The final leg of our trip was finally here.  One more push form Seattle to Tacoma Yacht Club, our home port.  I woke up, went outside and decided to wash the boat at Bell Harbor before we left.  When we get back to our home slip its always a challenge to finish up cleaning the boat while the kids sit there knowing home is just a short drive away.  I washed the boat while Julie cleaned the inside.  I was hopeful our 3 hour cruise home would be free of any saltwater spray on the boat.  The wind was calm though, so I took the risk.

After an 11 hour day on the boat yesterday, we would have experienced mutiny from our children had we just taken off for the 3 hour trip to Seattle this morning.  The Everett Marina is actually located on the Snohomish River with Jetty Island Park located across the river from the guest docks.  This little island is almost all sand and the whole thing is a wildlife preserve.  We motored over to the public dock serving Jetty Island and tied up.  We let the kids free and like caged animals they were off and running!  We have never seen them run so much.  Up and down the sand beach, I don’t think they stopped the whole time we were there.

The island has a garbage monster that gives you a free milkshake at Wendy’s if you bring garbage off the beach back to the monster.  We collected some garbage and brought it back to feed the monster.  Now all the kids want to do is go to Wendy’s to collect their prize.

At 11:26 am we took off for downtown Seattle’s Bell Harbor.  We had a smooth 8-knot cruise all the way into Elliot Bay and tied up to our slip at 3:05pm and 28.76nm.  The boat right next to us happened to be a friend from TYC who owns a Camano 31 just like our old one.  It was nice talking with Roger and fun to see the two boats right next to each other.  We trekked up the hill to do some shopping and have dinner downtown.  We had a really nice dinner at the Palomino then headed in for an early night.  Tomorrow we will be home!

Trip Log – 367.13nm

We woke up knowing we needed to make some miles south but how far we could not decide.  Do we cross the straight?  No, wind forecast was for 30 knots in the afternoon right when we would get there.  At 9:20am we took off deciding to go through Rosario Straight then through Deception Pass.  Just through the pass is Cornet Bay with a TYC outstation we could spend the night at.  This pass is narrow with strong currents so it must be hit at or near slack water.  Checking our estimated arrival time with slack water time revealed we could hit it just perfect.

As we entered Rosario Straight we could see up ahead a large fog bank.  We decided to take the somewhat longer route along the east side of Cypress Island.  As we motored along we noticed some mooring buoys off Pelican Beach.  We have never explored this island and it looked really cool!  There was an open buoy so we decided to take one for the night and it would be nice to stop and eat lunch anyway.

Skylar instantly started fishing and brought up a rockfish!  He was hooked on this place as he brought up fish after fish.  Then the tide changed and everything stopped.  No more fish.  As we sat there in what felt like freezing cold (this was the first 60 degree day in a couple weeks) Julie and I decided to untie and keep going.  We missed slack water at Deception Pass so we decided to take the slow but protected route through the Swinomish Channel.

Still undecided on where to stay the night we just kept moving south.  For some dumb reason Julie and I kept talking about sunset being at about 9:30pm when calculating where we could make it before dark.  We figured Edmonds would be a stretch but we could make it.  At about 7pm with Julie and the kids down below reading, I thought to myself, wow it seems to be really getting dark for only 7pm.  To be sure I grabbed my phone and looked up the time for sunset in Seattle.  8:08pm.  What the….. how could we have been 1.5 hours off?  I guess not paying much attention to time over the last 3 weeks will do that to you.

We now had less than an hour until sunset.  The small Langley Marina was only 2nm away so we decided that was our destination.  This marina is very small though and there was a good chance it was full.  Sure enough, absolutely no dock space.  Where to now?  Everett was about 9nm away and the closest option.  I cranked up the engine to 15.5 knots burning 14.5 gallons per hour at that speed!  We felt like we were flying after going 7-10 knots most of our trip!  I have only been to the Port of Everett once before so I also had some navigating to figure out.  The marina is actually located on a river so you have to navigate some buoys to avoid the shoal.  As we rounded the entry buoy a huge barge with a tug pushing it was coming right at us!  We navigated around the barge and through the channel leading to the docks.  At 8:10pm just after sunset we were snugly tied up in our slip!  Just about 11 hours and 61.55nm is way too long on the boat especially for the restless kids.

Trip Log – 338.37nm