...........--- Reddy Bay & Cavanaugh Bay ---
......................................--- July 18 - 19, 2009 ---
18 JUL 09 -- Night's Anchorage -- South side of Reddy Bay
( N. 48o 36.834' -- W. 116o 53.644') (Same as on 12 JUL 09)
9.1 miles under sail and 2.5 miles on the outboard
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Sorry, but there won't be pictures until later in the day, so you will have to read a bit first.
This day proved to be our most trying day on the water to this point, but first let's go back to leaving our anchorage as this might help someone learn from our mistakes.
We left anchor on sail only as the wind wasn't trying to push us into the shore and we had a little room to maneuver behind the rock shoal area off our bow. We did have a big wind though and it was pushing the boat really hard on the anchor rode and I had a hard time pulling the boat forward on the line and then bringing the anchor itself up. We have a 22 lb. Bruce that we love and 30 feet of 1/4 inch chain so all of that is quite heavy, but really dependable. Up to this point I would pull the rode in and stuff the line in the anchor bag if I wasn't having too much trouble and would then start piling the chain on the foredeck right behind the pulpit until the anchor cleared the water and would then reach over the pulpit and grab the anchor and put it into the anchor tube on that side. Well things got away from me at about that point and the chain and some of the line all went back over the side and I had to start all over. It was then that I realized that if when I got the anchor about to the surface I could then take a couple wraps of the chain around a cleat and then grab the anchor and put it in the tube. That way if things got away from me there was no chain and/or line going back in the water where it could possibly get caught in the prop or something else if Ruth had us underway. We usually have her start taking us out into the lake whenever I tell her that the anchor is up off the bottom and near the boat and we are drifting.
With the anchor free and the jib up the boat swung around down wind parallel to the shore and Ruth sailed down a ways past the rocks offshore and then out into the lake proper. Normally if I'm having a hard time pulling the boat to the anchor Ruth can just run it towards the anchor using the outboard, but this time with high winds the boat was swinging back and forth on the anchor and that would of been hard.
We started tacking south on the lake in the direction of our 2nd night's anchorage. We needed to call Grandview Resort to see if the forestay turnbuckle had come in from Blue Water Yachts since we had been out of cell phone service since going to Upper Priest.
The wind started being inconsistent in both strength and direction, but we were making headway going south into the wind. We hadn't seen many sailboats on Priest actually sailing, but today there were two in the distance and a number of power boats and pontoon boats in the distance also. Next the wind really increased in intensity and the boat started heeling easily up to 20 degrees, according to the inclinometer, and would go past if it wasn't pointed very close into the wind. Clearly in retrospect we should of reefed the main by now, but hadn't. Ruth wasn't having fun and it was a balancing act of not going into the irons and also not heeling to much so as to not scare Ruth to death. Remember she doesn't know how to swim at this point in her sailing career and has spent very little time on the water prior to our sailing. She is a real trooper to do this and still loves it. We had bought her a self-inflating PFD and will work on the swimming/drown proofing when she is in warmer waters than these were.
Meanwhile back to the increasing wind. We finally reefed the main down to the 2nd reef point. The better late than never deal. Our jib is a hank on so not much we could do there. We were still tacking down the lake towards the nights anchorage over 2 miles away and looking around noticed that the two sailboats had sailed into their slips and had taken their sails down. Also now there were only one or two power boats we could still see out. The wind kept getting stronger and finally even I had to give up and we rounded up into the wind and I dropped the sails. I took a quick wind speed reading and found the winds to be consistently over 20 mph and gusting to over 25.
I started the 19 year old Honda 8 HP up and at about 1/2 throttle started down the lake at 4 knots still determined to get to the small protected cove where I thought we would be able to escape the wind and waves.
Now the wind was a steady 20-25 mph. The waves were being driven for miles up the lake from the south and were white capping and about 1 1/2 to 2 feet tall on their back sides. Not much to a lot of you, but for us with less than 2 weeks on the water plenty for us. Ruth pointed out the fact that there was no other boats that we could see on the lake. Waves were breaking on the bow with spray coming back into the cockpit and that was also a new experience for us. Ruth went below some and started to feel squeamish. I talked her back up into the cockpit and got her to focus on the horizon and count mountain peaks and that helped. At this point this was the roughest water I'd ever been on except at sea in the Navy. There wasn't much we could do, but soldier on and actually the Mac was just fine and taking all of this without any real problem. It was just a matter of us trusting her and getting use to it, so on this day we gained a lot of confidence in the Mac and appreciation for those who have endured much worst than what we were experiencing in their Macs.
Finally we broke free of the large waves as we motored towards "our" cove around the corner of a point that was on the west side of the lake.
Upon reaching the cove we found two..........
