Conquering the Old Goat
A rose pink sunset beaming below dark clouds hovered for a few moments over Camano Island's Utsalady Bay on Old Goat Challenge eve, providing faint hope that the forecast of the week's poorest weather on Saturday may not come true. When an evening wind frothed up whitecaps, we began to expect the worst. High winds would cancel, but our decision needed to be made at dawn. Beginning of the OGC I was wide awake at 1:30 a.m., and restlessly checked the forecast. It still promised continual rain through the day. At 4:30 the alarm sent me out to pour coffee and prepare a bacon and eggs breakfast for my twin Greg, younger brother Tom and fellow paddler Mark, who had set up camp in the garage in the interest of social distancing. My wife Dee joined just in time to take photos as we were casting off from the thin beach below our bulkhead. Our tight schedule had us setting out for the 12-mile paddle to LaConner at 5:46, but I think it was closer to 5:50 as we left in calm water and light
