On July 31st, Port Angeles was still quite socked in with fog. We decided to make our way towards Port Townsend, (Jim and Karen's home port,) any way, as we figured the weather would pretty much be the same the next day. We navigated along the shoreline of Port Angeles until we got to “New Dungeness Spit,” the longest natural sand spit in the world - nine miles long; however, we hardly saw it because of the fog.
When Marty was laying back relaxing while Mae was at the helm (under motor), he opened his eyes and astern of the boat a U.S. Coast Guard launch zoomed in. There were at least eight guys packed into the boat. They picked us up, in the thick fog, on their radar. A young fellow was calling out questions being relayed by his skipper. He asked question such as: Are you Canadian? ( We thought the big Canadian flag waving would have been a clue.) Where are you going? Do you have passports? Did you check in with customs? Did you know that you're close to land? (Duh!!! The shore was hidden behind the fog but still...) What does your sign mean? (No Place for Tankers), and, Are you with them? (Sockdologer). No problem. They let us be and we continued our trip.
There was a gentle wind so both boats put up their sails. Sockdolager decided to put up their gennaker as this sail does better in lighter winds. We just had to take as many pictures as possible as their boat was such a beautiful sight. With Marty's expert seamanship, Mae was able to get pictures all around their boat. Marty even had our boat sailing backwards, to get just the right angle. AMAZING! Mae has a tough enough time going forwards.