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...........high dollar motor boats anchor at both sides of the small cove also apparently escaping the waves in the main channel. It was amazing how calm the water was here. There wasn't much room for us between the one boat and .....
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........the other, but still I felt there was enough room for us to swing on anchor and not hit them if they stayed. With Ruth on the tiller and outboard and me on the bow we motored toward shore between the two power boats. As we neared to a hundred yards of shore a pontoon boat full of people entered into the small cove from the east and cut around the stern of the one powerboat about 40 feet from shore and headed directly at our bow and where we were headed. I directed Ruth to not change course and gave him a jester as to indicate what the hell was he trying to do as he had entered the cove way behind us. At the last moment he turned hard to his starboard just as he cleared the the stern of the motorboat and headed back out into the lake just off our port side. With him out of the way and with us about 100 feet from shore Ruth turned hard to port to run us parallel to the shore and back into the small wind that was entering the bay and towards the stern of the major dollar powerboat.
I dropped the 22 lb. Bruce over the side along with 30 feet of chain and about 40 feet of line in the 8-9 feet of water. Ruth flicked the Honda into neutral and killed the motor. The Mac came to a nice stop still well away from the power boat, probably to the owner's relief as he had been watching all of this.
I got into the Zodiac and pushed off to shore with the end of the 7/16th inch 3 twist anchor line we took off of the 3rd anchor after we decided it was kind of stupid to be tying the Mac to shore with a $4.00 line from the discount store. For the same reason we were now also towing the Zodiac with a much heavier line than what was in the earlier pictures. On shore the end of the line was tied to a tree. Using the line I pulled myself back to the Mack without using the oars that came with the Zodiac and must of been designed by a sadist as it is the most awkward boat I have ever rowed and now I usually just paddle it from the bow.
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Back onboard the Mac was pulled towards the shore with the shore line until the anchor line was taught and the stern was about 25 feet offshore. We were set for the night and now in good spirits after enduring the first really rough water for us.
A couple hours later the wind went down on the lake for the night and the powerboats left probably with there destination being one of the multimillion dollar homes that dot the shoreline of the prettiest mountain lake either of us had ever seen.
........Supper was at 5 and was Pasta Prima Vera with canned chicken added along with cream corn, bread and coffee. Of course this was also lunch today as we had been busy earlier. When I use to backpack and was too broke to buy freeze dried food I discovered the pasta mixes at the grocery store that are cheap, light and taste good away from home and are easy to spice up with one of the canned meats.
This was our 8th day on the water and it seemed like only yesterday when we had left the State Park boat ramp. We figure that millions of people around the world never get to have even one day like the one we had just had and we both felt really fortunate for what we had.
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As the sun went down in the west we ran ...........
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........... the generator for an hour and .................
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......... topped off both of the batteries and I wrote all of this down.
Life is good for us!!
19 JUL 09 -- Night's Anchorage -- South end of Cavanaugh Bay( N. 48o 42.045' -- W. 116o 50.970')
7 1/2 miles sailing and 1/2 mile on outboard...........
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After.............
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........breakfast we were able to sail off of anchor with a pretty brisk east wind blowing in on us. We should of left earlier, but Ruth was somewhat apprehensive after the day before, especially after seeing the waves on the lake begin to build.
The south end of Cavanaugh Bay about 7 1/2 miles away was our destination for the day. This is the only major side bay that runs for any distance on the east side of Priest Lake. Sailing off anchor we had fallen off to the north about 1/2 mile and the wind shifted and started coming in from the southeast, which was our intended direction of sail. It took us some time to regain the 1/2 mile we had fallen off, but we finally started making some headway beating into the wind and started passing the entrance to Indian Creek Bay after a couple miles of progress. A Hobie Cat came out from the State Park, which is where we had started our trip some days earlier, and went by us waving bye-bye. Next the wind shifted all the way around and came in from the west and we started past Eight Mile Island running pretty good on almost a beam reach. The entrance to Cavanaugh Bay was now within sight 3 miles away to the southeast and I thought we will be there in no time. Wrong. About a mile from the bay the winds really started to die and it took about an hour to do the last mile to the entrance to the bay and we still then had almost 1 1/3 miles to go to the south end of the bay.
We stubbornly stuck to not using the outboard. Heck we were on vacation for the rest of our lives anyway and just enjoyed floating along. The wind dropped under 1 mph, but we were still floating along in the direction we needed to go. Then with about 1/2 mile to go we got some stronger north wind and sailed right down to Cavanaugh Bay Resort, our destination.
