We both got up fairly early since we were meeting Ian Kerrigan (our financial planner) in Port Townsend that morning. We drove the 50 or so miles and met at the Otter Creek Crossing restaurant which has come under new management, but it was still good food. After a good meeting with Ian we drove over to Mike and Jean Edwards’ house just outside Port Angeles. Mike and Scott worked together back in the Synoptics/Cisco/Boeing days, and Mike and his wife Jean had just sold their house in Issaquah about 6 months ago, and moved to their current home in Port Angeles. They took this old rambler and fixed it up, adding a 2nd level on top and remodeling it extensively. They have a 180 degree view of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, right off of the bluffs, and they have a lot of privacy as well. A lovely home for their retirement! And Jean was happy to be living nearby her sister whom she hadn’t seen for many, many years since her sister used to live in California. It was great to see their new place. Later that evening they popped down to the marina to see our boat, which they were pleased with. I made some spaghetti for dinner with quite a bit left over. I thought it would be a quick meal to heat up while we’re under way in the big blue Pacific Ocean. Little did I know that it would be a meal too hard for me to stomach while we were underway…
Patrick Coonan, his wife Susan & 7 year old son, Jonathan, arrived that evening after a rough day at sea. They had left Edmonds that morning and spent most of the trip in dense fog. It was difficult since they needed to cross through the traffic lanes of the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Then, the winds picked up and tossed them to and fro’ for a very uncomfortable ride. Poor Jonathan actually got sick after passing Point Wilson. Not a fun day for them at sea, and I think they were pleased when they finally made it to Port Angeles.
The winds finally died down that evening, and water in the marina was like glass. We decided to travel along with the Coonans and the other couple Linda and Bill, who were headed in the same direction we were. We agreed to leave at 6:30 the next morning.
-Admiral Marian
I had been talking to Patrick all day and warning him about gale force winds in the straits. Well, each time I talked to him he said “It’s foggy here, but we are making good progress”. Then I warned him about Point Wilson, later finding he breezed right past. Now I started thinking about the boy that cried wolf. I knew the forecast was for 30 to 40 knot winds at the east entrance to the straits, but it had yet to kick up. Well, when we got to Mike Edwards house the straits were flecked with whitecaps. Now it was starting to blow. I called Patrick and he advised that things were still manageable, but that he had slowed to 4 knots. Damn, now he’s committed to making it all the way to Port Angeles, and it’s going to do nothing but get worse. Well to make a long story short, he arrived in the boat basin about 17:00 with a 25 knot wind. He wisely chose a side tie rather than trying to shoehorn crosswind into the slip next to me. In a matter of a few minutes he was tied up and ready to unwind. I felt terrible hearing that poor Jonathan had actually gotten sick, as no one wants to experience that. I felt relieved when I saw him and he seemed none the worse for the ware. I finally got to introduce Marian and Susan and they hit it off just as I knew they would. Susan is a beautiful woman and one of the most engaging and welcoming people you will ever meet, just like my bride Marian! Jonathan is the most intelligent young boy I’ve ever met. With a vocabulary like a college bound scholar and behavior any parent would be proud to see in their children, I find Jonathan a joy to be around. As Marian mentioned, Bill and Linda Edwards aboard Wayward Wind were also there. We all gathered at the dock and discussed a departure time.
I’m a fan of leaving early, at first light, as is Patrick. Bill felt pushing against the current was counter productive, so we agreed to leave at 6:30am, shortly after sunrise. The forecast was for calm conditions, an ebbing tide and a benign Pacific for at least 48 hours, the perfect staging for Marian and my first blue water, over night, multi day experience.
-Skipper
As Marian mentioned above, this was a particularly challenging day. Today the enormity of this decision hit me like no other. As we left Roche Harbor I was overwhelmed thinking about our children, family and friends we were leaving behind. I mention these things because this is really the hardest thing about leaving. Leaving our daughters with their new husbands, Marian’s sisters and brothers all with nieces and nephews is very difficult. This is the hard part about this journey. Sure we say we will be home soon, but we won’t be there on weekends to cook them dinner, or bring them soup if they are sick, or offer then a warm bed to sleep in if they find themselves between apartments or houses. Yes we are a phone call away, but it’s not the same. My only solace in this realization is that part of our motivation to do this now is so we can be there for our children when they become parents. This is a 2 or 3 year journey at most, it’s not an open-ended trip that will continue on and on. We want to be grandparents and support our children the way our parents supported us. So, doing this now is part of being there when they will really need us. Anyway, I must say our harts weighed heavy as we left Roche Harbor and headed for Port Angeles and the beginning of our real journey. I shed more than one tear as I reflected on all this.
