June 11, 2021

Our Alaska 2021 voyage has begun. We are traveling north to Alaska for the summer with another boat Coda. On our boat is Tonia and myself. We’ve also been graciously joined for the first part of our trip by Christian Tornqvist and Liz Coghill. You can follow Liz’s blog at https://letliztravel.wordpress.com. Coda is crewed by Captain Steve Olsson and his sister Barbara Olsson. You can follow their blog at https://www.adventuresofcoda.com.

Departure day started with the final wrap up of pre-trip projects. Final engine checks, firing up the water maker, and making sure all the spare parts are stowed. Our boat guy Mike (University Yacht Services) was there to oversee the final prep. With everything checking out, we departed the Tyee Yacht Club dock at 9 am. Off we go… That’s when the final gremlins came out. As we neared the locks, the engine temperature on the port engine rose and I went to check and quickly determined that no water was flowing. I shut it down and called Mike. What now? Turn back or wait, the lock light is green. Ok, let’s go to Shilshole Marina.

I’m a little rusty on single-engine maneuvering so the lock was a little more challenging. Only had a minor bounce but quickly recovered and pretty much uneventful. If it were a normal day, we would have declared perfect lock karma as we didn’t have to wait.

Pulled into Shilshole and met up with Mike who was already walking down the dock. Quickly determined that the impellor had failed. We had used a spare that was already on hand. Out with the old, in with the new, and we were running perfectly.

Three quarters of the trip up was pretty uneventful. We did hit a freighter wake that I think was at least 6-foot waves and may have been 8 foot.

Then… we decided to go up Admiralty Inlet and cross the Straight of Juan de Fuca. The wind was straight behind us, and the waves were with us, so we had a pretty decent ride for most the crossing. We had planned to leave earlier and with the engine delay we knew it was going to be a little rough at some point. For about the last 30 minutes of the crossing the wind shifted, and we had a few waves off the beam. This brought Tonia up for her nap right about the same time as we hit a couple big ones and rearranged all the shelves on the boat. 😊

With the boat clutter now on the floor, we hit Cattle Pass and went into much calmer waters. We cruised into Roche Harbor, stopped at the fuel dock to top of so we can make it 8 days without stopping for fuel, and then took a cozy slip. Time for safe arrival drinks! I have lots of Rainer thanks to the wonderful Tyee Past Commodores!

We settled in with a tasty spanakopita and Greek salad prepared by the wonderful Barbara Olsson. And she even made us Key lime pie from scratch for dessert. I may put on weight during this trip if we’re going to eat this well every night!

Voyage Info:

Time: 9 h 14 m ( 08:41 to 17:56 )
Distance: 75.27 nm