The transition to life aboard Docktails was seamless, even Portia hopped aboard and was immediately at home. Philbrooks performed a two hour sea trial and tested all motors and systems, gave her a good scrub, so all we had to do was hop aboard and store away the de-humidifiers for the season.
Well, the de-humidifiers had to wait. We re-entered the US at Roche Harbor, and enjoyed a couple fabulous early June sunny days tied up at Henry Island. A good friend whom we hadn’t seen in a long time was also moored at Henry Island, so seconds after tying up we were sharing a beverage in the sun of the cockpit catching up. With no plans but to shake the boat down, we did very little shaking and lots of entertaining. But we wouldn’t have had it any other way.
The start of the proving grounds for the Race to Alaska (r2ak) happened to be the weekend of us picking up Docktails. So we circled the flagpole back into Canada to watch the racers finish in Victoria after crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca from the docks in front of our restaurant Doc’s Marina Grill in Port Townsend.
The beautiful weather held, and we again spent much of our time in Victoria catching up with different sets of friends we hadn’t seen in weeks to two years, and making new friends. Portia continued to welcome people aboard, and keep them company on the settee. The r2ak truly brings people of all walks of life together, whom have a common passion for adventure and and the thrill of living life. Outside the race, none of us have much in common. But after a two year hiatus of being together, and only the third time we’ve seen each in person, conversation was natural and familial. It truly is a unique race.
We unfortunately did not take a single photo of the r2ak racers or parties that spontaneously happened, but we did have front row seats to the Victoria Harbour Ferry Water Ballet.
With the waning of a westerly gale mid-morning day of our departure from Victoria, we thought we’d have a candy crossing of Strait of Juan de Fuca South to Bainbridge Island where we’d spend the week provisioning and working. Well the weather had other ideas. Half hour into our cruise we found ourselves in the wash cycle of the clothes washing machine. The wind was still 10-15kt, with a strong and stacked ocean swell, against a large outgoing tide. When you batten down the hatches, and with stabilizers, things still are being knocked over, you throttle back, read the water, and pick a different course. So we went North to go South. A 45 minute diversion, our speed swinging 1.7kt with the ocean swells whether we were climbing or surfing, with a 30 degree shift from port to starboard in direction of transit. Portia was not happy, we were not happy. But we eventually made it around the slop and by Point Hudson it flattened out and we couldn’t believe it was still the same day as when we left Victoria.
