5 Aug 21

As a footnote to yesterday’s efforts to make reservations for Covid-19 tests, I woke up at midnight last night and was able to get reservations for both of us at Walgreens in Renton, WA (near SeaTac airport, “only” 1.5 hours drive away) for a Rapid Diagnostic Test (supposedly accepted by the Canadians), on Saturday afternoon (7 Aug) at 15:00. Still a pain in the proverbial, but at least we do not have to fool with (or pay for) the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston. We should have the results well before arriving at Sidney, BC on the morning of the 9th and the results will be valid until 15:00 on the 10th, in cashew have trouble clearing into Canada, because of the CBSA strike. I tried several times in the morning after we woke up to improve on this appointment, but that is looking like the best we can do. We decided to just hang out at Eagle Harbor until tomorrow, when we will move over to Anacortes to collect the car. In the afternoon, we read, played guitar and napped until it was time for Captain’s Hour and dinner. The solar panel works great; the batteries were fully charged by 09:00 and stayed charged until just before sunset. The wind got up in the evening; we had a few westerly gusts to 21 kn, but we are snug here in Eagle Harbor.

6 Aug 21

The wind continued to gust up all night long, which made for a few sleep interruptions, but nothing serious. No slips opened up in Cap Sante Marina and we decided to stay here for another day, rather than spend the afternoon and night anchored outside Anacortes; we will move over tomorrow morning to collect the car to get our Covid-19 tests. I completed our application to enter Canada on the ArriveCan app. We should be good to go on Monday morning, we hope. After lunch, I ordered a replacement hot water heater; our existing one is rusting heavily on the bottom and I am concerned about imminent failure. We booked a reservation at Cap Sante Marina on 24 Aug; we will clear customs there on our way south to Seattle to pick up Ashley.

7 Aug 21

It was overcast, rainy and cool when we awoke, but we were up just after 07:00 to get ready for our run down to Anacortes. We were away from the mooring ball at Eagle Harbor by 08:40, ran south between Cypress and Guemes Islands with a following tide, making 11.0 kn over the ground. It was a different picture when we turned into the tidal current in Guemes Channel (between Guemes Island and Anacortes), where we averaged 3.6 kn over the ground. Anyway, we were anchored in Anacortes Roads, just SE of the entry to Cap Sante Marina; first time we have ever had to anchor out here, but the marina is completely full this weekend because of the Anacortes Arts Festival, which is apparently quite a destination. Within a few minutes, we were in the dinghy and rowed into Cap Sante looking for a place to park the dinghy for 5 or 6 hours. The marina does not have a dinghy dock, as it turns out, but we rousted our buddy Dave on “Windsong” (our dock neighbor from a month ago when we were fitting out after launch) and he let us park in front of his boat. We collected the car from Cap Sante Heated Storage and, after checking (fruitlessly) for our mail at the marina office, headed out of Anacortes for Renton. We pulled into Walgreens in Renton at 13:30 (a bit early for our 15:00 appointment), just in time for them to close the drive-up window for their lunch break. So, we drove across the street to Safeway to load up on gin, wine and tonic, plus a few groceries. We were back in line at Walgreens just after 14:00 and were all tested up by 14:45. After negotiating Seattle traffic on the 405 and I-5 northbound, along with a pretty good rain squall at Everett, we were in Anacortes by 16:35. Still no mail, but we made a quick stop in Safeway for yoghurt, turned in the car to the storage place and rowed back out to the boat, arriving about 17:30, just in time for a slightly late start to Captain’s Hour. We had just settled down when we received our test results from Walgreens: “negative” for both of us, thank goodness. That certainly sweetened the G&Ts. During the day, ArriveCan advised that we would need to update our entry requests at 00:01 EDT on 9 Aug (hopefully, it will work here at 21:01 PDT on 8 Aug - so we can get to bed at a normal time). We have also heard, from John in Vancouver, that the CBSA have settled their dispute, so maybe we will not have too much trouble clearing into Canada on Monday. The wind went around to the W after we got in and gusted up to more than 20 kn in the evening, so no mosquitos.  

48-30.544’N, 122-36.071’W; Log = 7.2, Sum (2021) = 213.6 N-m; Eng hours = 1.5, Sum = 2778.2