Ice layer as Sea Eagle leaves the dock for the Thea Foss Waterway.
For New Year’s Eve, we headed south through the Tacoma Narrows to Wollochet Bay. The Tacoma Yacht Club has an outstation near the Estuary there and I had never visited that part of Puget Sound. The air temperature was 25° F when we backed out of the slip at first light, breaking through a thin layer of ice as Sea Eagle made her way out to the Thea Foss Waterway.
We caught the tail end of the flood tide, which pushed the boat along at 8.5 knots while burning a miserly 3.1 GPH of fuel. There were no boats out on the water, but plenty of Dahl’s Porpoises to keep us company. The entrance to Wollochet Bay looked like it had been carpet bombed with crap pots, so I’m guessing that it had to be the last day of crab season (as well as the last day of 2014).
Nordhavn 47, Sea Eagle anchored in Wollochet Bay.
Given the moderately high tide, I navigated Sea Eagle north through the narrow waters of Upper Wollochet Bay to the Tacoma Yacht club outstation. It was VERY shallow (with a -2′ tide predicted) and the turning basin was a little small (aka not enough privacy) to consider anchoring. I elected to head back out into the deeper bay and anchored up near the NW shore for out New Year’s celebration.
Later, one of the homeowner’s right next to where we anchored came out in their dinghy and told us they had been looking for a Nordhavn 47 for years, and were stunned when we anchored right in front of their house. So stunned in fact that they had looked at each other and were both wondering if the other hadn’t gone out and bought a new boat. They thought I was pulling right up to their dock! I guess I should have put a bow on the front of the boat! 😉
Dozens of Harbor Seals were looking for lunch near the Wollochet Bay Estuary Park