Tuesday June 25th, 2024
We planned to leave Portage Bay this morning about 7:00 a.m. but we had an “anchor issue” we discovered when we started to pull up our anchor bridle. The night was relatively calm. Portage Bay is a large open Bay that can offer good protection on a quiet night but not so much on a stormy one. Our friends Karen and Kevin had a pretty sleepless night here about 3 weeks ago due to high winds and waves. That was not our experience last night. The water was flat calm, however, we did have the anchor chain rolling around most of the night, especially with the rise and fall of the tide. This made for a “not so great” night for sleeping. Both Marlene and I commented on how we probably didn’t pull back our line enough after setting it to prevent the chain from grinding the seabed. We soon discovered that was not our problem.
After I released the snubber we attempted to pull up the bridle, we discovered at least a 100 pound nest of kelp entwined into our chain and bridle. There was no way to pull this up and get it off as the weight was too much for the windlass. I had to deploy our kayak, Leatherman knife in hand, as Marlene stood above me with a gaff to assist. I started cutting, and cutting, and cutting, peeling away the layers of thick kelp strands. It took us about 20 minutes to get all the kelp off the bridle so we could proceed with pulling up the anchor. A tip for all future Portage Bay visitors, try and go as deep into the mouth of the bay as you can and avoid the shoreline. Although it is good anchorage it often is filled with kelp that can easily catch on to your boat. Portage Bay is far from our favorite anchorage but the next time we visit we will remember to stay deep in the bay, which is still around 40-50 feet deep.
We left around 7:15 which was fine. We needed to arrive in Petersburg at slack and our 3 hour cruise got us there precisely on time. Along the way we had a visit of a pod of Orca whales. Not the greatest photo I know. I guess I need to invest in a telephoto lens for my iPhone (ha, ha).
I sprayed the salt water off our boat; we visited our favorite grocery store for supplies and then we returned to the boat for a shower and a nap. I called the electrician letting him know we arrived a day earlier than expected. In the meantime I will begin my own diagnostics tomorrow, in-between visiting the laundromat. We are having dinner with our friends Rob and Barb from Anacortes who are in port on their Nordic Tug Harmony Bay, heading north tomorrow. They have been a wonderful wealth of knowledge and inspiration for us. And finally, we are looking forward to a good night’s sleep. Mother Nature can’t get at us here, settled deep in the harbor for a few days.