Dave the forecast is getting worse now not better, calling for northerly now stiff tonight and tomorrow with snow also a possibility. Doesn't really sound like much fun.
Thanks. I already found out, the stupid way.
The “plan” was to leave Kingston around 9:00am to head to La Conner. Forecast winds were moderate out of the South and station reports fell in line with those, except for one that has reported 27 kts around 7:00.
I knew that once we crossed to the East from Kingston to the East side of Whidbey Island we would have relatively protected water. The choice was go to La Conner, or stay in Kingston. I like Kingston, but didn’t want to spend another night. Bad choice.
The seas weren’t too bad as we were leaving Appletree Cove. There were pretty good wind waves coming from the SSE and the windy increased to maybe a steady 20 knots. Then just about the time we got to just about the shipping traffics lane it got bad in a hurry. I had to head SW instead of W to be able to take the seas on the quarter and the further out into the Traffic lanes I got the more the waves were coming from the South and as they grew in size I had to start to take them more on the bow than the quarter.
So far, these were the worst seas I have been in. At about the mid-point of the traffic separation zone I had enough and turned to make my way back West. The wind had continued to increase a bit and the waves continued to grow. Every couple minutes there would be a set of 3 rather large, or huge, although at the time I would have described them as “monstrous” breaking waves. I was taking green water over the bow in the middle of these sets. Not particularly fun.
I had the same trouble getting back West as I had getting East. The sea conditions were forcing me more South than I wanted. I was hoping to get in the shelter of Bainbridge and possible cut through Agate Pass and slip around to Poulsbo. However I couldn’t even make it into Port Madison.
I kept considering trying to turn and head downwind back to Kingston. At this point I really missed Kingston. Great place to spend a few days. I was simply a bit too nervous about making the turn and getting hit hard broadside. Even though I wasn’t enjoying getting slammed by the waves, they were so steep and short that I didn’t relish the idea of a broach going with them either.
As we got closer to Bainbridge the seas went from truly, horrendousl, terrible to simply bad. The size of the waves decreased a bit and more importantly, those sets of 3 giant waves started to come much less frequently and weren’t nearly as bad. My thought was to head into Winslow for the night. Winslow is a nice stop and would be really sheltered. When I tried calling to see about a transient slip, I couldn’t get anyone on the phone.
At this point, my wife thought that she would rather go to Blake Island. I made yet another mistake by agreeing to that. Winslow would have been better.
The wind had picked up more and had swung out of the WSW. About the time we passed Blakey Rock we got hit really hard again. The waves weren’t as big as before as they didn’t have the fetch but the motion was really odd. The mix of the established waves coming from the South and the WSW wind shift had them doing strange things. The boat wasn’t porpoising like it had but would do the oddest shimmy. The gusts from the side would also push us over 5-10 degrees. I ended up transferring some fuel from the Port to Starboard tank to help with that. A 100 meters from the entrance to the breakwater at Blake Island we got in the lea of the island and things calmed down enough for me to get lines and fenders placed.
We are now enjoying some blue sky, a great view of Seattle, and out of much of the worst of the wind. It has died down a lot this afternoon and we are protected from the 10-15 knots of SW wind that there is currently.
My first mistake was leaving Kingston.
My second mistake was not turning around sooner once I saw it was going to be bad.
My third mistake was listening to my wife and not going into Winslow.
Not sure yet of the extent of damage to the boat. Almost lost my Burgee and flagstaff from the bow pulpit one time when we came down hard into a trough. The force of the water lifted the flagstaff out of the holder. I had tighter the screw to hold it in place, but not hard enough. I was lucky that it fell down into the side deck which is recessed before being carried overboard.
My anchor also got knocked up and off of the anchor rollers. I keep the anchor tight with a chain hook and line tied to a cleat. When the anchor was knock up, it somehow released the chain hook.
We got hit with some big waves on the quarter and side and took water into the engine intake vents. This space is also used to run wiring and I thing I make have gotten salt water into the back of a 120 outlet. That has caused a short somewhere so I have depowered that circuit until I can trace it down.
Everything that could have fallen, did. Some breakage but not too bad. The biggest thing is my wife is NOT happy. I can’t blame her.
