Everything bad happens at night

We’d just taken showers, my hair was wet, my PJs on. The cabin was filled with the scent of fresh-baked bread that had just finished baking in the bread machine. A documentary about the history of crop circles was lulling us into a stupor.

The whistle of wind through our rigging was the first to awaken a hazardous feeling. Our anchorage on the West side of Clark Island is open to Southerly winds, but we had hoped the 2,400’ mount Constitution on nearby Orcas Island would shield us.

In the Salish sea, currents rather than wind dictate the direction a boat faces when on a mooring. The current was pushing our bow North and the waves and a cold 17 knot wind came from the South, hammering our stern. The dinghy was tied to the back of Adventure, taking the brunt of the building waves.

We threw on pants and sweatshirts and flew into action. Sean practiced his acrobatics, balancing in the writhing dinghy as he clipped the outboard to the hoist. Then repeated the task with the dinghy itself.

Once everything was pulled up and secured, it was 9:30 pm. Twilight was gone. Darkness fell like an evil cloak, wrapping around my psyche to choke out any hope that we’d make it to a safe harbor.

As Sean released the mooring line and I motored away, the brightness from the chart plotter display killed my night vision. I focused solely on the chart, skirting the nearby reef that clawed out to grab passing boats. The wind picked up to 24 knots. I willed my courage back, turned on the autopilot and then focused on maintaining our course as the wind and current pushed us one direction and the other.

Even with the brightness turned down, I struggled to see anything but island masses in the darkness. We divided the tasks. Sean had the eyes on the water and I had the eyes on the chart. Unfortunately for me, that meant I was at the helm in the wind with my wet hair while he was tucked up under the dodger, looking out the windshield. But we were only 6.5 miles away from our destination at Cypress Island. I could handle freezing for the hour it would take.

As we cleared the land mass of Orcas Island (yes, the very one we hoped to gain protection from), the wind began to decrease. The island had been funneling the wind right into us. This is how it goes out here. You just never know how the islands will impact wind direction and speed.

As we approached Pelican Bay, I slowed the boat and Sean flashed a light into the darkness to find the mooring field. When his light finally hit a ball, my spirits lifted. We always catch our moorings on the first try, but with the darkness and current, it took us four.

The mooring balls here are only 100 yards off the shore and the current was pushing us into the shore. So every time we missed the ball attempt, the shore beckoned us and I’d have to motor quickly away from it. At the same time, the mooring ball we’d missed became an obstacle very near our boat that had disappeared from our view in the darkness.

There was much “communication” going on between us during the mooring attempts. But all was forgiven when at last we succeeded.

The wind was zero knots as we wrapped our cold and wearying bodies into our heated bed.

Note: This is the same bay where we saved a newborn seal a few years ago!