Up at 5 a.m. - just getting light. Away by 5.10 a.m. - no wind, murky, misty, wet conditions. Lots of small pleasure fishing boats zipping out of the marina to maximise their fishing time. Lots of shipping in the Strait.
Lovely sunshine by midday and continuing all afternoon... Very pleasant steep forested hillsides, with Olympus Mts behind, on the Washington (S) side of the Strait. A lot of trees had been clear-cut, some very recently, giving a slashed, bare look to the hillsides but there were also areas of young trees growing where older cuts had been made. To the N, the coastline of Vancouver Island became clear by the afternoon, but was hidden in mist and cloud all morning.
A good 2m swell coming up the Strait all day, sometimes more - even close to PT Angeles. In fact the ferry to Victoria is renowned for being often very rolly in the prevailing swell.
By two o'clock, an ENE 8 kt wind had got up - a headwind of 12 kt apparent which slowed us down to 5 kt at times. But by now, the Strait was flooding and we had an extra 'push', so were making well over 6 kt, instead of the earlier SOG of 3.5kt.
Just N of Pt Angeles the shipping lanes have an 'intersection' of three lanes - N to Victoria, SE to PT Angeles and E to Puget Sound and Seattle - and further on there are two more. Most Vancouver traffic takes the E route here and then heads N into Georgia Strait further on.
3 p.m. Just over an hour from the Pt Angeles marina & fuel dock. The Olympic Mts of Washington have their usual snowy high peaks but across the Strait, the coastline of Vancouver Island is partly hidden by low cloud - the air is quite cold, despite the sunshine.
4.40 p.m. Arrived at fuel dock, with friends Kathy and Dianna from Pt Townsend waiting to take my lines - was lovely to see them and spend time with them. While there, Peter, KJ6PNG, who I'd spoken to on the Chubasco Net, turned up to say hello & meet in person. (Both he and Dianna had been keeping track of Nereida's position using an AIS app) It's good to put faces to radio voices!
Just before sunset - a vivid, huge red ball sinking into the sea - I wandered over to another dock and chatted to a couple who 'd been out crabbing and were dealing with a good pile of lovely freshly-cooked Dungeness crabs. They were caught very close by, they told me - and proceeded to present me with one of them - made an excellent, unexpected, tasty supper!
A relaxed day tomorrow - it's only twenty miles from here across the Strait, to make for the Victoria Customs dock and deal with Clearance paperwork into Canada - usually very quick and straightforward. I hope the docks nearby have at least one empty slip to tie up to...! On Monday, my priority will be to organise a local phone so I can contact friends and organise help with some of the boat work I'll be doing from now on.