

And here's our route from today (35.2 nautical miles):

1928 Ocean City

Laura Domela — Thu, 05 Feb 2015 13:23:00 +0000

Here in Oro Bay on Anderson Island in the South Puget Sound sits the Ocean City, a 189-foot 50-car ferry built in 1928. Originally steam-powered, it was built for the Reading Railroad. Re-powered with a 1600hp Fairbanks-Morse engine, the ferry was acquired by the State of Virginia in 1950. Captain Tom Palmer, a Pierce County Ferry captain, purchased the ferry in 1984, and hoped it would supplement his current 30-car ferry. From what I can gather, he and his brother brought Ocean City from the East Coast to Puget Sound via the Panama canal, a 7,000 mile, 54-day trip. Word has it the ferry service was taken over by Pierce County, and the Ocean City never got to help out.

I found this fabulous bit of info on a ferry forum here, via Homer5:

I grew up in Williamsburg, VA and made many a trip across the James River on the Ocean City. She came up the James to Surry from Norfolk, VA around 1957/58 when the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel opened and displaced the Ferry Service. I do not know when she first came to Hampton Roads, although there is a story of her being run all over Hampton Roads one night by a drunk captain and mate blowing the whistle and playing chicken with other vessels until she ran into dock in Newport News and got hung up in the pilings and was boarded by police who arrested the Captain and mate. She made trips between Hampton and Norfolk as well as Norfolk and Newport News.

I believe that she was converted from steam to diesel around 1952. She had a 1600 horsepower Fairbanks-Morse engine in her and was very powerful.

She was owned by the Virginia Department of Highways and she ran between Jamestown and Scotland Wharf in Surry County from 1957/58 until she was sold to the guys that took her around to Oro Bay in 1984/85. She could carry 48 cars.

He had a contract to provide service to Anderson Island or was trying to secure one and had plans to repower her and provide service. I guess that didn't pan out.

Sad to see her in the condition that she is currently in. I had seen the launch pictures of her and I believe that she had 3 sister ships that were identical. I think they all wound up in Hampton Roads. I think they were the Newport News, Elizabeth City, and the Warwick, but I may have that wrong. I also believe that they had converted them all to diesel and their superstructures had all been converted to the same basic look. This was before my time, so I will check on that and get back to ya. That 1980 photo is the Ocean City in the dock @ Scotland Wharf, Surry, VA.

Here's an image from Ocean City's original launch in 1923 [source]:

The backup idea was to convert the ferry into an excursion boat specializing as a kind of floating campground for RVers while touring the Puget Sound.

There's an old silver trailer sitting there today, waiting. Awwwwww. Not gonna happen, but it was a cool idea, huh?

Tacoma Narrows

Laura Domela — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 22:21:49 +0000

We timed our departure from Tacoma this morning to start through the Tacoma Narrows right around slack tide and at the beginning of a flood. (Flood flows south, ebb goes north.) So at slack the current is still, and as it turns to flood, the current starts south and gives us a little boost in speed. For instance, we usually cruise at around 2200rpm and make between 7-8 knots, and through the Narrows today we were at 2200rpm and going 10-11 knots, so we had about a 3 knot boost from the current.

Farewell committee at the marina:

Some shots as we exited the Thea Foss Waterway:

There were a lot of seals and porpoise (and fishermen) around Point Defiance today. I managed to luck out and get this Dall's porpoise as it did a cute little jump!

Moody landscape on the bluff:

Some shots of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge as we passed underneath:

We had a nice cruise down to Anderson Island. It was pretty and fairly uneventful (read: no whales). We're now anchored here on our new Rocna 20. So far so good!

We took the dinghy out for a bit to check out a derelict (but cool!) 1923 ferry that's over here in the bay (more about that in the next post), but it started raining pretty good so we motored back to Airship for a cozy evening and a bit more work.

Here we are in the rain:

And here's today's track – 24.2 nautical miles. And tonight will be Night No. 70 aboard Airship. Woohoo!