Friday, June 14, 2013

Thursday, 8September2011: Skyline to Kingston

Weather:  Sunny and mild.  Winds:  Light and variable.  Seas:  <1ft.

First leg of our trip to Gig Harbor to watch the Notre Dame/Michigan Under the Lights football game at RT's.  Late start, low winds and full marina at Port Townsend made for a longish day.  9.5hr motor sail to Kingston.  Arrived in the dark at a new marina.  Learned a couple things since the last time we had done this and I put Kelly on the bow with a flashlight to highlight the harbor entrance.  There are a couple lights on the harbor entrance, but the lights on shore as a background combined with the ferry lights masked them too well.

Along the way, saw osprey, dolphin and seals.  I probably cannot express just how magical the motoring at night was.  The seas were mostly flat, almost mirror.  The moon was full.  Visibility was outstanding.  Things above the water were cool, but what was going on below was magical.  As darkness descended, the underwater portion of the starboard ama started to glow bluish, leaving a 1-2ft trail.  The same with the port!  I looked aft and we had a bio-luminescence afterburner extending 15' back in the prop wash!  I called Kelly up onto the net.  From there, the boat looked like it was floating above the water!  Then, to add further mystery, I kept hearing a short lived flutter/splashing from the water.  I looked closer and saw silver flashes, reflections from the moonlight, in conjunction with the flutter/splash, at the surface of the water.  2-3in critters were apparently startled by the passing of the boat and, I assume, attempting to escape her.  We spent the next 45min sitting on the forward aka watching the show as Auto kept us on course.

At the time, I had no idea what they were.  Fish?  Squid?  Since then, at least as of this writing, I assume they were small fish, perhaps herring.  I base this on witnessing two pigeon guillemots working together in Fox Cove on Sucia Island.  As they dove, small 1-2in fish, herring I believe, tried to escape much the same way as the critters on the moonlit night did.  Flutter/splashing with partial leaps out of the water.

The last word on the night:  Magic....

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