The Thanksgiving BlastCruise Report

Idefix and Waka celebrate Thanksgiving on the Sound. 

BY ADRIAN JOHNSON

On Thanksgiving weekend, a couple WYC affiliates decided to make a run for the Sound to flee the Apple Cup madness. We met up at the WAC on Friday night after boat moving. A number of would-beblastcruisers came to their senses and stayed home, but at 7 o'clock there were five of us standing on the dock ready to go. We kicked around a couple destinations and settled on Pt. Madison for Friday night andBlakely Harbor the next, coming back Sunday morning. Aimee and Kregg joined Matt on Waka, while Greg and I would chase them on Idefix.

We quickly made our way through the usual ship canal-bridge-lock circus and hit the Sound around 2100. We were greeted with a light southerly, got our main up, and started a beam reach across the sound. I was mulling over what to put up on the bow, when I heard Waka ahead of us put up a headsail. I couldn't tell what they were doing in the darkness, but it sounded like they were hoisting something big, so the racer in me went below, rummaged around, pulled out a light spinnaker and went to work getting it rigged.

Greg turned down onto a broad reach, the moon came out, the chute went up, the wind picked up, and we were soon cruising along, enjoying the last mild, clear night of the year. We reached up to Waka and I tried to take a couple pictures (hard to do in the darkness on a moving boat...), then practiced a couple jibes, and before we knew it we were in front of Port Madison dousing the spinnaker. We went close hauled to get back up to the entrance, but the wind soon died and left us drifting just outside the anchorage.

Time to start the motor and follow Waka in. I had been planning on just rafting up to Waka and letting Matt go through all the hard labor of selecting a spot, putting his anchor down, making sure it's set, and retrieving a mud-caked hook the next morning, but after a bit of meandering around the harbor, it was apparent that Matt wasn't really enthused by this idea and both boats pulled up to the dock at PMYC instead. The night was getting chilly so we regrouped on Waka for a late snack and drinks to warm ourselves up before bed, and ended up turning in rather late.

Saturday morning found us back on Waka for breakfast and coffee. Aimee ran off for her routine marathon practice while the rest of us sat lazily around talking about boats and eating. We made a plan to make a reconnaissance sail to Blakely Harbor and have an afternoon get-together there, then sail back to the WAC at sunset and get in after the football game. It was slowly getting windy in the harbor as we got the boats ready for sailing. Stations on the sound were reporting winds in the twenties, and the forecasts were for 20-30 all evening, so we pulled out our small jibs and put in reefs, but by the time we got off the dock and made it to the sound, there was nothing left but a nasty chop and a light southerly.

Idefix and Waka bounced around uncomfortably for a little while by the south end of Bainbridge, wondering where the forecasted winds were, before the chop let up a little and a 10kt breeze picked up. We then split ways, with Waka going East to try and pick up more wind in the middle of the Sound, while I tried to hug the Western shore to stay out of the strong ebbing current. Neither boat made much progress, and when sunset came we were still a bit south of Eagle Harbor.

I wasn't very excited about going into Blakely Harbor in the dark, and was starting to think about an alternate plan, when Waka hailed us on the radio and declared their intent to set sail for a happy hour at Ivar's. Greg and I agreed this seemed like a perfect alternative to beating up the sound in the cold darkness. We turned onto a broad reach and tried to catch up to Waka, but with the short sail back and no moonlight to help with the rigging, we didn't bother to put up the chute. Nevertheless, we covered the 3 or 4 miles to the locks pretty quickly, did the locks & bridge thing once more, and parked at Ivar's for a delicious wind-down to our day.

Matt even wrapped up "Thanksgiving 2009 Apple Cup BlastCruise" in style by scoring us a free appetizer from the manager with his display of docking skills, and securing our fame as "The Boat People" for at least a couple hours!

If any of this sounded appealing to you, be on the lookout for the next BlastCruise...