I had worked all week to install a new to me Auto Helm 3000. I also pulled a second hot water heater that was not working properly. I was hoping to leave on Thursday, but because of Annette's plans I I departed on Friday. The weather pretty much sucked. Rather it blew! I got off the docks at Swantown a 10:30 started my run up Budd Inlet. I had to make some calibrations to my new Auto Helm 3000 that I had just installed. So I motored up to about Gull Harbor getting the Auto Helm dialed in. It was raining and the wind was blowing a 12 to 15 kts, so I let Auto drive while I went about the duties of putting up canvas. Sails set I took the helm back from Auto and was making 6 ½ to 7 knots over ground. Not bad for single handing. I made a slow jibe into Dana Passage and ran wing on wing.

Now I've never had an Auto Helm before so I don't trust them much. I thought what the hell and let Auto take the helm and I ran forward to set the poll and put a preventer on the boom. Auto preformed like a champ. I was bucking the current as the wind was building behind me. Dana Passage was flowing pretty fast and it was a bit bumpy with the wind waves colliding with the current. I was gawking about and noticed that the shore was moving by pretty fast. Looking at my GPS I was surprised to see that I was making 8.7 kts down wind against the current. Holy Guacamole, I was flying! Now the crew of Andiamo said I'm confused. They being pilots said I was "sailing" not "flying". Whatever!

Now I was becoming a little concerned about getting the poll down. There was a sailboat motoring up wind and I wanted to look cool dropping my poll and jibing the boom around to the other side. I've never set the poll single handing before. I realized that I had not thought this through. So on the fly, I disengaged Auto, tacked to Starboard, blew the gib sheet, locked the wheel and ran forward to drop the poll. That's when things got interesting. Sheets and lazy sheets were flopping in the wind, poll bouncing all over the place. Cygnet, like a good girl rounded up into irons. It wasn't pretty but I got the poll down. I got back on course and pretended like I meant to do that. I'm sure it was a pretty good show.

I was set up on a starboard tack as I rounded Johnson Point and entered Case Inlet/Nisqually Reach. I gave Johnson Pt plenty of room as not to get into the lee of the point. It was pretty much a broad reach the whole way as I crossed Nisqually Reach. I then turned up around Devils Head into Drayton Pass and ran wing on wing again. There was a bit of fetch coming into Drayton Pass, so it was a bit rolly. Turning north to set up for Pitt Passage I furled the jib. Since it was pretty close to low tide and it was a negative tide, I did not want to blow through the pass and run aground at 7kts. I calculated that pass should have about 7 ft of water at low tide. Since I draw 5'4" with the swing keel up, I should have no problem getting through the pass. I saw eight feet of water, no problem getting through. Andiamo hailed me on the VHS. Evidently she was hot on my heels and she saw me entering the pass. Tami wanted to know how deep the water was. I reported back and she opted to go around McNeil Island.

I turned north and ran up the west side of Wyckoff Shoals. I notice that the duns had been replaced with dolphins. The marks were much easier to see. The rocks were showing as I passed the shoals. Tide was definitely out. Running into Carr Inlet the winds really started to blow. I really should have put a reef in the main and shrunk the jib, but I did not have that far to run. I was seeing speeds of 7.4 kts and Cygnet was sitting at 25⁰ to starboard. In what seemed only a couple of minutes Mayo Cove came into sight. I made sure that I cleared the spit and turned the boat into the wind and started to drop sails. There were four SSSS boats in the cove riding anchors or buoys. Wind was blowing pretty hard down the cove. I came in and ran up the starboard side of Pearl and tied up. We set both my anchors because of the wind. By evening we had five boats on our raft. I have to say this was one of the most fun runs I've had for a long time. Very wet, very fast, very fun.