7/1 Lake Union to La Conner

We had thoughts of getting up early to arrive at the fuel dock when they opened at 7 o'clock. We slept in a bit, and got up at 7 o'clock instead. We retrieved our freshly painted anchor from the dock, backed out of the slip and got underway. The weather had changed from the last couple of days – it was overcast and cool, although the forecast was for it to eventually burn off and turn into a nice day.

We arrived at Ballard Oil and took on 232 gallons of diesel – that combined with what was already in the tanks may very well last us the entire trip, or if not, will require only a little supplement to get home.

The small lock was closed, and a tug with two barges was coming up in the large lock. After he got his tow out and repositioned, we and a few other boats standing by headed into the lock, larger boats first. We were of course tied to the wall, with a couple of boats rafted to us. Just to make it interesting, the tide was at minus 3.4 feet, so we'd be going way down. Erin was concerned about the length of her lock line, as the lock tender had placed it on a bollard quite a bit forward of the boat. I tied a 25' line to the end of it just for insurance. When we reached bottom and were told to tie off our lines, she had 3 or 4 feet left before the knot.

We headed north without incident, chugging along at around 8 knots, although our speed varied from 7 to 10 knots with the current. Once we passed Edmonds and the southern tip of Whidbey Island, the flood tide gave us a current in our favor the rest of the way to La Conner. We noted the square rigged tall ship Eagle (I'm pretty sure that's the name), a Coast Guard training ship, off in the distance. There is a tall ships event in Tacoma in a couple of days, so I'm sure they're headed in that direction.

We gave Trav and Barb a call to let them know we were underway, and to find out where they were. They were just wrapping things up at the dock in Roche Harbor, with plans to go to Garrison Bay for the next couple of nights. Crabbing season there opens tomorrow, so maybe they'll have some fresh Dungeness by the time we find them.

If we had the earlier start, the timing would have been good to continue on to Deception Pass rather than La Conner, but as it was, when we made the turn into the La Conner channel, the current in Deception Pass was already up to over 5 knots. It doesn't wait for anyone.

We arrived in town around 5 o'clock, and ended up with a great moorage spot. We are at a public dock in front of what used to be the Lighthouse Restaurant. It had been closed for some time, but looks like it's open again – don't know under what name. The dock had a small runabout tied to it as we went by, but we saw some folks with a couple of dogs approaching the dock so we turned around. Sure enough, they hopped in the boat and eventually pulled away while we idled against the current waiting to take their spot.

We're right in the middle of town, so it's convenient for doing some window shopping. As a bonus, there's an unrestricted Wifi connection here, so we're taking advantage of that to check email and update this blog. Tomorrow we'll head north up the Swinomish Channel, turn left at Anacortes and head across Rosario Strait to the San Juan Islands.