First Sailing Trip – The Dunk

Woke up at 5am. After showers and vehicle packing we were on the road by 6am. Drove about an hour and a half to Anacortes. Realized that Dev and I forgot our passports.

Took the 8:45am ferry to Friday Harbor where the boat was moored in a slip. Exchanged crew and unloaded/reloaded gear/food. Since we didn’t have our passports, I rode back with the old crew to Redmond (another ferry ride) to the house. Then I packed a backpack with all the things that we’d realized we forgot and got a ride back to Anacortes for my third Ferry ride of the day back to Friday Harbor. The 8:25pm ferry is great because there are beautiful sunsets and views. I made it back to the boat at about 9:40pm and was greeted by Garlic Prawns, pasta and salad for dinner. Colm and Adrienne are excellent caterers. I might suggest that career path to Adrienne.

Oh yeah, while we were exchanging crew, we also had to move the boat to a new slip. As I was motoring into the new slip, Devon was on deck with a line and there were some people on the dock. All of a sudden we heard a crack and Devon went overboard. The Stanchion that holds the lifelines broke at the base while she was leaning on it and she fell overboard. She broke rules 1, 2 and 3 in the same moment..

Rule #1 – Don’t break the boat.
Rule #2 – Wear a lifejacket while on deck.
Rule #3 – Don’t fall off the boat.

The water was cold and Dev was a bit shocked. I killed the engine so as not to chop her into little pieces. It all turned out okay except we need to buy a new stanchion to replace the broken one. We believe that the stanchion was a little old, corroded and weak but we didn’t actually have the lifelines attached so there wasn’t enough support to hold her. Lesson learned.