July 6, 2013 ~ Oak Harbor to Hunter Bay

July 6, 2013 ~ Oak Harbor to Hunter Bay

Another lazy morning – we are definitely catching up on our rest.  Erin fixed a breakfast of toast, sausage and eggs over easy, and we contemplated doing a few chores in the cool of the morning.  We both have some more stuff to put away, and little by little, that’s what we’re doing.  Yesterday I put most of the tools down in the engine room, and today some extra watermaker parts went under the seat in the dinette, where they’ll rest until I finish connecting our latest acquisition – probably sometime in the next couple of weeks.  The dock water’s pretty good around here – it’s up north where it starts to get “colorful” with all the tannin and whatever else they add.

This morning we saw a few people come down the dock all dressed in pirate garb – they set up a table at the picnic area just beyond our moorage and began unloading bags of various items.  Soon there were many children passing by carrying fishing poles – by many I mean at least 100, plus parents.  It was quite a gathering.  It was all for a fishing derby sponsored by the local Rotary Club.  The breakwater dock here at Oak Harbor has multiple picnic sites along the entire length, and every one had a bunch of kids fishing.  I even heard a couple squeals of delight as some small fish were caught.  We pulled out shortly after noon, and because of the shallow harbor and a dredged channel in front of the breakwater it was necessary (and fun) for us to parade along the picnic sites.  We gave them a couple siren hits and received several salutes from the pirate organizers.

Yesterday I received an email from cousins Annett and Don Olson.  Annett mentioned that they were going up to Annett’s aunt’s place near Deception Pass for a family seafood feast, and taking our long-time family friend Murle with them.  Murle has been anxious to see the boat, although she isn’t necessarily anxious to ride in it, as she can suffer from seasickness.  Deception Pass was one of our possible routes for today, so with a couple more email exchanges we arranged to cruise by the dinner party shortly before slack current at Deception.  We had a brief description of the house and its location on Deception Road, just east of the bridge, so knew roughly where it was.  We arrived around 2:45 and soon spotted what we thought was the family event.  We gave them a couple of blasts from the air horns as well as sounding the siren, and shortly after confirmed we were at the right spot with a cell phone call.  Murle was happy to see the boat, and even said that if the water was as calm as it was today she could ride on it.  When we get back, one of the first things on our agenda will be a tour of Lakes Union and Washington for Murle.  Murle has always been the adventurous sort – she took my cousin Denny and me on a camping trip to British Columbia back in the 1950’s; as promised, let me drive her 1955 Chevy (named Elmer) as soon as I got my driver’s license in 1961; and recently celebrated her 90^th birthday by driving herself down to a friend’s place in California for the winter.

We were still a bit early for slack water, but slowly cruised away from the dinner party towards Deception Pass.  We arrived at the pass about a half hour early, and the current was down to about 3 knots against us.  We bumped up our speed a bit for better steerage, and went on through with no problem.  We continued on out across Rosario Strait towards Lopez Pass and Hunter Bay, our planned anchorage for the night.

As we approached Lopez Pass we had our first mechanical difficulty of the trip.  The port engine ran a little warm – not a lot, but approached 200 degrees, which elicited a few warning beeps.  It’s a bit puzzling, as yesterday we ran further and faster than today without any overheating.  Ray and I replaced the thermostat on this engine last year during our vacation cruise, and thought that had solved the problem.  We’ll do some more sleuthing in the coming days.  And here I thought all these problems would be behind us with new engines!

We had a beautiful evening at anchor, and towards sunset the skipper of the sailboat anchored a short distance behind us came out on the bow with a set of bagpipes and serenaded the bay with several selections.  I gave him a standing ovation as he headed back in and he turned and waved in acknowledgment.