Weather: showers, cold, foggy.   Wind: S 10 knots. Sea: calm.

Engine Hours: 33.9  Fuel used: 42.2  Distance Plotted: 44.2NM

Up early to catch the ebb at its best leaving EBM by 0935. All systems working good after a bit of a computer glitch loading Windows.  The course for today is very straight forward and we proceed at a steady 8+ knots burning about 4.25 gallons per hour.

Still getting comfortable with the new radar and the Nobeltec chart plotter software and the foggy rainy morning gives us a good chance to test both.  Logs and debris in the water are already quite apparent.

In a little over five hours, we are pulling into Oak Harbor. The slips are only 40ft long with cleats not set right for us but we manage to get secure with just a minor bump on the nose.   It is here that we catch up with our partner boat,  Jo’s sister Dottie & brother-in-law Ken, (who I call Captain Chaos) aboard their homebuilt ‘SaVega 42′ MV Dreamweaver. We have dinner together aboard WS to celebrate.

Weather: cool, intermittent showers. Wind: calm  Sea: calm

Engine Hours: 31.6   Fuel used to date: 37.5 gal.

Commissioned, christened, warrenteed and finally ready, the new Wandering Star is finally ready for sea. After 18 months, thousands of decisions, gut wrenching anxiety, and seemingly endless anticipation, the day has come to leave the nest that has been Lake Union and take to the salt and the adventure beyond…

The learning curve is always steep on a new boat. Thinking I would move some fuel to the starboard tank so we could take on more fuel before leaving caused a near disaster. As the tank filled, WS listed enough for fuel to come out of the starboard fuel air vent. So what was meant to be a leisurely departure turned into a bit of a fire drill and my shipmate and I had to scramble to prevent an oil spill.

We departed the Seattle Yacht Club guest dock post haste and headed for the Diamond Bay Marina fuel dock to sort things out. With a very cautious fueling complete, it was time to leave Lake Union at last and set out the busy fisherman’s channel for the Ballard Locks.

Locking through went smoothly. The experience we’ve had with the 99 locks we went through on the Great Circle with WS1 certainly didn’t hurt either.  We dropped some 40’ to sea level in the “big” lock with about 6 other boats, hung a left out of the channel and headed to the Elliot Bay Marina for the first night of our cruise to Alaska.