ExTerra Adventures: August 13 – 25 Middle Puget Sound Reciprocals

We pass by the pretty church as we leave Tanglewood Island anchorage for our short, two hour hop up into Gig Harbor. We go easily through the Tacoma Narrows on the slack with Aiden at the helm. Today he planned the course and skippered the ship into the dogleg entrance of Gig Harbor, weaving his way through the numerous kayakers and other floating humans. He and Papa select an anchorage spot and we drop the hook.

We chose not to tie up to the Gig Harbor reciprocal dock since we were not sure what the depth would be. They did however graciously allow us to use their showers and tie up our dinghy so we could do “town chores.” We take delivery of our larger grocery order, having ordered online for it to be delivered to the dock. A run through the showers and we are ready to poke around this end of the harbor on foot. We make our dinner selections at one of the local eateries and dine overlooking the harbor at the small park.

Given the predicted winds we decide to stay three nights on the hook. Aiden happily dons our climbing gear and scrambles easily to the top of the mast. We have found our mast monkey! We have a 4 to 1 rope with hardware allowing the climber to personally pull themselves up and down the mast with a person on the cabin top keeping control of the safety line. We have a harness typically used by first responders and a climber’s “ascender” hardware that serves as a “brake.”

Aiden quickly figures out the system and pulls himself aloft. We have him check the spreader boots while he is up there.

When he is back on the cabin top, he then does what he actually, really wanted to do in the first place. He climbs over the lifelines while on the climbing rig and swings and runs along the outside of the boat, happy as a clam for a good half an hour. He says “this is what I really wanted to do,” to which I reply “yes, but by having you climb the mast you now know your gear and trust it well enough to enjoy your playtime!” He gets a few odd looks by passersby but continues to swing and run for quite some time.

We enjoy the anchorage, watching the myriad of equipment used by people enjoying their time on the water. This includes standup paddle boards, kayaks, dinghies, an authentic gondola, and the class of very young sailors skittering around in their very small sailboats.

Gig Harbor

A particular pair of kayaks get my attention when I see them out the corner of my eye. Last I saw them they were on the stern of the large powerboat anchored by us. Now my peripheral vision tells me they are right at out boat! Sure enough, as I jump up and call to Carl, I grab our round fender ball and fend off the power boat that has slipped its anchor and come up against our boat. Carl and Aiden spring into action as well, one with the boat hook and one with long arms. At the same time the woman on the powerboat reaches out to push our bow and the skipper revs their motor to pull them away from us. We all determine that they have drug anchor and they hastily retrieve their anchor and go anchor further away. It is a good example for Aiden as to why I keep our fender ball tied with a quick slip knot.

As the evening draws to a close, we enjoy live music from the top deck of a nearby powerboat, another benefit of sometimes anchoring in more urban locals.

Smeagol covered in coffee grounds

This morning we find the coffee grounds that I ended up throwing on Smeagol last evening when I rinsed the coffee pot. Old habits die hard. I’m not used to having anything tied up on the port stern. Easily washed off, we get Smeagol and ET3 tied down and ready to depart.

Crammed into the anchor locker

As Carl begins to pull the anchor, he finds that the windlass is not working. Carl goes through our normal checks, switch, fuse, breaker and then wiring. With Aiden squeezed up into the anchor locker and Carl above him in the anchor well they branch across some wires and get spark. We are back in business somehow and have not had another problem with it. This saves me from having to fully climb into the anchor locker which is great because for me to get back Out of the locker is quite a feat!

We depart Gig Harbor for the four-hour cruise to Blake Island. We anchor on the quiet, south side. Carl does catch and release fishing, pulling up a good number of rock fish. One giant quill back is probably older than we are. Giant, gnarly and lots of character, we slip him easily back into the water. We enjoy an absolutely stunning sunset. I wish we had caught the name of the boat so we could send them the photo. Aiden quickly learns how to hang the hammock on the foredeck and enjoys swaying in the light breeze. We enjoy watching the beer, eagles, geese and even a mink as they work their way along the shore close to the boat.

Happy Camper

Pacific Sanddab Blakely Harbour

Off we go to anchor in Port Blakely, another quiet urban anchorage with numerous homes dotting the shore and lots of room for boats to swing on their anchors. Our main excitement here was to change the oil at 100 hours on the hour meter exactly. Carl also caught a new to him species, Pacific Sanddab, which is a spotted flounder. The small local crabs also like his fishing lures.

One night on the hook and then we head to Winslow in Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island. The local yacht club is not currently allowing visitors but we find an open spot on the very nice, reasonably priced, Bainbridge Island City dock. It is time to launder all the blankets as they are starting to smell like Davey Jones locker with all the salt air residue so we are glad to find the dock space. All three of us head up the hill to do the laundry, glad that the laundromat is pretty close.

