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Gig Harbor Departure
July 21, 2000
The
preparations, lasting at least eight months, were intense. All the equipment
that had to be installed, upgraded or replaced — everything from radar to
plumbing to running rigging — filled six single-spaced pages. Without
Magnificent Mark Lindeman,
master of everything
aboard a sailboat, Raven would surely never have left on time. Mark and I, sometimes working together under difficult
deadlines or circumstances, became
fast friends, and I’m sure Mark will join Signe and me more than once on our
cruise.
 But things got done, or at least as done as
they were going to get, so it was time to leave. The departure party was
wonderful, as lots of friends came to celebrate, and Raven looked terrific.
Signe was far too smart to have anything to do with a coast called “The Graveyard of the Pacific”,
so four friends – Tom
Sadler, Tony Horne, Ole Snoer, and Bruce Ellingson – and I did the passage from Gig Harbor to San Francisco aboard Raven.
Tom, with his long experience off
this coast, was captain, I was navigator, while Tony, Ole and Bruce were the
real backbone of the crew. Experienced offshore sailors all, they gave me
confidence that we’d be in good shape on this treacherous coast.  The weather
looked pretty solid for the next four days, with no gales predicted, so off we
went.
(Click
on a photo to see it full size)
Regards . . . Jan
Next log
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