Onward to Discovery Bay and Port Townsend

August 22, we got up with the sun and motored out of Sequim Bay. Around the corner was Discovery Bay and at the head, a little town named Gardiner. The guide books said it is a great lunch spot and not to be missed. Discovery bay reminded us of Big Arm Bay on Flathead Lake in Montana. Lake homes lined the shore and the bay was deep and seemed to create its own wind funneling through the mountains. We anchored at the community park and kayaked into shore. We climbed up the hill and were greeted by a fairyland of gnomes, dragons, and even a Cyclops! We went for a jog of about 5 miles, crossing the Olympic Peninsula Exploration Trail along the way. Made it safely past the dragons to the kayak and paddled back to the boat. We ate lunch while enjoying our photos of Gardiner.

Onward to Port Townsend! We raised the sails and a nice 8-10 knot breeze took us back down the bay. As we approached the opening of Discovery Bay we could see whitecaps, lots of whitecaps. Experience here has already taught us to reef the sails down if approaching whitecaps. Sometimes white caps are due to current in the water but often it is wind funneling in or out of narrowed areas between islands and mountain peaks. We purposely slowed our progress and took in half of our main sail and all of our big Jib sail. We put out the small stay sail. We turned the boat to catch the breeze and enter the white caps. Immediately we were exposed to 18 knot winds coming off our port side. We had a great sail plan up and the wind was going the direction we wanted to go! WOW! That never happens! Wooohooo! Of course the wind died a couple hours later and we used our motor to get us the rest of the way to Port Townsend. Still, we felt smug about our wisdom and corresponding actions.
Port Townsend was crazy busy! First, it was Friday. Second it was some kind of large clipper boat race practice weekend. Also there were about 25 small sail boats scurrying about, having fun on a Friday night. The rules of the road for boats is that if you are using your motor, you must avoid any boats without motors. It was a SHIT SHOW!!! The giant clipper boats under sail would be going along and suddenly change direction. A rowboat coming in at 90 degrees would show up with one person paddling like mad and another at the bow ready to jump. It would come along side of the ship and the jumper would grab the rope ladder. The rower would then relax allowing the clipper to carry on and themselves to drift out into the traffic. Impressive! This all would have been a fun sight to observe but we were smack in the middle.

Into the marina we went. We read in the guide book that it is a first come first served outfit. Just find any empty slip, go pay the fee and it is yours for the night. In we maneuvered with me at the helm through a high wall with a tricky left, right. We couldn’t see anything inside the high walls until we were through. Crap! What a tiny place! No slips available we were told as we entered. It felt like we had 5 feet fore and aft as we did a 180 to exit. Back out onto what felt like Bourbon Street in New Orleans and without a plan in mind. Yikes! Bill was on the bow looking around and he saw other boats anchored near the ferry dock. Off we went. Anchor down, motor off, give me a stiff drink! What a great day!