The first two weeks on the Beagle Spirit have been a fairly frenetic frenzy of moving things into cabinets and lockers, walking Archie, and Brett doing video meetings. Easter weekend, we decided to make our first overnight expedition, to Poulsbo, WA, about 20 nm from the marina. It took several hours on Friday morning to do the provisioning, and secure everything on board so it wouldn’t fall or break when we heeled over sailing. That done, we filled the water tank and left the dock around 2pm to fuel up (took on about 84 gallons of diesel, most of that had been used on our previous trip up to Victoria in January).
We were blessed with an absolutely gorgeous spring afternoon, mostly clear skies and winds out of the south at about 15 knots. This made for a great sail over to the south end of Bainbridge Island before heading north up to Poulsbo. While of course paying close attention to lots of ferry and boat traffic, we couldn’t help but admire the beautiful homes on the Bainbridge waterfront.
After sailing for a nice 3 hours, it was time to fire up the diesel and anchor just off the Poulsbo marina. We were excited to try our Rocna Vulcan anchor (88 lbs!) just installed that week. To our great relief, it bit quickly into the soft mud and held us rock solid against a building wind. It was also the first time trying the wind generator, which worked pretty well but did have some noticeable vibration at times, so that’s another thing to investigate.
Of course, our first order of business after setting the hook was getting Archie to land! Pronto! But that involved lowering the dinghy off the davits (don’t forgot to put the plug in!) then lowering the outboard from the crane. Luckily it started right up and we blasted right into town.
What a great waterfront park the city of Poulsbo has constructed! After walking Archie and getting him settled in his crate back on the boat, we were ready for a cold beer, and Tizly’s euro pub was happy to oblige. The next day dawned grey and drizzly, the rain alternating between a mist and a dribble. On the way back from Archie’s morning walk, the wind had built up a steep chop, and we learned that if you go fast, you can skip right over the tops of the waves and stay pretty dry, but if you slow down – the waves hit the bow and burst across the passengers. Archie was unamused, and we were WET!
If possible, Easter Sunday was even wetter than the previous day, and we decided to leave early to catch a favorable in Rich Passage. At times, we were gaining 4 knots just from the current! Due to the strong southerly wind and rain, we motored the whole way but made it safely back to marina and backed into our slip just time for lunch. Overall, our first two nights on anchor were a success, if a bit wet.
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