Sailing season comes to an end....

Gosh!  It feels like a long time since we took these photos.  It feels like even longer since I've written here.  The last days of summer slipped by, and all of a sudden it's fall!  

Currently, Cody and I are in Chicago, working with Vertical Solutions to build a climbing gym.  It's going to be a fantastic gym when it's complete!  We spent some time working on the gym owned by the same group in Boston, and it's neat to be a part of their third location here in Chicago.  You can see more about the project here.  

We were interviewed by Wooden Boat Dan, who produces a podcast called Hooked on Wooden Boats while at the Boat Festival and he has aired our interview on his website.  If you follow the blog it's nothing new, but if you are interested you can listen here.  

  

Note the fine fit of this ultra second hand female wetsuit!

Upon returning to Washington, Cody had to dive 20+ ft. into the frigid Puget waters to free our tangled anchor line.  We stayed on a mooring ball a friend loaned us, but used our anchor to back up the ball of unknown origin and reliability.  Anyway, it's a long story.  But a special thanks to Cait Allen who also had a hand in retrieving our anchor and chain.  

We left Bainbridge and steadily sailed to Blake Island for the night.  The Island is not the most spectacular in the area, but it was worth a visit. 

After giving Her Majesty (our dinghy) a beach side scrubbing we walked along the beach and found what we think is an eagle eggshell! 

The north side of the island has a Native American interpretive center and a little store.  Sadly both were closed by the time we got there.  However the tame deer were all over the place and so were some friendly raccoons!

A nice morning walk across Blake

We "left" Blake island thinking that the flood tide would carry us out toward Tacoma.  That was not the case, after trying to sail for 3 hours, fighting an opposing a current that apparently wraps around the island we succumbed to towing Rabannah.............with Her Majesty.  We pulled with all our might and finally got out of the wind shadow and we were on our way.

The wind was a little shifty, but it kept building for a few hours, and we made up all the time we lost drifting around Blake.  Here we are sailing wing and wing dead downwind.  Cody lowered himself out in Her Majesty to get this shot.  We were going over 4kts. and the dinghy was pretty squirrely, but he managed to make it back to the boat dry.

We ended up getting becalmed, which was promptly followed by being benighted.  We ended up sailing in the dark to a ratty "anchorage" just outside the Hylbos Waterway.  We set two anchors for extra peace of mind, and slept soundly.  Our last day sailing this season was pretty uneventful, a little fog in the morning, but we made it to the marina on time.

Rabannah was lifted out, pressure washed and blocked up in a nice corner of the yard.  We covered her with tarps, and cleaned her thoroughly inside. We packed up and said our goodbyes.  We look forward to taking her out in April and spending another great season in the Northwest!