The wind went soft in the early hours of August 9th, leaving us swinging gently in the silver morning light off the public dock at the east end of Port Townsend, so I got up to watch the day spread out around us. There wasn't much activity to be seen in the town except the rowers of the Northwest Maritime Center who were setting up their sculls on the beach. If I didn't realize it's their quest for flat water that stirs them to exercise so early in the morning, I would conclude that all rowers must be insomniacs.

My own crew didn't have that problem, but I eventually was able to make my morning latte without having things pitched at me from grumpy sailors still snug in warm sleeping bags and we started our day, too. After breakfast we hauled in the hook and motored east toward Admiralty Inlet.

I have learned that my foolish lack of respect for fog is not shared by many of my fellow sailors. Most develop tight looks of shock when I tell them I don't have radar. Okay, I don't like fog either, but in my ambition to get to my next destination, I usually burrow on into the grey, tuning in my eyes and ears and ringing my ship's bell. My crew began to squirm uncomfortably and volunteer wary watch-standing poses on the bow when the visibility really started to close down just south of the Point Wilson light house. When they expressed actual warnings of impending doom, I acquiesced and turned Mabrouka about to head back to the clear bay behind us.

South of Port Townsend it was actually quite nice, with a breeze that carried us on a couple of gentle reaches west and east. From our clear vantage point we could watch the wind push curling white banks of cloud over the northern hills of Marrowstone Island as other boats and the Port Townsend ferry went in and out of view through a grey curtain that hid the majority of the Sound from our view.

Eventually, though we still could not see the far shore, visibility improved enough for us to venture across the inlet toward Point Partridge, skirting the Straits of Juan de Fuca along the north side of Whidby Island. The wind was light, but consensus was that we all considered ourselves sailors, so we cut the engine and made what progress we could under the influence of Mother Nature alone. That was not an altogether successful decision in the face of slackening wind abetted by a growing flood tide and we ended up motoring.

Robert has the wonderful notion of taking one primary meal together each day as an opportunity to sit down and enjoy good food and each other's company. He and I decided to make that an early afternoon tradition aboard Mabrouka and Saturday was our first test with the full crew. He'd been occupying himself in the galley below for quite some time, so at his suggestion we pulled into reasonable depths somewhere along the Whidby shore and dropped the hook for one of the most sumptuous luncheons I've ever had aboard a boat at sea.

I'll take the opportunity now to shout Robert's praises for his dedication and skill in the galley. Early on Robert volunteered to do ALL the provisioning and cooking for the cruise to San Francisco. With a storm of other preparations dominating my own time, this was a very welcome idea and I took shelter in the lee of his offer immediately. I don't want to undervalue the help he received from Jim in these efforts, but Robert was undoubtedly the driving force. I've come to be royally spoiled by his ministrations and have yet to marshall the energy to reprovision Mabrouka after our arrival in San Francisco.

It is an epic challenge on most boats to stow all the goods necessary to feed four adult males at sea for two weeks, especially when a large share of the goods are fresh fruits and vegetables. Robert and Jim trundled two or three dock cart loads of supplies to Mabrouka the Thursday afternoon before departure and we successfully found homes for all the boxes and bundles. Onions, nectarines, avocados, and tomatoes were slung in their bags or in little hammocks under the overhead. Cans and jars were stashed on deep, dark shelves and a large box of Saltines found its home under my bunk while corpulent supplies of olive oil, flour, coffee, sugar, nuts, raisins and an assortment of other staples filled up the dry locker. Steak, chicken, milk, fruit and their perishable companions were imprisoned in the two refrigerators, jostling to get out whenever we called upon whomever was at the bottom to join us for a meal. A couple of pounds of potatoes may have been too successfully stashed since, if indeed still aboard, it has gone MIA and plots bio-attack from the bilges sometime in the near future. Baglets of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies have been a big hit with at least Jim and I, hanging readily accessible in a cloth grocery bag on the back of my cabin door.

