Our final LDR* of the trip began at 0645 Friday morning at the TYC Cornet Bay outstation. The weather had totally gone to hell, the forecast promising rain, possible thunderstorms, and 15-20 knot southerly winds. Lovely. But absolutely in keeping with our cruising history. It was more noticeable back when we had sailboats. Invariably, the wind would come roaring out of the north the day we left and we bashed and crashed into it all the way to the Islands. Equally invariably, the day we started south, the wind would switch around and blow out of the south so we got to bash and crash all the way home.

Actually, the wind gods suffered us to get from Prevost Harbor to Cornet Bay without bashing or crashing. Instead, they handed off to the tide gods so we got to fight current all the way through the San Juans and across Rosario Strait. Deception Pass was still flooding mightily when we got there so we got a hell of a slingshot under the bridge, our groundspeed topping 13 knots at one point.

After a quiet night at our outstation dock, we left Cornet Bay, fighting a little ebb current flowing out toward Deception Pass. The current subsided quickly as we got farther from the Pass and we made out way down between Whidbey and Camano Islands at groundspeeds that touched nine knots at times. By noon, we were off Edmonds, punching into that 15-20 knot southerly, and preparing to cut across to the west side of the VTS lanes for the final few miles into Eagle Harbor. That’s when we observed the first lightning flashes to the south.

We exchanged text messages with Brother John, who was helping run a sailboat race in the Tacoma area. Was he seeing lightning down there? Oh, yeah. “Big time!” was the response. Wonderful. It doesn’t take the proverbial rocket scientist to know that being the tallest thing around on a large, flat surface is not a particularly good thing in a lightning storm. And that is exactly what we were. Not to mention that we were heading TOWARD the storm.

The last hour into Eagle Harbor was tense, to say the least. By the time we turned the Wing Point buoy at the harbor entrance, the lightning bolts were strobing down all around us and the rain was pouring down in buckets. We slid into our club’s outstation docks, finding our friends Cliff and Bentley, on Merry Yacht, already there. They’d been trying to make it all the way home but the lightning had convinced them to abort at Eagle Harbor.

The storm really got cranked up after we were secured. Now, those of you who live outside the Pacific Northwest are probably thinking, “What’s the big deal? We have thunderstorms almost every DAY in the summer!” Well, we don’t. And the fact that they are a common occurrence doesn’t make them any less dangerous. So yeah, it was unusual to have one that went on as long as this one did. We sat on Merry Yacht for an hour watching the lightnng flash and listening to the thunder boom and rumble.

The main event of the evening was the Seahawks’ first pre-season game. Fortunately, we’d been invited to dinner by our friend Kathy. Fortunate, in this case, because the rain and lightning had played havoc with our satellite dome reception and we couldn’t have watched the game on the boat. As it turned out, the ‘Hawks’ rookie wanna-be’s lost a close one to the Denver rookie wanna-be’s. And before Charlie’s cousin Ann in Denver gets to gloating too much, we would point out that the exact same thing happened last year. And which team eventually made it to the Super Bowl?

*Long Damned Run