By Lynn —
Today, our last day on the longboat expedition, we woke up at 5:30 AM for the people sleeping on the boat and 5:45 AM for those sleeping on shore. We prepared for the morning dip and quickly changed into our clothes for the day. We gathered in a circle and our Captain and Mate, Michael and Chrissy, explained our challenge for the day, which consisted of 12 tasks. Some of the tasks to be completed were: man overboard, singing a sea shanty, and 10 perfect power strokes. We then prepared for breakfast and had granola, yogurt, and almond milk. After breakfast, we packed the boat and it began to rain, making the day even more challenging.
At 8:05 AM, we pushed ourselves off the beach of Saddlebag Island and were on our way to the Anacortes marina. We had a minor obstacle before arriving in the marina, a large tanker passed in front of us. The captain stepped in and we took a different route. We arrived at the marina and tied our boat to the dock at 10:30 AM, which was an hour ahead of schedule. We began to unpack and clean the boat and repack our clothes.
At 3:30 we were finally done. All of the members of the crew sat in a circle on the boat and talked about our highs of the trip and what we would like to thank the boat, the crew, and ourselves for. For the last time, the captain shouted “Good Ship” and we responded with “Townshend”.
Although we were sad to be leaving the boat, our captain, and our mate, we were excited to finally see Tim again.
He arrived at 4:00 PM and he surprised us by taking us to a pizza restaurant and going to the movie “The Secret Life of Pets”. We got on our 8:20 ferry and headed back to Friday harbor here we all raced to the showers and started our laundry before going to bed.