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March 2016

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Rainfall records in Seattle were broken this winter. This is also the year we moved onto a boat.

All three of us have just been passing around the winter crud. As a result, I have been spending a large quantity of time sleeping. Hopefully, we are seeing the tail end of this and as we move forward into spring (this weekend don’t forget to move your clock ahead) we will seen an improvement in the overall health of our crew.

The last month has been pretty low key.

For India’s birthday we traveled to Bell Harbor Marina and spend the night in Seattle. The trip there was pretty uneventful. Ryan pulled out the screecher and did a little experimenting. We were headed downwind the majority of the trip north and the winds were an ideal speed for sail trim experimentation. Once we were north of Blake Island, we took in all of the sails and motored into Elliot Bay with the wind increasing and rain starting.

Bell Harbor Marina is nestled right on the downtown Seattle waterfront. It is a great location for walking access to Pike Place Market and an easy Uber ride to just about everything Seattle has to offer. It is also a very small marina. A very small marina with a narrow entrance which gets exponentially smaller as the wind and swell pick up. Getting into the marina was exciting. Docking was even more exciting.

We were assigned a slip. This was not an end tie or a side tie; we were assigned an actual slip. This was a first for us. Ryan first brought us into the slip bow first. This turned out to not be ideal. We had several feet on either side of the dock to bridge. After attempting to secure our lines in this position, Ryan decided we were going to turn around and back into the slip. After a bit of trial and error, we made it in. It was nice to be able to just walk down the steps and onto the dock. Rover was pleased.

The next morning we heading south into fog with the wind and rain increasing. This was a good opportunity to practice using my instruments, as I had to rely on radar quite a bit as we left Elliot Bay.

The wind started gusting at 25knots as we approached Commencement Bay. We successfully docked in 15knots of wind. It was exciting.

A few items of note:

  • We are in the process of getting quotes for an autopilot and upgraded navigation system.
  • We signed up for the Coho Ho-Ho.
  • Ryan installed some new deck lights.