On any day where the weather bode at all well for the crew's appetites, Robert would disappear discreetly below in the late morning to commence chopping, mixing, sautéing and steaming. He would emerge a couple of hours later to invite us below, then stand politely to one side as we scooped from pots and dishes copious with sautéed vegetables interspersed with savory bits of beef or chicken, steamed greens, and vinegary tomato and cucumber salad, often accompanied by freshly made pan bread or tortillas. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. My galley will never see its like again.

Maybe it is the signature of a good cook to flail away with reckless abandon at the cutting board and over steaming pots and pans. If so, the challenge of such endeavor in a rolling boat is borne twice over when working on a tiny, two burner stove top that rocks back and forth at one end of a galley space the size of a hall closet. I come to this conclusion after having executed kitchen patrol several times in the past weeks, finding myself confronted with a sink that overflowed with pots and pans, a floor that had little mobs of flour rioting in the corners, and an oven door that drooled chalky white streams of roux down its face. From time to time the stove top required actual excavation. Just sayin', not complainin'. The meals made it all worthwhile both for the pleasure of their consumption and the camaraderie they encouraged.

So, with the first of many gourmet meals to come under our belts and short afternoon siestas behind us, we hauled in the anchor and continued northward. Though we tried to sail again and even hoisted the gennaker in a futile attempt to keep way on in the lightening wind, our progress was insufficient to make reality of our goal to arrive in Cypress Island's lovely Eagle Harbor before dark. Remembering an idyllic couple of days I'd spent several years ago lounging in Aleck Bay at the south end of Lopez Island, we refocused our sights there and turned due west.

But before we arrive in Aleck Bay, I'll share a little bit of my previous visit. It was the end of May back in oh-eight or so (No, not 1808 or even 1908.) that I'd been laid off from Elliott Bay Design Group. As sometimes happens, that shock turned out to be a boon. Without delving into the sad details, the sudden demise of my employment at EBDG had been softened by a modest severance package. Then I'd signed on with Jensen Maritime within a couple of weeks and they'd given me a signing bonus while agreeing that I needn't start work until early August. That gave me two months of the best summer I'd had in many years, primarily because I spent about half of it single-handing through the San Juans and around Puget Sound. The salient fact here is that I spent several days in beautiful Aleck Bay being contemplative and waxing prosaic. Here are a couple of word pictures I wrote floating upon this bay away back when:

Reflection on Anchoring Alone in a Secluded Bay

The clamoring trees press upon the rocky shore, standing testament to millenia of their crowded family. The edges of the land restrain them with eroding battlements of basalt, their small island turrets floating near shore left unmanned by the leafy sentinels. And yet, they see me, they know me. Alone aboard my sail-clad juggernaut, I challenge their immobility. Ancient, they stand undaunted by my affront, my gall. I dare to sail atop the field of battle that surrounds them, but I am alone, fragile, and mortal, while their ranks soldier on, many upon many. I cannot win, so I will weigh anchor and set sail for another battleground to wage my admiration against their immutability.

The Coming Night

It's going to be a good night for stars. The jagged shadow of tree lined shore to the west announces the coming sunset, as do the Gattling gun chirrups of the king fisher's evening calls. Clouds in the distant east threaten the morning, but the impenetrable baby blue overhead will break out in bright glimmering pinpoints soon. I can't help but wonder how many suns, how many alien civilizations are spanned by the wings of a passing gull as it glides to its night time rest. Perhaps I'll count them tonight.

Moving on... Aleck Bay welcomed us with late afternoon light and an anchorage all our own. We could see children and a golden retriever dog romping on the stony beach at the head of the bay. The small bright voices and joyful barking that shimmered across two hundred yards of water to us were called in to supper soon after sunset. I imagine them all eventually nestling into comfortable spots on sofas and floors behind the large windows that glowed back at us from the house not far above the high tide line.

The next day we all agreed we liked this spot so much and could find enough to do that we'd fill the day with small tasks and copious lounging and stay another night. Projects, reading, and a couple of rows around the bay in the Pudgy kept us occupied while a couple more boats came in to impose upon our solitude. After a while we realized that, as easily as we could listen in on the conversations of the children playing on the rocks, they could hear us too, so we learned to tailor our sailors' vocabulary somewhat as we settled in for the evening with beers, brandy, and rum drinks.