Port Townsend Port Townsend – Friday May 29, 2008 Arrived late afternoon to a marina filled with boats flying the Wauquiez flag. We were greeted by the welcoming committee, given forms to fill out and invited to the evening potluck and program.
Port Townsend I had planned on bringing guacamole as I had a bag of avocados on board. Some of them were usable. Most of them had suffered mortally from a drop and roll in the Olympia parking lot.
The featured speaker, Karen Thorndike, from Seattle, surpassed the potluck. She is the only US woman to have single-handedly circumnavigated the world and is in the Guinness Book of World Records for her feat. She was in her early 50’s when she began her journey of three years around the five major capes…no canals were allowed. Allowing for: ferocious storms, being struck by lighting, and having to be pulled from he 31 ft. boat in a medical emergency, she says it was a wonderful experience. Karen seemed sane enough but one has to worry about what she was thinking!
Saturday, after at leisurely breakfast at the Landfall Café, we prepared our boat for open boat tours and judging.
Later that morning Larry and Sharon McCombs were hailing us from the shore. We had a wonderful visit with our former pastor and his wife. It is hard to find such warm and loving people…maybe not that hard, because an hour or so after they left our good friends the Helgi and Drucilla Heidar appeared!
Mark had taken a crew position on a Centurion 41 for the annual Wauquiez regatta. These guys really take their racing seriously! His boat, the Harmony, was in first place until the air became lighter and some boats pulled out their spinnakers. Sadly they came in last.
It was a truly a grand day seeing our fantastic friends.
Saturday night we attended a dinner at Sweet Laureates, a new French Bistro in Uptown. We walked, in the cold, uphill, both ways!
Sunday morning a friend from Seattle, Heidi Gildersleeve, dropped by to say “Hi!”. She and I had fun checking out the great shopping in Port Townsend.
The tide forced us to leave Port Townsend at 6:30 am Monday morning. We had a good crossing of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Sidney, BC, sailing most of the way.
Heigi had warned us that the slips and channels in Sidney were narrow. We found that to be very true as we encountered great difficulty, including a scrape, docking in a 20-plus-knot wind. It is good to be tied down for the night in such a beautiful harbor.