One of the boats that beat the crap out of us.

We’ve determined that we’re not the racing type. By ‘racing’, I mean trying to get someplace faster than other people get there. You start at the starting line and you sail as fast as you can to the finish line. Part of the rule is to start at the right place at the correct time. Our day was filled with rule breaking, so you know in advance this day was a good one.

‘Casual’ does not begin to describe the racing scene as defined by the Puget Sound Cruising Club. The race began at 10:00. We showed up at 10:00. No one was there. Confused, we questioned whether we had the correct date. We did. Then the race committee boat showed up, followed by one other sailboat. By this time, our clock showed 10:00, so we had already crossed the ‘start’ line, even though no horn had sounded. Just consider this our ‘handicap’ for now.

The wind was too good for us to turn around and go back to the start line, so we figured we were disqualified from the race and that was fine with us since we were only in this for the fun of it anyhow. At that point we figured we just looked like morons so who cares? Besides, Moonrise needs a haul out and a bottom job, so she isn’t real fast right now. (It has absolutely nothing to do with our sailing abilities, regardless of what Mike says.) Some of these people have sailed around the world! We cannot compete with them. We needed that extra 5 minutes.

Apparently we needed much more time than that because we were soon joined, dare I say PASSED by several other boats who were not even close to the starting line when we began this shindig. In fact, we don’t even know where they came from. So we dawdled along for several hours, enjoying the decent wind and the sea lions, and thinking we’d have lunch on the boat while underway. I made chicken salad with fruit.

As we rounded a curve at the south end of Bainbridge Island, I noticed that there was a tight group of sailboats bunched up together, going nowhere.

Me: “Honey, look at those boats. What are they doing all bunched up together like that?”

Mike: “I don’t know. Maybe they are having lunch together. They probably know each other.”

Me: “You think maybe they are jockeying for position? You know, in this race it’s the second place person who wins. Maybe they are all waiting until someone passes them into first place.”

Mike: “This is our big chance! We will pass them to port, then we will be first, or even second!”

Me: “Hey, there is a big ferry bearing down on us from behind.”

Mike: “Shit.”

And this is how we became entangled in a rip current with two other sailboats, with pretty much no wind.

If you think we had a chance of catching that boat, you would be wrong.

Sailors get a certain kind of stressed out look on their faces when they are stuck in a tidal rip and have no steerage. They all yell at one another ‘I have no steerage’, like no one knows that. It’s not that we’re stupid, it’s that we’re incredulous that we are actually in a tidal rip with no steerage. It helps to shout it out loud.

I am proud to say that I was able to 1) think about getting the fenders out 2) find the fenders 3) deploy the fenders in the knick of time as S/V Active Light’s rear end came careening toward Moonrise. One fender saved the side of the boat, Mike and a sailor on Active Light saved the rear ends of both vessels. As the bows came together, I stood ready with the totally ineffective boat hook, which collapsed as soon as it touched the other boat. Thank goodness for arms. What would we do without them?

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, a large marionberry from my salad had sneakily found its way underneath my shoe. The cockpit was a carnage of beautiful purple. How fitting. I was tracking it everywhere. Mike was dragging the sheets through it.

As the boats continued to vie for position in the eddy, Mike and I, thinking as one, got the hell out of there by use of the time honored technique of starting the engine and getting the hell out of there. This is the second rule we broke, although I found out later that technically, since we were in immediate danger of injuring Moonrise, and/or another vessel, we had not broken the rule that prohibits the use of the engine. Whatever. This is what separates the sailors from the racers. The other two boats stuck with it until they got free, without the use of their engine. They are racers. We are not.

All the boats who beat us.

We were dead last. I mean really, really last. Like people were already showered and shaved by the time we arrived. Even so, these people generously honored us with 1/3 of the prize for “Perserverance”, along with the other two boats caught in the rip. We completely did not deserve it since we were disqualified from the start. But then they told us we won the prize for ‘early start’. Seems like you just can’t lose with these folks! And a good time was had by all.

The award for persevering. I think it's a little like Miss Congeniality, but maybe better and with no swim suit competition.

It’s the last weekend in April and it’s not pouring down rain. This is amazing. We left Foss Harbor this afternoon to sail up to Blakely Harbor, expecting the usual slow motorboat to China routine with the wind directly on the nose. Boy were we wrong! We had an incredible sail and, in fact, I wondered if we might have our first ‘close encounter’ with the water as we rounded Point Robinson. Good thing we don’t really take the wind report seriously around here, at least not completely. The radio told us that we were experiencing winds out of the southwest at 3 knots. They got it half right. The winds were out of the southwest all right. But with Moonrise going against the tide at a pleasing 6.8 knots with her rail mostly in the water, I am almost completely certain that the whole ‘3 knots’ thing was bogus.

To be succinct, the sailing was excellent: just gusty enough to make for some exciting wheel work and to have Mike ‘man’ the mainsheet in case we needed to spill wind fast. Sure, we were working with more weather helm than was probably efficient, but screw that because we were having so much fun. Plus, my arms got a great workout. That’s got to be good for me, right? Moonrise handled the gusts with her usual grace, only laying her main close to the water a few times. It was like cowboy sailing!

Just when we though things couldn’t get better, I spotted whales off the starboard side up by Three Tree Point. Actually, I spotted ‘whale’. I’m fairly certain there was only one, and it was not an orca. Probably a grey whale. It surfaced 4 times, then disappeared. We waited and Mike called it to come back, singing his excellent whale song.

Mike making like a whale.

Alas, the whale was not impressed. It showed up next pretty far behind us.

We pulled into Port Blakely just as the sun was going down, dropped the hook, and Mike had a beer. We’ll be up bright and early for the Puget Sound Cruising Club’s ‘circumlocution’ of Bainbridge Island tomorrow. It’s our first cruising club event. They don’t know it yet, but they are our new friends. Hope they don’t talk circles around us.

Our view of Seattle from our anchorage. Our view is much less grainy than this photo.