Is this the end?

We're in Port Townsend now, and I am having trouble deciding if this signifies the end of our trip, or when we actually get home. We didn't sleep on the boat last night, and probably won't again, so maybe that means we're done with it... although there is still much left to do even before we can leave it sitting out on the buoy for a month or two.

We had a pretty rough crossing of the Strait of Juan De Fuca yesterday. We pulled out of Garrison Bay around 0600 to catch a favorable tide, and we more or less drifted down Haro Strait after we killed the engine at the south end of Mosquito Pass. The winds were almost too light for steerageway at first, but then as we drifted clear of the island, they picked up quite a bit, first from the southeast, then veering to southwest and west, increasing in speed all the while. Haro Strait was a bit lumpy, two and three foot swells, close together, but when we got south into Juan De Fuca we started getting the big stuff in from the ocean, six and seven footers, and winds gusting to forty knots. Fortunately we were able to take most of the waves on the stern quarter; we nearly got pooped once but the wave broke just before it would have come over the transom. The cockpit drain got a workout nonetheless, as we took a lot of water over the sides and bow, much of which quickly came aft.

Mandy turned a little green but didn't throw up, and I felt fine the whole way. The wind was strongest around Hein Bank, and I had trouble controlling the boat but Mandy thought that trying to reef down was more dangerous than it was worth. In the event, she was probably correct; I was able to trim what I had and get on a reasonably steady course, but it reinforces the idea that one should always reef early. In these waters, that can be difficult to judge. They always say to reef as soon as you think about it, which means that if you are getting a sense that the wind is getting too stiff, you shouldn't wait around to confirm it but to go with your gut; but around these islands and headlands, you go from nothing to forty knots in the space of a mile or so, hardly enough to even start getting a sense of things.

Unfortunately, the winds die down just as fast... we were bobbing around in the swells with the sails slatting within a couple of hours as we approached Port Townsend. There was enough current and just barely enough breeze, though, to sweep us around the Point Wilson light and into the bay, where the wind promptly picked right up again.

I blew my approach to the buoy under sail by botching a gybe. I then found myself without enough sail up to beat back into the wind to give it another shot, and since Mandy was already ready to kill me for a sail plan change earlier in the day which forced us to wrestle the unruly new mainsail around on the boom, I gave up and started the engine to come in for mooring.

Still to be done are cleaning things up, offloading our various personal effects, stowing things for our absence so they won't mildew or come crashing down, and installing a float switch (which we already have; never bothered to put it in since we had such a dry bilge before) to operate the bilge pump automatically when the water level rises to a certain extent.