We found the dock where they were to catch a float plane back to Seattle. They left their bags at the office, and then walked over to a pub where we had lunch. 
When we went back to the docks to wait for their flight, there was a Komo 4 News plane tied up with a news anchor man there (can’t remember his name – ugh!) When Tom & Cindy’s plane arrived, the pilot asked if anyone wanted to sit up front next to him, and Tom’s hand shot up immediately. He was so excited, and I think that made his day. It certainly made Scott and I feel better about leaving them. We were excited for them, rather than feeling sad to see them go. While we were leaving the docks we noticed a shop selling live prawns so we bought some to take home for dinner. Carter gladly cooked us all some dinner on our boat with the prawns, pasta, bread and salad. 
Absolutely delicious! We spent the rest of the evening talking about our plans to leave for Port Angeles where we hoped to get more water and re-provision.
We went up to the restaurant for dinner, and it was magnificent! Scott & I both decided that this eating-out business needs to come to a stop because we’ll never lose weight eating this way. At least we passed on dessert that night, which was a first…..
So that evening we all ate leftovers to clean out the ‘fridge of foods that would have to be thrown out or confiscated by the customs officials the next morning. So we all ate something different: Cindy had scrambled eggs, I had left-over salmon with a salad, Scott had left-over spaghetti, and Tom had some grilled sandwiches. It’s a great way to clean out the ‘fridge….
On our way back to the boat I purchased some of the local Saltspring Island coffee, and the bag it was in smelled like heaven. 
It was excellent food, and we enjoyed the rest of the evening with just the two of them. We had decided to go to Victoria the next morning if the weather looked rough, or go straight to Roche Harbor if the conditions were favorable. 
Unfortunately we had a rude boater cutting us off and forcing us to land. We literally had to stop the boat and shove it into reverse to avoid collision. The guy clearly didn’t learn the rules of navigation conduct, or didn’t care to practice it. Then later as we were waiting for a slip assignment at Ganges Marina, we had a sailboat right on our stern within inches, while Scott was trying to maneuver the boat. The sailboat then swerved to our starboard side, passing us within feet of our boat as he stormed into the marina to get a slip. We finally got an assigned slip which happened to be right next to him. Ugh! Later we were able to move our boat to another spot right behind Carter’s boat.
We walked into town to enjoy the shops and the sights. Scott was trying to find a UPS store to ship the part back, and I, of course, was looking for ice cream. Carter ducked in to a nice grocery store and got some yummy local blueberries, which we later decided to purchase as well. We met some folks who had a dog just like Stohli –Carter & Jackie’s Bernese Mtn. dog, and we all agreed that Stohli is a much prettier dog with almost perfect markings. And her manners and disposition are a real treat! We went back to the boat, made some dinner and then settled in for another episode of Dead Like Me.
He was swinging his boat to starboard in a desperate attempt to miss my stern, which he would not have cleared had I not run back to the controls and goosed it forward a bit. Then this idiot proceeds to accelerate around me to slip into his mooring before me. I was flabbergasted. Anyway, long story short no one collided and I’m sure his level of stress was a few notches above mine. The rest of the time at Ganges was delightful, to say the least! 
So after browsing the shops, we returned to the boat with the groceries all put away, and the guys resting in the afternoon sun. So nice……. 
That evening we decided not to go out to dinner, but to enjoy some of the food we just purchased. Then Cindy and I took our laundry up to the Laundromat and got a couple of loads in….the rest will have to wait til the morning……while we waited for the laundry, Jackie and Carter came over to our boat for a visit. Our original plans had been changed to spend another night in Vancouver, while we waited for a new part for Scott’s Nauticomp display to arrive the next morning. 
