This morning we felt the chill of autumn in the air, except when we were inside the boat where the electric heater kept us toasty and dry. We had a very calm, peaceful, sleep filled night in Blakely Island Marina, a pleasant contrast to the previous night when we were tethered to a state park mooring ball in high winds on a boat that behaved like a bucking bronco.

Today's weather forecast was favorable for crossing Rosario Strait between the San Juans and the mainland, so after eating breakfast and waiting for a contrary current in Peavine Pass to ease a little, we unpacked sails and left Blakley (and the San Juan Island archipelago) for the season. Another chapter on our voyage comes to a close. Current was still strong in Peavine so we slowly eased our way to Rosario.

Once out of Peavine's grip we raised sails and beat our way to the south end of Cypress Island in increasingly bouncy seas. Since the water current was in the opposite direction of the wind, the waves were much larger than we expected. After we finished lunch we made a left turn and beam reached into Guemes Channel.

A sailboat about twice our size and with fancy cut sails had been chasing us since Peavine Pass, and finally caught up and passed us near the Anacortes ferry landing. But then the wind lightened and we caught a more favorable current than they did, so we closed in on them and would have passed them back except they turned on their motor. Eventually the wind died completely and we too motored the last mile or two to Anacortes.

Since Anacortes is one of our reciprocal moorage sites, we pulled into the designated free slip right away, before contacting the marina for directions or permission. It turns out this was a good idea - a large powerboat in the marina was looking for the same free dock space, but got lost and was getting directions over the VHF radio by the marina staff. After losing several moorage races to bigger, faster powerboats in summer afternoons earlier in the season, it was nice to finally win one. We packed the boat up, lit the diesel stove & oven, and checked into the marina office. We returned to the boat and Heather mixed the beer bread dough we picked up from a pub in Friday Harbor and put it in the now warm oven. We went grocery shopping while it baked, and when we got back the whole boat smelled like fresh bread, mmm! There are few things quite as pleasing as stepping onto your very own 22 foot, cutter rigged loaf of bread.

After putting the groceries away we had barbecue chicken and the fresh bread for dinner. The bread was awesome. We ate the whole loaf! Thankfully we bought a double batch of mix and we still have half the mix left. After an evening stroll around Anacortes we are relaxing to music and working on new puzzles in the latest issue of Dell's Math Puzzles and Logic Problems, a long awaited treat.

The next day, before we cracked open the chart folder of south Puget Sound and headed for Olympia, we visited an Anacortes power boat dealer... but that's another story.