by Erik Dolson
Friday Harbor was a wonderful place to moor in the summer but it’s a long drive from home, through heavy traffic in four cities, with a ferry schedule to meet.
Port Townsend is much closer, and a beautiful town with warm and friendly people, a great movie theater, fine restaurants, and a strong marine industry for supplies / repairs / maintenance. It would be a good place for Foxy to spend the winter since we can’t return to Victoria, our home away from home.
The storm that brought winds of close to 40 mph had finally moved on, and Friday was looking like a great day to transit the east end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Casting off early would let Foxy catch the end of a tide to flush her out of San Juan Channel and into the strait. Then, as the tides refilled the giant basin of Puget Sound, we’d get a small push over to Port Townsend.
It would be safer and easier leaving from a dock in the dark rather than releasing the mooring ball with its shackles and safety wire. I could also fill up the water tanks and take care of the little odds and ends. All went according to plan, and I was feeling a bit smug as I wrapped up chores the day before passage.
At first light the next morning, I could see Foxy’s anchor. Past that, everything dissolved into a dense gray. I’d avoided high winds but without breeze, a blanket of warm moist air had condensed into a thick gray layer of fog on the water.
Horns bellowed from a ferry moving slowly into Friday Harbor long before it appeared a few hundred feet off my dock. I waited. A small sheriff’s boat moved past and immediately disappeared into the gray. I waited. Planning for the tides had been worthless. At this rate Foxy would fight a three knot current at Cattle Pass between San Juan and Lopez Islands as we waited…
…wait a minute. For years I’ve navigated by electronic map that does not require visual reference points. Two years ago in Victoria I had an automatic identification system (AIS) installed that would broadcast my position to other vessels and alert me to their location (if they had a transmitter and it was turned on). I had a new radar installed over the same long winter that I could use from the helm.
So what, exactly, was I waiting for? What was keeping us tied to the dock?
Fear of the unknown. I’d never gone out when unable to see other boats, or the water, or the islands and rocks I knew to be there like earth’s own teeth. I did not know exactly how all this would work and would have to figure it out on the water.
I was thankful no one else was on board as I cast off and motored around the end of the breakwater where I paused to pull up the fenders. I would not have left the harbor if anyone else was along. This risk was just to me and the boat.
As Foxy rounded Brown Island it was very strange watching our location change on the screen of an iPad running the Navionics map, knowing what I would be seeing because I’d been out there so many times and yet having no visual at all. But I trusted Navionics — it had taken me to Alaska and back.
The new radar was working but I had to toggle my iPad between the radar and the map. Every time I’d go to the map, the radar would go into standby. This is a good feature. Radar transmitters have a limited life and there’s no sense burning up those hours when it’s not actually being used.
But I had to refocus every time I changed to the screen I wanted to see. When looking at radar, I’d lose my map. When the map was up, no radar. I had another iPad set up for my AIS and instruments such as water depth. Note to self: another iPad, please.
I spent half the passage on my toes looking over the house canvas instead of through windows that always seemed covered with mist even though I’d just wiped them. Down we went through the bottleneck at Cattle Point, trying not to cut off another boat headed in the same direction. Stare as I might, they had only an electronic existence until we were close in the strait. Island off starboard, rocks off port. Radar. Map. AIS. Map. Radar.
AIS. Map. Radar. AIS. Map. Radar. Listen to the radio. Occasionally, AIS would show boats I did not see on radar, or radar would show boats that that did not appear on the AIS. When those boats appeared out of the fog, I’d get confirmation but it was disconcerting when they did not. I finally realized I could line up all screen views, north up or course up, instead of having one set one way and another to the alternate. Duh.
In the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Foxy skirted the traffic zones freighters use to travel to and from Seattle or Tacoma, or tankers to and from Anacortes, or military ships to and from Bremerton. We went around military zones where they practiced air to surface missiles though there were no warnings on the radio.
It was all on the instruments and only on the instruments, there was nothing to see outside but soft gray.
The AIS showed a boat following off our stern, but a small fishing boat that I did see close through the fog had no signature at all.
I don’t know how many hours passed, five or seven, when Foxy motored around the buoy at Admiralty Inlet. Finally, the sun weakly burned through the gray and the buildings of Port Townsend resolved into view. Other boats were headed toward the port, and one was leaving. I stopped outside to put down fenders and make ready the lines, then curled Foxy past the breakwater into a slip.
The transit in fog wasn’t the most enjoyable but it’s good to know we can make it if necessary: it just requires trusting the boat, trusting the instruments, trusting the captain. Being deliberate.
Port Townsend is a lovely town, the facilities are convenient. The wind has returned, it’s blowing outside at 30 mph, but this is a safe harbor and I’m glad Foxy’s here.