Kinship’s Summer Cruise

This year is different. As is often the case with almost 40 year marriages, (or maybe long marriages are the result?) I am doing what my wife and adult kids want rather than what I would choose to do. Rather than heading North into BC, we are staying in Puget Sound for the 2 weeks of my vacation.

Today we weren’t sure of where we were going to end up. As we left the dock, Kingston Marina called and asked if we still wanted a slip for tonight. Turns out they had a cancellation. It was what my wife and daughter had wanted so I took it. We were getting a bit of a later start than normal for Kingston as we like to make the Saturday Market they have. Still, we made it in time for the girls to do a few turns around the market. This evening there is live music at the park next to the marina. The kids are still out on the lawn with our grandson enjoying the fantastic weather and acceptable music. 8:00 pm and 75 degrees with a wonderful 5 knot breeze. Can’t get better.

Tomorrow Port Ludlow.

Here is where we are tonight and the view out the back cockpit.

Seems I can only post one file per post on the IOS app.

Dave, watch out for those rocks around Port Ludlow. Just kidding, have a great vacation.

porman said:

Dave, watch out for those rocks around Port Ludlow. Just kidding, have a great vacation.

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We are going by them now. My wife is determined that this boat won’t end up on those rocks a second time.

Port Ludlow urges boaters new to their marina to view Darren’s video on the harbor. The photo of my boat (while owned by the PO) up on the rocks serves as a warning.

Pleasant travels dhays. Thanks for the map! Always good to get the big picture.

A little cooler and windy today, 65F and 14kts.View attachment 91288View attachment 91287

Olympic Mountains as send entering Pt Ludlow.

Here is where Port Ludlow is located.

We may see you out and about- we’re currently on the east side of Whidbey abreast Holmes Harbor, and headed to tonight’s anchorage at Hope Island.

Dave, we were tied across the dock from a NP 43 for a couple of nights. Nice! If I was in the market.....

Pau Hana said:

We may see you out and about- we’re currently on the east side of Whidbey abreast Holmes Harbor, and headed to tonight’s anchorage at Hope Island.

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We are going to head into Hood Canal and stay a couple days at Pleasant Harbor. The grandson will enjoy playing in the pool and the daughter and son-in-law will enjoy sailing the dinghy and kayaking.

After that, we are thinking of going to Fort Flagler, another spot I’ve never been.

koliver said:

Dave, we were tied across the dock from a NP 43 for a couple of nights. Nice! If I was in the market.....

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We sure enjoy ours. I think it is a great boat if it checks the right boxes. It certainly does for us.

Looks like a great cruise. Certainly some beautiful scenery.

John

Port Ludlow was a nice stop. The marina facilities are decent and the staff very friendly. Not a lot to do here if you don’t want to golf or spend the money to eat at the rather nice restaurant at the hotel. The wind kept the temperatures a chilly all day until it died down in the evening.

One of my very good friends and former running partner happens to live here in Port Ludlow in a condo on the point at the harbor entrance. He and his new wife came over to the boat for a beer and to meet my 22 month old grandson in the late afternoon. It was wonderful to spend a couple hours catching up.

dhays said:

We are going to head into Hood Canal and stay a couple days at Pleasant Harbor. The grandson will enjoy playing in the pool and the daughter and son-in-law will enjoy sailing the dinghy and kayaking.

After that, we are thinking of going to Fort Flagler, another spot I’ve never been.

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Got it. Went thru Deception at slack this morning, then got a bit tossed around with the swells till we got to Lopez Pass. Headed to either Spencer Spit or Blind Bay today.

Dave, if you're going to the Fort Flagler area, a good place to anchor is Mystery Bay state park on the west side of Marrowstone island. They also have a dock. Lots of oysters.

Ken E. said:

Dave, if you're going to the Fort Flagler area, a good place to anchor is Mystery Bay state park on the west side of Marrowstone island. They also have a dock. Lots of oysters.

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Thanks, I’ll take a look. I’ve never been there so it will all be new.

So far, I’ve found a couple of equipment issues.

1. The radio on the Flybridge doesn’t seem to transmit. I think the last time I used it was a couple summers ago. Found out when I tried to reply to Bangor Traffic Control when they wanted me to move to the East side of the channel.

2. The bow thruster seems to cause what I’m guessing is a large voltage drop. The nav instruments crap out for a second when using the bow thruster. The first thing I’ll check is all the cable connections when we get to Pleasant Harbor. If anyone has any other suggestions, I’m open.

dhays said:

So far, I’ve found a couple of equipment issues.