State Ferry Maintenance Facility Winslow

Winslow is home to the Washington State Ferry maintenance facility and the long row of ferries break the noise and wakes from the regular Winslow/Seattle ferry process.

There is a nice waterfront walk to enjoy, a small marine chandlery and a good variety of small eateries. Aiden enjoys taking photos of oddities he finds and I enjoy taking photos of him taking photos. Back at the boat he sets up the hammock and once again settles in to read.

Hammock Straps installed

Come on...you can do it!

This harbor has another nice assortment of on the water activities. We even get to watch some small youngsters turtle their sailboat so that they can then practice righting it back up. Two of them struggle for quite sometime and then a larger person adds his weight to the process and they are able to pull the boat right side up, all sails still intact. The instructor meanwhile is standing by and issuing words of encouragement.

On the road again we have another short hop to Kingston and a reciprocal with the Kingston Cove Yacht Club. This slip is housed in the Port of Kingston marina at Mike Wallace Park. Just as we have made the turn into the slip a big gust of wind comes up. The neighbor takes the bow rope but the stern is blown onto the next finger dock. I coil and throw the stern rope which fall short as they often do. I recoil and throw again and the neighbors pulls us fast to the dock. In the meantime, I’m told later, Aiden has jumped off of our boat, pushed the stern away from the finger dock, and jumped back on ExTerra. I don’t get to witness the shenanigans but it sounds like his youth and agility definitely helped save the day!

Crepes....Yum!

Sadly, there is no Saturday market but there sure is a great creperie. We enjoy sweet and savory crepes each day. We also find a good burger and TAKE out dark beer. Sweet!

Our big excursion here is the two-mile round trip to the hardware store in search of 5 feet of PVC pipe. Aiden, ever our packhorse, slings it and my carryall bag over his shoulder and looks like a hobo.

Found our piece of pipe finally!

Back at the boat Carl and I install the pipe on a life line to serve as a roller for when we offload our dinghy. We steel this idea from our good friends Walt and Odile. We do not get to see them this year but we follow Odile on her 10-day backpack trip via the GPS link provided by Walt. Our trip does not quite seem complete without tying up to their hull and enjoying great food, comradery and rousing games of cards. Speaking of cards, we have been playing Hearts on board and Carl maintains his lead over Aiden and me.

While Carl and I install the pipe, Aiden takes our empty 5-gallon diesel can to the fuel dock to get it filled and yards it back to the boat. This should keep us just fine until we fill up at Port Angeles for the trek back down the coast.

Diesel fun

Our next two days find us in another very nice reciprocal. We luck out as we turn into Port Ludlow and see that the recip dock is completely empty. By the time we tie up we are just in time to catch the ropes for another sailboat and just like that, the 80 feet of recip dock is full once again.

Port Ludlow Yacht Club

The dock crew checks to make sure that we are not hanging out into the fairway. It soon becomes obvious why that is important as numerous float planes taxi by just at our stern as well as a parade of folks going to and from the fuel dock and pump out. This is a very easy access fuel dock and pump out which we need to remember for next time we are in the area.

The first time we came to Port Ludlow was by land. We drove up to participate in a rendezvous of Islander Freeport owners. We had purchased ExTerra but she was not quite ready to make the trip up the coast, or at least we were not quite ready to make that trip! We had fun and learned a lot about our type of boat. As with many owner groups they have fun, swap stories, and gladly show off their improvements they have made to their boats. They also maintain a website, FOGers, that has an absolute wealth of information about the boats, parts, issues, member blogs, and photos. A very prolific accumulation of information from a group of competent, proud owners.

Aiden and Nana Port Ludlow Falls

Hailing Port "Earth"

The next day we take off for a hike to the falls. The falls is not huge by any means but it is a nice interpretive hike with signs that discuss a bit of the history of logging and also identify the variety of species of trees in the area. At the falls we enjoy reading our books. We also get to watch a river otter in the creek as he swims and dives and comes up with something to eat. Then we make our way back to the village for a meal at a local eatery and then back to the boat.

Reading at Port Ludlow falls

We did decide that we would do some dining out this trip to put our small amount of money towards helping the local economies. As with most communities COVID has hit small coastal communities pretty hard during the height of their tourist season. We do appreciate the safe practices that we encounter and the courtesy of everyone on the docks as we walk about, masks on, to and from our boats.

Tomorrow we leave the mid Puget Sound area and head to Port Townsend. We have had some very nice places to tie up due to the gracious hospitality of fellow Yacht Clubs and the marina staff we encounter.