Selkie

I drove up to Anacortes on Saturday to check on Selkie. I planned on leaving before 8:00 but didn’t get on the road until about 9:00 (couldn’t find the keys so I had to call my dad fishing in Idaho!). The trip north was horrendous. It was raining with a lot of traffic, several accidents, some construction, etc. I hated every moment of it. After stopping in Marysville for coffee I finally got to Selkie at about noon. From the ground she looked great but the deck and cabin top were very dirty. Inside was quite nice, with no sign of leakage, apart from what I expected under the smokestack hole. I unloaded the cushions and other supplies I brought. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a long enough shore power cable or an extension cord to get some power on board. I checked the batteries but they were almost dead. I prepared to do the work I planned on doing, but without power it was just too dark. After realizing I couldn’t do my work I did some general cleaning and preparing for launch. It was raining so hard I gave up bending on the sails and just put them inside. After exercising and closing the seacocks I did a quick scrub of the deck and cabin top, collecting a bag of rubbish as I went. I had to deal with a wasp nest under the steering wheel cover. Luckily they were hibernating and so moved very slowly while I was brushing them off. After a few hours of poking around I was satisfied she could be launched, but I don’t really know if she will start. I guess we’ll find out Thursday.
I took a couple of pictures, loaded up the car with some extra supplies we left on board, and left. The drive back to Olympia was just as bad, except I went down 405 instead of 5 just to see if it was any better – no luck. Finally I made it back at 7:30.
Today I talked to the yard and arranged for them to launch her on Thursday, followed by us arriving Friday. We should know at that time what the situation is and make the necessary repairs for the trip to Olympia.