State Capitol, Olympia, Washington from Budd Bay at Dawn
View of Monkey Face from Misery Ridge Trail, Smith Rock State Park, Oregon.
From the high desert of Eagle Crest, Oregon, in the last week we've spent some time at Little Whale Cove and the whales are back. On Sunday we packed up the car with the inflatable raft, the Yamaha outboard motor, and a summer's worth of reading and headed to Olympia, Washington where Jules, our 30-foot Newport sailboat, has been resting since last October, weathering drenching winter rains.
About 5am tomorrow morning the tide will turn, and the ebbing current will carry us under the Tacoma Narrows bridge to Gig Harbor. We are at the summer solstice and the tidal change is about 18-19 ft here. The "low low" tide today put the ramp to the docks at an impossibly steep slope.
Since Sunday afternoon we've been cleaning, provisioning, repairing, and arranging. In such a small space everything must have a place. Not too many clothes, not too much food, not too much equipment, but we never have enough gadgets. We hope we have not forgotten something critical. Even though we will be in towns almost every night for awhile, it's difficult to get some things without the convenience of a car. We still have things to do--replace the main sheet, replace the line for the whisker pole, replace a stretch of lifeline, clean the sunbrella canvas dodger,and wonder whether it will rain tomorrow. But we have fresh local strawberries aboard, so we won't complain even if some tasks don't get done before we leave, but later.
"Low low" tide will be about noon in Gig Harbor tomorrow. We should arrive well ahead of that time. We'll tie up at Arabella's marina, take a walk, and have burgers at the Tides Tavern for dinner.
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