1. The radio on the Flybridge doesn’t seem to transmit. I think the last time I used it was a couple summers ago. Found out when I tried to reply to Bangor Traffic Control when they wanted me to move to the East side of the channel.

2. The bow thruster seems to cause what I’m guessing is a large voltage drop. The nav instruments crap out for a second when using the bow thruster. The first thing I’ll check is all the cable connections when we get to Pleasant Harbor. If anyone has any other suggestions, I’m open.

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My bow thruster is hooked up to my house bank, and before I replaced the tired batteries it caused the same problem with electronics shutting down from low voltage. After I replaced the batteries I didn’t have any more problems.

cardude01 said:

My bow thruster is hooked up to my house bank, and before I replaced the tired batteries it caused the same problem with electronics shutting down from low voltage. After I replaced the batteries I didn’t have any more problems.

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The batteries in the thruster bank are of an indeterminate age, and were severely discharged by me last month. Even so, when the engine is running they are connected via an ACR with the house bank which is in great shape.

This is another reason why I liked the DC-DC charger that I had before but had a fuse melt down. The more I think about it I think the problem was poor connections with the fuse in the fuse holder. I will try replacing it and reconnecting the DC-DC charger and see if works as well as solve the problem with the electronics.

I may manually disconnect the ACR when we leave in a couple days and see how the thruster bank performs on its own after it fully charged.

Tonight and tomorrow we are staying at Pleasant Harbor in Hood Canal. For those not familiar with the PNW, Hood Canal is not a man-made canal but a long fjord that runs about 65 miles into the Great Peninsula. It is only about 1.5 miles wide through most of it. It is pretty deep, so much so that the US Navy has a significant submarine base and R&D facility at Bangor. It is crossed by a floating bridge near the entrance to the canal that will open for boats with air draft over about 50’.

I’ve never taken my boat into Hood Canal, even after 55+ years of boating in Puget Sound. The scenery is stunning.

Great thread, thank you. Wishing you good weather and much fun.

Looking West towards the Olympic Mountains. Very little snow on them this year.

That really is some spectacular scenery. I gotta get myself out to the PNW one of these years. Seems like my kind of place.

dhays said:

We are going to head into Hood Canal and stay a couple days at Pleasant Harbor. The grandson will enjoy playing in the pool and the daughter and son-in-law will enjoy sailing the dinghy and kayaking.

After that, we are thinking of going to Fort Flagler, another spot I’ve never been.

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Dave,

I recommend the coastal artillery museum at Fort Worden/Port Townsend.

For some reason, I always thought that infamous photo was at Shirttail reef near Jones Is., but it is at MatsMats?

Bill in Montague Harbor tonight.

AlaskaProf said:

Dave,

I recommend the coastal artillery museum at Fort Worden/Port Townsend.

For some reason, I always thought that infamous photo was at Shirttail reef near Jones Is., but it is at MatsMats?

Bill in Montague Harbor tonight.

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We are making up the itinerary as we go so I’ll keep that museum in mind.

Yeah, the photo was on the Colvos rocks outside of Port Ludlow (the PO Home Port no less).

There's also a small museum at Flagler, mostly with info on the big guns that were used. Any enemy ship coming in from Juan de Fuca and heading south would be in a triangle of the guns at Forts Warden, Casey, and Flagler. Also interesting was an exhibit on submarine netting, actually cables, that were stretched across.

The Fort Worden Museum has a case displaying the basic infantry weapon over the years, beginning with the Brown Bess musket. I was explaining "my" M-1 to my then 8 year old son.


When i told him about how tricky it was to yank your thumb up after depressing the magazine-follower spring, he laughed uproariously, at my "joke", unable to believe anyone would design a device which could so readily mangle the operator in normal use.

Yesterday morning I disabled the ACR between the house and thruster bank. This morning after using the thrusters briefly the voltage of the thruster bank was almost 12.7v. So it seems the bank is still OK.

Also, with the thruster bank disconnected from the house bank, no issues with the nav instruments (as expected).

So it seems I will need to get my Balmar Duo-charge setup again to use on the thruster bank.

So yesterday we went from Pleasant Harbor in Hood Canal to Fort Flagler Marine Park on the Northern tip of Marrowstone Island. Great weather and a nice 5+ hour run. We spent the afternoon hiking around the park and completely exhausted our grandson. Lots of fishermen and crabbers around.

Beautiful views across to Port Townsend, Whidbey Island, and out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

This morning we’ll let the grandson play at the playground and then head South. Not sure where we are going to stay but we need to get the kids back to Gig Harbor on Saturday.