My last update wandered around the topic of having to replace the starboard spreader on Mabrouka's mast. That used the setting of a sail to Port Ludlow with Ed and Jim as the backdrop to discovering the problem. Since then, the replacement has been installed aloft, with me hoisting myself up the mast and Jim down below making small adjustments to the fittings and sending tools and supplies up to me. It looks grrrrrreate, except that now it inspires installation of the port side as well. If you read my previous post, you'll know that a new one has been made for that, too. Fortunately a replacement is not actually required and refreshing the old one can wait until Mexico.

Before putting up the starboard spreader, Lisa and I went for a nice overnighter at Blake Island. It was around noon on Tuesday that we left Kathy's houseboat on Lake Union for the LAST last time. Honest! Our passage out the ship canal and through the locks was uneventful with a corridor of clear blue sky widening above us through the trees as we motored west toward The Sound. The draw bridges at Fremont and Ballard eventually obliged when we honked our horn to request passage, but the Chittenden Locks were a little more begrudging. After the Navy divers and their big grey boat got out of our way, Lisa and I shepherded Mabrouka safely through to open water and a casual putt over to Blake Island. There was a little dos-i-doing when we found no open buoys along the west side of the island and readied the anchor, but the northernmost spot opened up at the last second and we raced up to snag it before any outliers could beat us to it.

Then laziness set in. What exactly DID we do? I can't remember. I think I fiddled a bit. We may have had a beer. Eventually we motored the 30 yards to shore and paid our mooring fee. There was dinner and a DVD, but that was about it.

Waking up early the next morning, I went topside to avoid disturbing Lisa's beauty sleep. I'd taken my camera to stalk wild life on the beach, but instead had my attention pulled the other direction with a flyby by the USNS John Glenn. It looked like a big, black tanker that had misplaced all the tanks between the bow and stern from the waterline up. I'd noted it down by the Navy fuel pier the previous afternoon and pointed it out to Lisa. Expounding with my vast experience in shipbuilding, I carefully explained that it was a submersible ship designed to ballast itself down, sinking deep in the water until just its bow and stern floated above. That would allow smaller ships and other floating thingies to park on its submerged deck after which it would float back up, lifting them out of the water for transport to distant ports.

Now she'd sidled up only a quarter mile away and, clearly in sight above the fog, her bow armed me with a name that had not previously been visible in the distance. Starting my day with a life-rending shock, I Googled up some info on the ship and learned that I had been wrong. The John Glenn is NOT a submersible, it's a Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) intended as sort of a mobile, floating pier to service air-cushion vehicles (LCACs) and roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) ships. (See http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/mobile-landing-platform-mlp-ship/.) It also turns out it was built by my old employer, National Steel and Shipbuilding Company in San Diego. Hurray, guys!

Eventually Lisa got up and after a hearty breakfast of pancakes and bacon, we motored in the Pudgy around the north end of the island to the visitor center/park where we spent some time photo-strolling at the beach, around the park, and up one of the walking paths. It was a beautifully warm day with the sun dappling our path through the island of trees overhead.

With digital fawns, chickadees, raccoons and distant volcanoes stored in the Canon, we headed back to Mabrouka. On the way we came up with a new marine term. It's very technical: The Raccoon Tide. That's about mid-way between high tide and low when all the raccoons in the universe come out to forage on what I fear are probably slimy little snacks that wriggle from the mud. We didn't exercise the diligence actually to count all of them, but I'm sure we would have tallied over twenty raccoons within sight around the north end of Blake Island if we'd bothered. There must be something REALLY tasty out there.

We dropped our buoy a little after noon and set off to get Lisa back to Shilshole for an evening appointment with social destiny. The return trip was adventurized by the Coast Guard and the US and Canadian navies forming up for their annual Fleet Week parade past downtown Seattle. The ships took turns posing grandly for us in front of the Space Needle as we motored northward over a Puget Sound that calmly reflected the clear blue skies. Coming up to West Point, we joined a parade of our own with three tug/barge combinations and the tour boat, Goodtimes II. They were all headed in through the locks we passed out of on the previous day, but we got on the radio and negotiated passage with them only as far as Shilshole Bay Marina.



Having avoided being crushed by the big boys, I got Lisa back to the dock at a timely 2pm. While she headed off for Olympia, I set upon some more cruise prep chores. Ah, I'll be glad to finally call an end to all that, throw my dice on the craps table of the ocean, and sail off for San Francisco in a couple of weeks.