The 2019 Salish 100, preparations

It all started with a conversation at the 2018, Wooden Boat Festival

in Port Townsend, WA.

Marty Loken, a local small boat enthusiast and director of the Port Townsend Pocket Yachters, made the announcement that he was thinking about organizing a new small boat cruise on Puget Sound (also known as the Salish Sea). After having missed a number of the Pocket Yacht Palooza "Palooza Crooza" events, I just knew that I could not miss this exciting opportunity. He called it The Salish 100, a small boat cruise from Olympia, WA, to Port Townsend, WA, a distance of almost exactly 100 miles, with as many as a hundred boats taking part, coming from all over the country! It sounded like so much fun I instantly signed up, and prepared to join the adventure. Of course, the first thing I had to do was get a boat!

Vanilla

Enter Vanilla, a 1984 Montgomery 15 sailboat. I had owned one of these boats before, and my sailing partner Arnie had actually bought and refurbished my previous boat, so the idea of sailing in tandem on sister ships was irresistible. Vanilla was in great condition, and was small enough to trailer behind my Subaru Outback, so I grabbed her from a seller in Port Townsend, and started outfitting her for the cruise. I vacillated back and forth on towing a dinghy, but in the end decided that the flexibility it would afford was worth the extra trouble to tow, so I added Cupcake, a 7 foot wooden dink to the fleet. (This decision was going to come back and bite me, but that's for a later chapter...)

Cupcake
Don't let the cuteness fool you, she is evil to the core

The cruise was set for June 21st, through June 28th, 7 days to travel 100 miles. It seemed do-able, but I was very concerned about being on a 15 foot boat with no inside sitting headroom for a week straight. What if it rained the entire time? What if the winds were too strong for my little boat? Did I have enough fuel if there was no wind? Would I be bored? Or lonely? How much food should I bring? What clothes should I bring? Would my anchor hold? Where would I go to the toilet?!?!?!? All of these questions were sorted out, (or ignored) and on Friday, June 21st, Arnie and I hitched up our little Montgomerys, and set off for Olympia!

On the road to Olympia

The trip to Olympia was an easy drive, and after rigging the boats in the Swantown Marina loading area, we launched from their very steep ramp at low tide. (After, I must say, what could only be described as a PERFECT job backing down. I'm still learning how to back a trailer smoothly, and I wish someone had a video camera going for that one!) Someone had stolen our reserved slip, so we just tucked in where we could and made ourselves secure. It was so exciting walking around and seeing the huge variety of boats already there, with more arriving every minute. Sailboats, row boats, powerboats, kayaks, and even a paddle boarder were taking part in this incredible adventure!

Vanilla, ready to go!

Arnie's (and my former) Montgomery 15, Iku Turso

A Welsford Penguin, with a beautiful canoe for a dinghy

Many boats had less accommodations than even this

So many cute little boats!

Grasshopper, the media boat for Off Center Harbor

Bunny Whaler, a former R2AK participant

A Hobie Cat?! Seriously hardcore, and he had a guitar with him!

A Michalak Scram Pram

A beautiful wooden cat boat

Montgomery row! There were a lot of Montgomery/Sage 15's and 17's on this cruise, 

they are very popular in Puget Sound

Sigh, one of my dream boats, a Welsford S.C.A.M.P.

Arnie had had the good sense early on to not only find us a place to leave our rigs in Port Townsend, but also secure us a shuttle with a friend of his, so the three of us took off for PT to drop off our cars and trailers so they would be waiting for us when we arrived at the end of the cruise. (Assuming we arrived. Gulp) It was a long drive after having already driven from Everett to Lake Stevens, and then down to Olympia, and it was unfortunately made longer by a horrendous motorcycle accident that shut the two lane road down for over an hour. We eventually made it though, and after dropping off the rigs we hopped in Bob's uncomfortable BMW, and drove right back down to Olympia! That much sitting in a car could only be offset by a massive pasta dinner, and being sailors and cheapskates we stormed Olive Garden for some mediocre Italian style food. After gorging ourselves we could hardly keep our eyes open, so we said farewell to Bob, and crawled into our cramped cabins for our first night aboard of the cruise. I didn't think my nerves would let me sleep, but I was so tired I turned the lights out around 9pm. Despite the noisy gurgling of the water against the lapstrakes in the hull I was soon fast asleep.

We were really going to attempt this thing.