I finally finished up Yggdrasil and took her out for her first (and probably last, because it's fall now) real trip of the season. My friend Grady and I went out to Clark island for two days, and somehow managed to get slightly lost on the fairly tiny 55 acre island. Clark island was stunningly beautiful, with clear water and small pocket beaches that looked almost tropical. Unfortunately, it was peak wasp season and the island was buzzing with the nasty little buggers. Yellow jackets were bad enough, but the bald faced hornets were extremely aggressive. We had to retreat to the boat halfway through the afternoon and didn't return until the cool air of evening had driven the buzzing demons back to their nests.
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| Leaving the Bay |
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| Clark Island |
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| Me |
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| Grady |
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| Madrone |
One of the really neat things about Clark island was the lack of names carved into most madrones. The island is rarely visited compared to most other public islands in the San Juans, so the usual hordes of pocket knife wielding teenagers haven't marred the soft bark of the hundreds of madrones on the island. There was only one tree on the end of a point that was at all name-ified.
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| Sunset |
The trip back to Bellingham was rather exciting. The outboard broke down about a half mile away from the island, so we had to sail the 10 or so miles back home. Thankfully, we had about 20 knts of wind most of the way, and made very good time even with reefed sails. Even sailing back into the harbor went fairly well; the only thing I crashed into was my own dock box.
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| New Flybridge |
Misogi got a new flybridge cover for the winter, as well as a new canvas enclosure for the aft deck.
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| Fogginess |
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| Valley |
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| Large Mountain Beetle |
I also took a bit of a non boat-related adventure with my parents. We went up to artists point for a hike in the mountains, and found a huge White-Spotted Sawyers Beetle along with some nice views of mountains and valleys. There were also a lot of bicycles, which made driving on the Mt Baker highway slow and dangerous. Bicycles are worse than jet skis.
