Paroled from Port Angeles

North to

Alaska Seattle 2008 Series

13 July 2008

Lat N48.07.072

Lon W123.27.367

That’s how we feel today…like we were just granted “parole” from our long internment in Port Angeles.  It’s certainly not that we have anything against the lovely city of Port Angeles or its residents.  As a matter of fact, people couldn’t have been more helpful and friendly to us in the past three weeks.  For example, our Marina Manager, Todd brought over half of a fresh Salmon already filleted along with lots of freshly caught Dungeness Crab he cooked for us.  How nice is that!  I tell you, if you’re going to get stuck - this is not a bad place to do it!

It’s just that we’re ready to get on with this adventure…and see someplace else, like the rest of the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

 So, to catch you up…here’s the short story on the past few days.  The parts that were supposed to arrive last Thursday didn’t.  So, it was another day of NOTHING getting done except miscellaneous boat tasks which need to happen regardless of where we are.  Friday, our next crew member, John Mirus flew in to Victoria and we met him at the Ferry station in Port Angeles.  It’s good to have him back aboard!  We picked up our rental car for the Enterprise weekend special (a pretty good deal if you ever need a rental car for any extended period of time).  We used them in Hawaii too.  Also on Friday, Mike our engine genius returned but with only the injector pumps (a new one for the engine and a rebuild of our Christine’s original pump).  The injectors didn’t make it for some reason and were supposed to be flown in for a Saturday delivery.  Needless to say, that didn’t happen as the UPS guy called Mike at home Saturday morning to tell him they weren’t on the plane…what a shock!  Sunday we spent a lovely day driving the rental buggy out to Cape Flattery which is the farthest northwest point on the contiguous United States.  While it was surrounded by a dense layer of fog, it was a beautiful scene.  We took lots of pictures after we walked out the last ½ mile of trail through the rainforest.  There were a surprising number of people out there looking for whales and other marine life.  We could hear seals barking in one of the deep caves although we never saw them.

Monday morning, the parole hearing started.  Mike called early with good news.  The rest of the parts were in and he was on his way over.  After installing everything…we waited with baited breath to see what would happen.  To our joy and amazement, both the engine and the generator cranked up just fine.  Christine held a heavy load for an extended period of time and sounded better than ever.  The engine (yes, still unnamed) also cranked up effortlessly.  We went out for a test ride and things worked just fine.  As you can imagine, we were ecstatic!  Now, we can finally plan our departure.

Monday also brought us an unexpected visitor.  Our good friend, John Starke (we bought John and Pat’s house in Florida) called to say he was on his annual Miata roadtrip and was in Port Angeles, WA.  That gets a BIG – GO FIGURE!  He was with his friend Bob in their twin yellow and blue Miata’s.  Anyway they spent a good part of the day with us to include joining us for the test ride and then back for pupu’s and off to dinner.  So, this turned out to be a great day!

Tomorrow we leave for Victoria, BC.  Victoria is the capital of British Columbia and a beautiful little city.  We will clear through Canadian customs there and plan our next step as we begin to north through the Gulf Islands of British Columbia.  Perhaps we will even catch up with some of our friends who are already up there.

Probably won’t get much internet connectivity or cell phones once we’re in Canada, so we’ll be back on the Iridium system for the next couple of weeks.  We will keep updating our Position Report through YOTREPS so everyone can track our progress and of course look forward to your emails and comments on the website.

Also added to the website are an assortment of pictures taken on our passage from Hawaii.  Check them out in the Gallery Tab at the top of the page…

We look forward to continuing the adventure and hope you’ll continue to join us!

Roger, Elise and John

s/v Cutthroat