Thursday, September 06 – Everett

We awoke to an awesome day in La Conner.  The sun was shining early in the morning, although there were some traces of fog to the north.  After breakfast we were still undecided where to go next on our two-step cruise back home.  I was thinking initially it might be fun to go to Mats Mats, but it was just as far as going all the way to Shilshole, plus we’d arrive at low tide – not a good time to enter that particular bay.  We decided we’d check out Langley – they don’t have many docks that would accommodate us, but the plan was to poke our nose in, and if there was no room we’d head over to Everett.

 

Leaving La Conner

We pulled away from the dock at La Conner just a little after 10 o’clock, using the current at our stern to push us away from the dock.  We got turned around and headed into the current as we passed under the Rainbow Bridge.  I like the southern entrance/exit to the La Conner area where we go through what they call “Hole in the Wall” – very scenic.  It’s not the same Hole in the Wall up north of Desolation Sound.  Due to a lack of recent dredging, the channel from here towards Whidbey Island has been getting shallower in some spots, but we were close to high tide.  Even so we passed over a few areas that registered just 11 feet, which would be a bit dicey at a tide 7 or 8 feet lower.

 

Heading south along the Whidbey Shore towards Strawberry Point we had a great view of Mt. Baker.  It seems as if it followed us most of the way south.

 

Mt. Baker from southern terminus of Swinomish Channel

The engines were running great and the temperatures were holding steady – until we got even with the Camano Island Yacht Club a couple hours later.  At that point the port engine decided that it would run up to 200 degrees again and set off the alarm!  I backed off on its throttle and put it in neutral and the temperature returned pretty close to normal – but when I engaged the gear again it began to climb.  So, I shut it off and we cruised along on the starboard engine for 15 or 20 minutes.  After that I restarted it and it seemed to be behaving normally.  I put it back in gear, bumped our speed up a knot and the temperature held steady.  We decided to skip Langley and head for Everett.  With the new thermostat in that engine, this is more likely an airlock issue – but it seems strange that the airlock can occur after 7 hours of proper cooling.  Oh well, something more to figure out.  That’s why we’re calling this a shake down cruise!

 

We had another issue with the house batteries at the time we shut down the port engine, caused by a faux pas or two by me.  We’ve been docking rather than anchoring this trip because our house batteries are not charging properly.  So, what did I do last night but forget to turn on the battery charger after we plugged in to shore power.  I noticed it in the morning and turned it on, but only for an hour or two before we left the dock.  I further exacerbated the situation by leaving the refrigerator in AC mode instead of switching to propane when we disconnected from shore power this morning.  So we were cruising along running the refrigerator on the already low house batteries via the inverter.  When I shut off the port engine the house battery voltage dropped and stuff started to beep just like it did when we anchored in Blind Bay at the beginning of the trip.  Even with the port engine back online a few minutes later, the amp draw through the inverter was too much so we shut the inverter off.  The GPS and depth sounder continued to function, although the GPS would whine about it from time to time until the inverter was turned off.  I didn’t know at this time that the refrigerator was the culprit drawing the amps.

 

So we continued on towards Everett, and now the laptop was running on its own battery.  I have a small backup inverter just large enough to run the computer up here on the bridge, so I plugged the computer into that and turned it on.  That was okay for about 5 or 10 minutes, then that was too much as well.  So we cruised along without any 110 voltage at all, and I surmised the laptop would die sometime before we arrived at Everett.  It did, just as we were approaching Hat Island.  Of course, we knew where we were going, and we’d already opened up the paper chart book.  We came in the last couple miles old school style, using compass, paper chart and visual observation of the buoys.  We should probably do that more often.

 

The wind blows off the water here in Everett in the evenings, as evidenced by all the kite surfers that use Jetty Island.  We noticed some kite surfers as we passed by, but still decided to tie up on the inside of the guest dock.  When the wind is blowing us away from the dock the procedure is to snare a cleat with the mid line, tie it down then use engine power to pull the boat over to the dock.  After a couple of tries Erin snared a cleat and as I stopped the forward motion of the boat so she could tie off, the wind caught us and had us far enough from the dock that she only had a couple feet of line left to tie to our cleat.  She managed to get that line secure and I pulled forward, letting that line pull us to the dock to where Erin could get off and grab the bowline while Ray lassoed a cleat at the stern.  To make it more interesting, the place where we came to a stop had a gap where we wanted a cleat for the stern, so we ended up backing the boat up about 10 feet by hand, with both Erin and myself on the dock hurrying from one cleat to the other before the boat blew away.  We are very snug to the dock now, and anticipate the wind to be blowing in the opposite direction in the morning, making it difficult to get away.  But that will be easier than the landing.

 

We’re all plugged in now, and everything that should be turned on is turned on – and of course the computer is alive again as well.  I also think I know what the problem may be with the charging system.  Although the port engine’s alternator is connected to our house batteries, I think that it is getting a signal through its harness giving the voltage of the starting batteries, which would tell the alternator that more charging is not needed.  Something more to sort out.

 

We’re about to have a beautiful sunset here in Everett and expect another sunny day tomorrow for our cruise back to Lake Union.