9 boats and 14 crew rendezvoused at Winslow City Dock on the beautiful weekend of October 7th and 8th 2023. The boats were: Altair – Sceptre 41, Lolo – J 37, Madrugador – Cal 40, Navona – Catalina 380, Monte Solaro - Beneteau First 44, Outlaw – J 30, Solstice – Norseman 400, Wind Dancer – Tartan 3800, and Lucky Dawg - Mercury DR 620.
Saturday was as warm as any summer day – maybe a record for this time of year. Was it really 80 degrees in October? Saturday had calm air, so we motored across the Sound to Winslow where Solstice and Lolo had arrived the night before. With the retirement of the dock master, our paid reservation had evaporated, so David Huntsman defended our dock space from the crowd of boats arriving at this popular location. Even then we overflowed our space, and several of our boats were rafted together. Before dinner, we met up for a dockside happy hour.
My thanks to Peggy Watt for making our Casa Rojas dinner reservation! We had a fun dinner with lots of fascinating conversations the length of the table including Pacific crossings and races, scuba experiences, and all kinds of explorations around the water.
At cruisers midnight we returned to the boats for a very calm evening and good night’s sleep. In the morning, a couple of boats headed out for early returns to Seattle, while 5 crews met up at the Blackbird Bakery for quiche breakfasts.
The last three boats to leave headed out onto the Sound together, and with a Southeasterly 10 to 14 knots of breeze, reached off across to West Point together. Solo sailor Mike Irish aboard the acclaimed Madrugador sailed circles around Wind Dancer and Lolo! We took lots of great photos of each other to share. Our sail of just over an hour had us back in Shilshole about 12:30 PM to conclude a warm sunny October weekend together.
Chris McMuldroch
