Port Townsend!

Pat towed us north last week(huge thanks, Pat!) and we’ve been in hectic mode ever since – mostly dealing with the amount of stuff we have and getting enough sleep. Port Townsend rocks! It has a big wooden boat industry and the place is full of wrinkled old sailors and their boats. and the r2ak racers are just beginning to arrive. It’s Memorial day weekend so tomorrow’s a holiday. Our solar panel and battery and the other electrical bits arrived on Friday evening, too late for us to collect them so we don’t get them till Tuesday. Today a local friend is going to take our mountain of stuff from tiny Bobbles and store it in his shed so we can go sailing. Could be interesting! The first job will be to test the repairs on the oar we broke in Portland. If it works, phew! If it doesn’t there’s a previous racer with a pair for sale – a bit bigger than ours and a major budget buster but we’ll make them work. Everyone is wonderfully helpful. I expect it’s mostly out of pity for what we are about to try…We are beginning to get a feel for just how much of a headbang it is likely to be. Bobbles really is tiny and we think we will be limited to our basic survival gear – TPS survival suits, normal wet weather gear, thermals, bear suits and lots of dry socks. Food, cooking fuel, water and medicinal compound, lifejackets, handheld VHFVery High Frequency radio. Short range radio equipment for voice and other applications such as AISAutomatic Identification System. An automatic tracking system used on ships and by vessel traffic services (VTS) for identifying and locating vessels.., satphone, smart phones and ipad with Navionics, Garmin chartplotter,…and very limited power generation to keep them all fed with wiggly amps. Handheld, battery operated GPS for emergency backup. Ain’t going to be no breeze!