One thing of note was a call I made to a fishing fleet off the Tsawwassen Ferry terminal. I saw a number of floats in the water and was concerned that they may have been nets rather than crab pots. I made several calls to any boat in the fishing fleet and none answered. After the 3rd call the Victoria Coast Guard radioed to say they were crab floats, that they couldn’t have been nets. Hats off to the Coast Guard for taking the time to call me when the fishermen wouldn’t! Seeing the Lions Gate Bridge as we came in the harbor is stunning. 
Approaching Vancouver is stunning. Floatplanes are landing, cruise ships are departing, boats of every type mill about the harbor. Top it all of with a world class skyline and you understand why Coal Harbour marina is one of our favorite places to stay. 
Tom took the helm and gracefully landed us at the Customs dock. I called customs, told them about our supply of wine and lack of meat and produce products and we were the way in no time. Just a few minutes later we were tied up in a beautiful waterfront slip in Coal Harbour. 
Right across from Alanui was Senjero, a 57’ Nordhavn owned by Neil and Elaine Williamson, who we had met a few months earlier. We will be joining them on the FUBAR rally from San Diego to La Paz in November. I didn’t see Neil or Elaine, but I expect them to pass us on the way down the coast. 
Knowing we were going to be in Vancouver for a day or two, I took the opportunity to open up the helm console and attempt to connect the Nauticomp display, the FLIR camera and get the PC going. The first item we went after was the all important Nauticomp display. For those of you who aren’t boat savvy, this is essentially a $6,000 19” LCD display. Now you may be asking, how the heck can a 19” display cost $6,000, because it’s for a BOAT. You know what BOAT stands for? Break Out Another Thousand. Seriously the reason it’s $6,000 is because it has inputs for 10 devices. Two HDMI, two VGA, two S-Video, three Composite Video, and a Component Video. It also has a hardened case with an extremely small bezel. The fit to install the display requires 1/32nd of an inch accuracy in cutting the opening. It also has a lot of software features to scale the video and dim to red. All in all it’s a $3,000 piece of technology selling for $6,000 because it’s on a boat. Anyway, back to the story. We went to complete the installation of the display and discovered that the power supply was for a 24volt input, rather than the 12 volts that my house bank provides. A quick call to Nauticomp had the parts on the way next day air, for a modest fee. I’ll need to talk to my buddy Brian at Emerald Harbor Marine to see how we ended up with a 24v power supply on a 12v boat? Here is a picture of Tom and I in the middle of this electronics effort. 
Completing this phase of the installation was providing power to the 2nd ICOM VHF radio. A backup radio is essential for cruising and affords great flexibility in maintaining the ability to monitor CH16 and listen to weather or talk to fellow cruisers. 
As we headed north we noticed that there was a 180 degree error in our Radar alignment with the chart. Tom wanted to use the software to fix the problem but I was convinced it was a more fundamental issue than a simple alignment issue. A call to Furuno revealed the problem. I had upgraded the Navnet 1 chartplotter to a Navnet 2 unit. When I did this there was an installation wizard that should have been run, but I neglected to do it because I was told I could simply pull the old unit out and replace it with the new one. The result was the Antenna type was misconfigured. Setting the correct antenna type resolved the issue and the images align perfectly. Another of the innumerable configuration items that must be tracked and stored someplace so if you have a problem in the future, you have the notes to address them. 
While Marian and Cindy kept things working on the care and feeding front, Tom Brownlee and I dove into some of the various projects we needed to complete during this "Shake Down" portion of our trip. In any voyage there are things that NEED to get done, things that Need to get done and things that need to get done. On my list of things that NEEDED to get done were:
In Point Hudson we tackled the job of installing the loud hailer. For those of you that don't know a Loud Hailer is a trumpet like fixture that can both broadcast and listen to sounds. It's used so the skipper can listen to sounds (fog horns) or broadcast his own words, like "Pirate if you come near this boat I'll, well I'm not sure what I'll do but you won't like it", it can also broadcast your own fog horn a requirement from ages past. This project included drilling and taping screw holes in the radar mounting tower, something I haven't done in years and years. With Tom's help we drilled and taped the appropriate holes, mounted and wired the Loud Hailer and got it up and running in a matter of a few hours. We tested it by broadcasting a nice greeting to those walking by and by listening to conversations of people on the dock a few yards away. Scratch that project off the list!
