August 2014 Sailing – First cruise in Mobert Part 3
After waking up in Deer Harbor the morning of Wednesday the 27th, we took our time. Several trips to the small marina store were made for coffee and other snacks. The girls played on the beach for a while, trying to catch squirting clams, which is very difficult but holds their attention for longer than I was expecting. When we finally untied, we stopped at the gas dock for fresh water and to pump out the holding tanks, while Devon got a few orders of Fish and Chips to go. Olivia made it clear she was ready to navigate as well.
While the weather has been very nice (i.e.: at least high 70’s every day) we were on our 5th day of little to no wind. So we headed out of Deer Harbor under power and started to round Orcas on our way up to Sucia Island State Park.
Just as we got between Jones and Orcas islands’ we felt a little wind and took advantage. Unfortunately it was either short lived or we were overly optimistic, because we pretty much sat there once the engine was shut down. After drifting for a bit, getting precariously close to Jones Island’s rocks, we fired up the motor and kept moving.
Again, as we got up north over Orcas and headed east toward Sucia we caught some wind. This time it was better but still nothing that would cause much of a heel or move us very efficiently toward our destination. It was actually quite nice to have a little wind in our sails though so we just made the best of it and pointed toward Sucia. Taking advantage of the down time, I spent some time below prepping the wiring for my new Digital Yacht NMEA Multiplexer, which I wrote about earlier. Since we were using all the navigation equipment while we sailed I didn’t dare connect it fully, so I just prepped connections, wiring ends, drew up a color coded diagram of the wiring, mounted the unit on the bulkhead, etc.
Once we got close it was time to fire up the motor and make our way into Echo Bay to find a spot. Sucia was not as crowded as we expected so we grabbed a mooring buoy deep into Echo Bay and settled in. The girls went to shore to play on the beach and I completed the NMEA mux connections and tested. Worked great on the first try! After dinner ran the genset for a couple of hours as usual to charge the batteries but this time the temp gauge was showing a higher than normal temperature. Rather than the normal 160F, the temp was about 175F but holding pretty steady. In addition, we could hear and smell the exhaust which was unusual. There was less overall water coming out of the exhaust but there was water, and the temp was holding, so we decided to put off dealing with it as the girls sleep on top of the generator access and we were only running it for two hours.
Night time at Sucia is serene! Echo Bay looks out toward open water to the Northeast and the sunset lights up the other boats that are moored east of us. A really nice place to spend an evening.
We woke in the morning to a strange feeling.. What was it? Wind?