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Next was the part neither of us was yet comfortable with and that was docking as we had only done it 3 times prior to this in our short sailing careers. We made one pass with the outboard to check things out and kind of get in the rhythm. There was a long dock with shorter slips for motorboats and one longer slip at the end that could hold two longer boats with a motorboat to the land side of that slip. The lake side of the slip was just inside of the long "T" end of the dock with the outside of the end of the dock reserved for boats fueling from the pump there. Just outside of the end was a floating log breakwater a little longer than the end of the dock.
At this point Ruth still didn't feel comfortable with the outboard and steering under this type of situation even though I trust her after the experience running us up and down the Thoroughfare going and coming from Upper Priest Lake. I took over the outboard and tiller and pointed us toward the end slip going as slow as possible yet still having enough headway for steerage. I really worried about crunching the motorboat that would be next to us. When the bow was about 20 feet from the end of the slip I ran forward onto the bow and Ruth took the tiller and flicked the outboard into neutral. The bow cleared the end and side of the slip by a few feet and I jumped off onto the deck with the bow rope and started to bring the Mac to a halt before she killed the end of the slip.
The only thing for us to tie to was a vertical pipe the dock was riding up and down on and 1/2 of a broken cleat. I took a couple wraps around the pipe and threw in a couple 1/2 hitches and then ran down the dock where Ruth threw me the stern line and I was able to pull the stern over to port just before the back of the Mac bumped against the motorboat a few feet away. It all went well, but we needed at this point to learn to use the outboard and reverse so as to not make these dockings so dramatic.
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Right after we docked a float plane landed and came over to the dock beside us and picked up some people for a ride.
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We had read about the BBQ at Cavanaugh's and wanted to eat at least one meal off the boat while on Priest as all of the meals for the previous nine days were aboard the boat.
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We went up and bought 3 bags of ice at $2.50 each and found them to be quite a bit smaller than the ones we had bought at Grandview 5 days earlier. We now only had food and drinks in the Rubbermaid with the double lid, but it didn't keep ice as good as the Coleman Extreme even though they are both suppose to be 5-6 day coolers. We decided to go eat and get 3 more bags of ice and pack the Coleman with them. I told Ruth that we were buying $15.00 worth of ice to keep about $5.00 worth of food and drinks cold, but she didn't seem to notice the comment.
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There is a ramp of sorts next to Cavanaugh's that as far as I could tell was free for the using, but no place really where you could leave a vehicle and trailer nearby as the road out front was very narrow.
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I took this picture of a picture inside showing the lake in winter.
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We went into the restaurant and each of us ordered a BBQ platter that came with a very generous portion of pulled pork along with a chicken leg/thigh, coleslaw and chili beans that were topped with red onions and cheese. It was some of the best BBQ I've ever had and we were full after the pulled pork, beans and coleslaw. We got a doggie bag for the chicken and looked forward to the next night when we could re-heat it on the BBQ grill on the Mac. Ruth waited at the outside tables for two overlooking the beach, dock and lake as I froze my arms off hauling 3 bags of ice under one arm and the chicken in the other down to the waiting Mac at the very end of the dock. After the ice and the chicken were in the coolers I returned to Ruth and we walked about 3/4's of a mile toward Coolin and the 3/4's mile back. We needed the walk as after 9 days on the water the only walking we had done was the pack trail at Upper Priest Lake.
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Upon returning to the boat we tried to plan an escape from the slip. This proved to be bigger problem than our entrance. The wind was blowing in from the water side pretty hard now and the Zodiac was not cooperating floating off the stern and starboard side.
I undid the bow line, but held onto it trying to keep the Mac from blowing over to the other side of the slip and went back and untied the stern line also, but kept a hold of it. Ruth was on the outboard. I walked the Mac back to where the bow was at the end of the dock/slip and pushed the Mac back at an angle towards shore and jumped aboard. Ruth put the outboard in forward and started forward with the starboard side now very close to the dock. The Zodiac of course decided to wedge itself between the side of the Mac and the edge of the dock and the weight of the Mac started to compress the inflatable against the dock end. About the time I expected to hear a horrendous pop and see the Zodiac go down it popped free still in one piece and inflated. While this was happening the bow of the Mac was headed towards the log breakwater now only a few feet ahead. Ruth moved forward and I gassed the Honda and put both the tiller and the outboard hard over and we slid by with the log breakwater a foot or two off the starboard side and slid out into the bay. It would prove to be a while before we were comfortable with docks and slips and we have a lot of respect for those of you who go in and out of them every time you take your Mac out.
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After our escape from the dock we motored over about 1/4 mile to the west side of the bay where there was only one house and a hanger.....
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that housed a couple....
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...planes a few hundred yards away. Going on anchor and.........
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........ tying to shore was pretty anticlimactic after our experience at the dock. We had a nice dinner and took time to watch the......
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.......last light of the night before getting a great night's sleep with no knowledge at the time of the problem we would be faced with the next morning with the Mac's boom/mast.
