[This picture is representative of my sense of humor, NOT what I thought of Port Gamble. It's just that I can't tell if this star fish was mooning me or flipping me off!]

My usual slow start was prompted early by what seemed to be incessant motor boat traffic nearby. It was like trying to sleep through a mosquito attacking your ears, a nagging bother that can't be ignored enough to go away. I'd anchored among a fleet of fishing boats the previous evening and assumed someone had fired the start gun for a new fishing season.

Poking my sleepy head out the hatch, I found only one guy who'd deployed his drift net about 50 yards to my south. This solo imitation of a whole fleet was due to his tactic of buzzing up and down the length of his 200 yard net. I'm not sure whether this was to herd the damned fish through his floating trap, or patrol the length of the net to immediately snag each fish as it tangled itself up in it. In either case, it was a little annoying so I hustled through my coffee and muffin and clambered over the side into the dinghy for the row ashore.

As you will see from the Port Gamble sub-album under Local Cruising - 2013, my rowing tour of the harbor provided ample opportunity for photographic exploration. You'll also see that this once buzzing sawmill has, like its cousin down in Blakely Harbor, been reduced to little more than rotting pilings jutting from the bay. So sad.

Unlike Port Blakely, though, the town of Port Gamble has developed some interest as an historic destination. It's more touristy than a real history buff might like, but I suppose the quilt shops and alternative healing businesses are trade-offs one might easily accept to save the 100 year old homes and other buildings. Again, check out the pictures in the picture album.

One enjoyable foray into the past was a stroll through the cemetery at the top of the hill. Graves dated back to the late 1850s, with the earliest one I could find that of a soldier who'd been shot during an indian war.

Having strolled the town to see the old company houses and the beautifully steepled church, I mulled over my visit with lunch at the General Store. Besides a very popular restaurant that serves excellent food (I had an luxuriously savory hash made with the succulent short ribs meat in a rich brown sauce with potatoes, mushrooms, and red peppers, all topped with two fried eggs), the General Store houses an international seashell museum above and the sawmill's historical museum below the shop/restaurant.

Not being one to collect cute nicknacks or silly postcards, I only walked through the shop on my way to and from the hash, taking just a quick glimpse toward the shelves of shells evident on the balconies above.

The museum downstairs was well worth the three dollar (senior, ...haha!) admission. It's small and totally dedicated to the Pope and Talbot Lumber Company, but they've added many touches that help pull you back 100 years into the past. The first exhibit is a life-sized reproduction of Captain Talbot's cabin aboard one of the ships he commanded hauling lumber and other goods back and forth between Puget Sound and San Francisco. Besides being substantially constructed of very authentic looking beams and planking with many interesting nautical artifacts about the cabin, the museum has gone to the trouble of putting a scene outside the porthole that actually moves up and down as if the room were at sea. The curator said she'd had more than one customer suffer seasickness from watching it. Cool, huh?

In other exhibits museum guests are treated to a breeze stirring the lace curtains at the window of a younger Pope's nuptial bedroom and a background of music, laughter and lively conversation for the recreated hotel sitting room.

Enough with history and tourism, though, so back to the beach and my row out to Mabrouka. The tide was set to turn my way in mid-afternoon and I managed to weigh anchor a little early to catch a rising breeze. The long, narrow channel into the bay is just about dead north-south, so I motored carefully out. Setting sail as soon as I could, Mabrouka took very kindly to a tight starboard tack that, as the wind came gradually around, carried her all the way to the northern reach of Hood Canal with almost no effort on my part.

At tack Tala Point just outside of Port Ludlow took us eastward past Foul Weather Bluff and back onto Admiralty Inlet. We were soon doing that familiar dance with commercial traffic. Two tugs, both towing barges bore down from the north and (count them) not one, nor two, but three cruise ships steaming up from Seattle. Reluctant to give up the uncomplicated sail I'd enjoyed so far, I held my course as long as I could, but eventually had to tack back to the west to avoid getting scrunched between the gleaming white sides of a Carnival cruise ship and a crusty slab-sided barge.

It wasn't long after that that my lucky wind began to peter out and, fearing an after dark arrival, I cranked up the engine to motor the rest of the way to the anchorage off Port Townsend.

[This poor little bird is wondering what happened to its electrical wires.]

By the way, about that business opportunity I tacked on to the bottom of yesterday's post, ...it's been thought of and, up to now, nixed by the indian tribe that controls the fishing rights to the bay. There are plans drawn up for a 72 (?) slip marina, but still hurdles to jump over to get approval from the locals.