Our destination was a tiny village on Vashon (actually Maury) island called Dockton. Sophia and I had been there once before about a year ago. It's one of the few destinations we can reach in a day from Gig Harbor. I've included a map to show the route. Hopefully it will be clear enough.Each leg of the journey was 9.44 (regular)miles making the entire trip a grand total of 19 miles. I mention this to help you appreciate the relatively good time we made on the boat.
The weather was interesting, and our start questionable. We had planned on arriving at the boat at 9:00am and being on our way by 9:30 or 9:45. I had been following the forecast far in advance trying to keep our reservation on the best day (Thanks to Dave for being patient as we kept moving it around). The forecast for our day was
clouds giving way to sunshine. For this area, it sounded quite positivie. Imagine our dismay when we woke up to rain that morning.Now, being Washingtonians, we are not easily dissuaded by a little bit of wet. We forged ahead, expecting the r
ain to give way to sunshine, but it was still coming down steadily by the time we were ready to go. My daughter took a picture of the rain while she sat in the car waiting for me. I really wanted to sail, but I knew we'd be miserable if we went in that kind of wetness so I delayed our departure for an hour. If it cleared up, we'd go, if it didn't we'd cancel.Miracle of
miracles, it did indeed clear up and we set off over an hour later. Things went smoothly for the next while. We got to the dock, rigged the boat, stowed our gear, reviewed our departure checklist and left. By this time the sky was blue with puffy white clouds and we had a breeze that already felt stronger than what was forecast.One of our issues on the boat is that the girls always want to sit up front with legs dangling over the edge. It's probably safe, but it makes us feel really nervous and so we go round and round about where they are or aren't allowed on the boat. I think as we continue doing this we will figure things out.
Having a boat with a cabin really made a difference. The girls were able to get out of the wind, and they had a comfortable area they could sprawl out in. They could play games, listen too the tape player and take off their life vests for comfort. There was even a forward hatch they could pop open and look out from.
We had packed up a lunch to eat at dockton, but something about sailing makes one hungry and we had all downed our lunches within the hour.
Outside
the harbor we had a moment of panic as the full force of the winds hit us. The winds were much stronger than we expected. We decided to heave-to so we could reef the main. In the process both my bowline knots shook loose in the jib sheets (the ropes that allow us to control the forward sail). It doesn't sound scary, but it certainly feels scary to be out in all that water, with the wind whipping the sails about, the waves rocking the boat, and being spun about. It was all over in a moment though. We turned the motor on to get some control, reefed the main and changed to the smallest jib. This was much better and allowed us to control the boat. It also wasted additional time.
Now we were truly underway. We were flying along at a fast clip. Other than the big following waves (2 feet) and strong winds, we had a great sail to the park and made good time.
The park. What to say about the park. It's really not a big deal. It has a small play area, a large grassy area, a washington beach (i.e. barnacle encrusted pebbles and boulders). It also had locked bathrooms (big disappointment), and a gate locked across the ramp from the docks to the pier. Talk about annoying. We'd come all that way to a closed park. What to do? Climb the fence. We rested and played and ate. Speaking of eating.
The girls really trashed the cabin. I found trash and food everywhere. We weren't very pleased and had a cleanup. I think the rule will have to be only non-messy foods on the boat, and no foods in the boat (ie, you have to eat in the cockpit).
At this point, the skys had clouded back over, but luckily the wind was still strong and we didn't have any rain. The wind was the same direction so whereas before, we'd been on beam and broad reaches the entire way, we would now be tacking all the way home. Tacking, by nature, is wetter (because you are heading into the waves and they splash against the bow), windier (because you are sailing towards the wind), and scarier (because the boat is heeling all the time). This all combines to make it a bit scarier, but we were up to it. We were all more comfortable with the boat and what it could do. Even though we were tacking, we made really good time.
Our camera went dead while we were at the park so we didn't get any pictures of our return trip. Nothing extraordinary happened, except to say that the entire trip was extraordinary. Even when there's nothing to say in particular, it's very exciting to sail in such conditions. We had a great time. We were all bone tired and cold (Monica, Sophia & I), but happily spent. The kids were already talking about next time, and taking an overnighter to Blake Island.
