July 8 happy birthday Carl!  Birthday cake is a yummy fresh cinnamon twist from the local bakery and birthday treat is a few smoked oysters from the fresh fish dock.  No plans today for shrimp on the barby birthday dinner because we will be on the high seas again. It will be simple stove top homemade chicken soup that can simmer in the locked pressure cooker and swing back and forth on our gimballed stove top as we sail along.

We depart Gray’s Harbor at 0940 having waited for the end of the ebb tide to cross the bar. By 11:00 we round the last channel marker and set a course to take us ten miles out, sailing along for four hours. Our goal is to get to the “tow” line, an area where crabbers agree to not put out crab pots so commercial large traffic does not need to worry about fouling a prop with heavy crab pot rope.  We keep a sharp eye out and pass many crab pots clear out to the tow line.

Power vessel “Maid Marion” from Columbia River Yacht Club hails us on the vhf radio for a real weather report. We met them on the dock last evening and swapped stories over a glass of wine in their 38’ Uniflite power boat.  We tell them the weather, wind, waves and swell and we see them depart heading south towards home.  The seas are much more comfortable today for all of us.

Around 3:00 our predicted southwest wind is not what we had hoped and we turn the motor on again so we can make Neah Bay anchorage in the daylight.  We motor on through the night on three hour shifts.  It can be quite peaceful at night, alone in the cockpit with just the light of the compass, chart plotter and radar.  The auto pilot lets you stretch your legs and step into the cabin to plot your hourly course the old fashioned way, my preferred way, on paper charts. At shift change I point out a light that has recently come onto the horizon.  We decide it is the Tatoosh light at the tip of Washington and not a distant boat bobbing up and down in the waves.

When I arise from my couple of hours sleep Carl is nearly ready to make the turn into Neah Bay.  The boat is gliding along on the Straits of Juan de Fuca swell more comfortably than it did on the open ocean.  We tie up on the end of the Makah marina dock so we can have a nice hot breakfast at the local café while we wait for the fuel dock to open.  Body and boat fueled up we anchor out in the bay.

Dinner is fresh caught Starry flounder, our first of many meals in what we call Carl's pursuit of protein.  The quiet of the bay is interrupted all day long with sound of the big ship traffic’s fog horns as they safely pass each other in the thick fog. We are happy to stay put and tackle some small boat chores and catch up on sleep.