We woke up to a mostly sunny day. After making some breakfast, we tidied up the boat and prepared for departure. We were off the dock by 10:00. As we crossed Bellingham Bay we were met with 15-17 knot winds on the nose that also created maybe a 2-foot chop. It wasn’t terrible, but with a guest prone to seasickness, it was a bit stressful. Fortunately, as soon as we got across the bay and into the lee of Guemes and Cypress Islands, everything calmed down and the ride smoothed out.
Around 3 1/2 to 4 hours later, we arrived at Prevost Harbor on Stuart Island. We found a nice spot and dropped the hook, which quickly grabbed in the muddy bottom 22 or so feet below us.
As soon as we were secured, we set about dropping the tender so we could head to shore for a hike out to the Turn Point Lighthouse. This would be the first instance of a mechanical problem we’ve ever experienced on Sea Stock. The davit has four functions: 1) hook up, 2) hook down, 3) arm up, and 4) arm down. As we started the process to drop the tender, we discovered that the ‘arm down’ function wasn’t working. Everything else worked fine. What I worried about was getting the arm into too high a position to effectively maneuver the tender on and off the boat and then not being able to lower it again. For example, if the hook cable was not long enough to reach the water with the arm in a near vertical position, we’d be screwed.
I frantically started texting with the tech specialist at NWE to see if we could repair this issue. He had an idea of what would cause this and he guided us through the process of tearing the salon apart to find the coils and pumps that control the davit. We then experimented with swapping the coils to see if we could confirm the issue. Sure enough, when we swapped the coils around, a different one of the four functions stopped working. We put it all back together since we didn’t have any spare coils onboard and figured we’d find one at one of our upcoming stops. Meanwhile, we were just careful not to raise the arm at all since it worked fine at its current position.
Finally, after all that fiddling, we suited up (safety first!) and were off to shore.
The hike to Turn Point is an easy stroll down a scenic dirt road. Only towards the end do you find a pretty steep hill, but it is short and we all survived.
When you reach the lighthouse, you are rewarded with some beautiful views and, if you are there during working hours, the tour of the lighthouse is well worth the time. Unfortunately, on this visit, we passed the docents driving towards us on the dirt road as we hiked towards Turn Point. They had finished for the day.
After returning to the boat it was time for happy hour. So cheese and crackers were eaten while wine was consumed. Later we made dinner and enjoyed one of the most beautiful sunsets we’ve seen. All in all, a great day.
