After last minute cleaning and goodbyes we were off the dock at 10:07AM this morning— just seven minutes later than our planned departure, which is a feat unto itself. It was a glorious calm and sunny morning as we motored out of the marina feeling pretty good about our preparations and the condition of the boat.

Flat, calm water provided the perfect opportunity to check our speed and RPM at full throttle, then back it down to about 75 percent—the recommended load on our engine— to determine a comfortable cruising RPM and speed. We reached a maximum of 3100 RPM and were flying along at about 7.5 knots. Backing it down to 2200 RPM the engine purred and we were getting 6 knots, a solid increase over what we’d been getting. We had room to nudge it up and we did, to 2400 RPM. Then engine sounded happy and now we are maintaining a speedy 6.5 knots, which we pretty much maintained all the way to Port Townsend. We got there in a record for ourselves, 6 hours on the dot.

Why so much excitement over gaining a knot in speed? At our sailboat pace that’s a 20 percent increase in our average speed under motor. When you have over 1,500 miles to go, that can make a huge difference. It also gives us more power if we need it to get out of trouble.

Our trip up here was smooth and flawless, but with 25 knot winds predicted in the eastern Strait tonight, we decided to get a slip in the marina instead of anchoring out in the unprotected bay. That’s when the trouble began. They assigned us a difficult slip to get into, the wind was blowing the wrong way, and, come on, this is our first day, we’re rusty. (Well, I’m rusty.) Needless to say, our first docking on the trip was a tad bit embarssaing and humbling. But we got in, no damage to the boat, the dock, or people, and as we are sitting here listening to the wind howl, I’m glad to be tied up to the dock.

Our dear friend Hugh once said that when it comes to boats if it isn’t broken, it’s in the process of breaking. Day 1 and we’ve had our first equipment failure. The pull-ring snapped on our refrigerator lid. We have so many spare parts on this boat it’s ridiculous, but a spare pull-ring we do not have. David was able to swap it out with one from a compartment we won’t need to get into for the next few days, and we’ll hit up a West Marine in Bellingham for the spares when we get there.

Let the games begin!