Once the sails were up it was a really fun and relaxing trip to Friday Harbor. The wind was almost directly behind us and that means that it felt nice and warm, and relatively smooth.
And we were lazy sailing in that we didn’t put back our fenders, because we were going to put them back down again once in Friday Harbor.
It was a nice sail.
And others were having fun sailing too.
It was relaxing enough that Jackson fell asleep. We didn’t want to turn on the motor and wake him up once we got close to Friday Harbor, so we just sailed around more. Thinking that he’d wake up eventually, then we’d turn on the motor and go in.
Suddenly, I realized we were in the Ferry path. And one was headed pretty close to us.
So we tacked and got out of the way.
Minutes later another one was in the distance, looking like it was going to be way away from us. Until it turned right into our direction. I realized I forgot where the Ferry paths were right outside of Friday Harbor. And while we weren’t in its way directly, it whizzed right by us super close and fast.
The views again were awesome.
Once into Friday Harbor, it was a zoo. So many people going in and out, due to the Fourth of July no doubt.
And right when I got into the marina, I noticed a significant tide pull. Like, I felt like something was yanking on the boat towards the shore. We were drifting. Plus the wind was blowing enough to influence our direction.
We had called for help on the dock, but when we got close, we could see no one was there to help.
Luckily our friends from before who had been on our same basic trip path, and had a toddler saw us coming in. Matt yelled to us, “Need help?!”
I shouted, “Oh yea! Thank you!”
He started sprinting down the dock. And hardly made it in time.
But by that time, I realized that I had overshot the slip, I didn’t see the number in time. And the tide was more of an influence than I thought.
After missing the slip, and a fairly harrowing 12 point turnaround I left the marina completely to turn around, and came back. By that time Matt and 3 others were there to help, and they were yelling at me super loud to crank the wheel way before I would have thought.
Against my intuition I cranked the wheel, and we slid in like a rally car sliding around a corner at a mile a minute.
Thank you Matt for saving the day. And my nerves.
Later, we watched boats trying do dock and failing over and over. One took 6 tries before it made it.
You can see how the tide was pulling people sideways (and then backwards once they bounced on the dock) with the video below.
We hung out with Matt, Robyn and their daughter that afternoon and night.
We walked down to meet up with them.
Jackson ran around in Friday Harbor.
And Jackson and their daughter got along super well.
The next morning we hung out too and got some breakfast.
Then Jackson found a dragonfly that was hanging out in the breakfast joint.
Jackson needed to tell that dragonfly that it was bad, and NO!
Then we went to the Friday Harbor Fourth of July Parade.