There is nothing like sailing. Especially when the sun is shining, the wind is blowing, and you are making your boat's max speed straight towards your destination across Puget Sound: Heeled over, sails trimmed all the way in and your loafers hanging over the rail while your boyfriend drives, cruising over tidal surface waves. We took off Friday and Monday, to make our way North for the longest trip so far in the 25', seaworthy, Eider.
10 hours of hard sailing Friday led us to Langley, just in time to get one of the last two slips in the harbor. We arrived with the sun directly in our eyes, blinded by the light. After a lot of shouting and steering issues, the Harbormaster guided us in to slip M5 and we hunkered down for the night, embarrassed about our docking skills. After waking up sore, tired and with a headache from the first of about 15 times that I would hit my head pretty hard on the companionway roof, we decided not to go another 10 hours up to La Conner and instead stay in the charming small harbor on Whidbey, full of nice people and things to do.
The day turned into a relaxing hunt for a large pot at the thrift store to see if we couldn't take advantage of the crabbing kit the Harbormasters were selling. One of my life goals was to catch crabs myself and eat them. We got a nice chicken drumstick and some salmon skin along with our folding pot, lines, float and bait trap. We set our traps via a rapidly deflating rowboat and set to making some chowder, in case the secret spot we were told about didn't pan out. With anticipation, we inflated the rowboat again, and went out past the marina bulkhead. Lo and behold! 4 big crabs! 3 male! They scratched the inside of the pot and lid as we thanked them for their lives and tossed them into the boiling water. Creepy. But so delicious, well I never!
A relaxing, and exciting day turned into a relaxing evening as we finished cleaning up crab guts and settled into our bunks. The next day, we headed out downwind towards Everett. It's amazing how much sediment the Snohomish river has spat out into the sound over the years. Shallow water flanked us to the port side of our boat for miles as we struggled to make out the buoys and markers and find the entrance to the marina. Our spot tied down on the calm side of the river turned out to be a perfect sunset and boat parade viewing spot and we enjoyed more delicious food and leftover crab.
I prayed pretty hard, several times on our voyage, and it is nothing short of a blessing that we had such a good, safe time.
