I'm back in the world!
After 2973 miles of traveling (nautical miles, of course), the boat is anchored out in Bellingham Bay and I am driving my faithful smurf rocket around again. To be firmly attached to the ground is a strange thing, but nice as well. I am finding a place in Seattle to live, and then I will bring the boat down and then probably sell it. I think dry land is calling me for a while.
So the latest adventures have been nice; sailing down from Port Mcneill was calm and almost all downwind. We saw a school of Pacific White-sided dolphins, which we then tried to chase down (and we were flying the spinnaker and hauling ass at about 6 knots) but they wouldn't be chased down. Two stragglers came hopping over to the boat, one of them with a white patch on its head, which I discovered was a plastic bag! They were fun, but not as fun as Dahl's porpoises, which come up right next to the boat. The dolphins keep their distance. We saw a bunch of seals, and some that were ripping salmon to pieces.
But we survived.
Incidentally, coming into Port Mcneill, we had to cross an open water patch (just to the north of Vancouver Island) which is called Cape Caution, and it was REALLY foggy there, so foggy that we couldn't see more than 100 ft in all directions. Fog horns, like great bellowing mosters in the darkening whiteness, rang out now and again, but since I don't have RADAR, I didn't know when the monsters were going to strike out and run me over. But through it all, the beacon of hope, my faithful GPS, guided me. And I found this narrow little harbor, Cascade harbor, and got in to an anchorage without hitting any rocks, even though in the daylight it was kind of scary to get into and out.
But I wish I had something that could tell me for sure if other boats can see me or not. Often times I can't tell if I show up on RADAR.
ok, I'm tired, I'll get more down later when I have time to think about all the profound lessons I've learned...
