On the ball in Hadlock

Well, we made it to Port Hadlock in one piece after a couple of rather trying days. The boat is on the bouy out in front of my folk's place; Port Townsend is the hill across the bay, and the crane at center right is Naval Magazine Indian Island. There's a designated foul weather explosives anchorage just off the piers there... there are frequent jokes in the family about the likelihood of being on the receiving end of various terrorist and/or missile threats as a result, but in fact the base is a pretty sleepy place.

We had a heck of a time getting out of the marina on Tuesday. I replaced both our fuel filters, bled the engine, and started it up to warm up... whereupon it promptly quit after about two minutes. I bled it again, blew out the injectors, checked the fuel flow, etc, etc, to no effect. Finally, Bobby, one of our helpful neighbors (and former diesel mechanic), came over and took a look. He said it looked like air in the lines to him, so we kept cranking and bleeding, and sure enough, it fired up eventually. It bothers me that I can't always tell what the problem is. Marine diesels are simple things, but after bleeding it and changing the filters multiple times (expensive filters!) I would have sworn that it was something other than air in the system. But Bobby immediately ruled out compression problems just by listening, and bled it out differently that I had, and that took care of it. One more technique for the toolbox, I guess.

I got a lot more intimate with the engine after we tied up at Shilshole for the night. While Mandy went to work, I went into preventive maintenance mode, changing the transmission fluid out, replacing the engine zincs, and replacing the impeller. The zincs and impeller were all in bad shape, so I'm glad I got to them. I had a whole other list of things to do but ran out of time... maybe this weekend.

I was a little sad to leave Lake Union for probably the last time; Commercial Marina is conveniently located and chock full of friendly people and knowledgeable sailors. We've learned a lot from them and have always felt safe with the boat there. We're on the list for a slip at Shilshole, though, and hopefully it will be open by the time we get back (was supposed to be open in March! popular place). We're sick of having to get through two bridges and the locks every time we want to sail someplace, though. I have always waved at the bridge tenders as we've gone through before, on the theory that they would be more inclined to open fast for us the next time if we were friendly; this time, the last time, I had to suppress and impulse to flip them all off as we passed by. Bridge tenders in Seattle have been a mixed bag; Fremont is usually friendly and fast, Ballard slow and obnoxious, and the railroad bridge... well, they are a bit of a mystery there. Anyway, I'm happy to be done with them, and the locks as well. I don't mind locking through so much, but in the summer it's a drag, and it's always fraught with potential for problems--odd currents, other boats in close proximity, and a lot of eyes on you increase tension considerably.

After all that, we had quite a nice sail up to Port Hadlock. We had south and east winds the whole way and a nice ebb tide to ride and made good time--about eight hours. The autopilot went goofy on us after about the first hour--I think the fluxgate compass needs to be recalibrated, or the connections are loose, or it's shot--but steering was easy in 5-10 knot winds. During the last reach south of Marrowstone Island, the wind kicked up to about 20-25 knots and we almost got to make the rare passage of the Port Townsend canal under sail. Rare because you need a brisk wind out of the north or south, a favorable turn of the tide, and some luck to have room to manuever. The channel is narrow and the currents strong, but we had a good strong southerly behind us and had a shot. The current, however, was such that we made it about to the south breakwater and ended up basically stalled out--our five knots under main alone (I had furled the genoa as it was just being masked anyway) held us about steady in the channel, but couldn't put us under the bridge. We fell off, dropped the main, and motored through as usual. Maybe next time.