August 8th, 2010.. Sunday, no hurries, no worries

Snoring Bay

When I woke up this morning, I couldn't believe how many boats had already left Echo Bay, by 10am'ish. It was a full house when we got here yesterday. We decided to go for a walk on Sucia Island, over to Fossil Bay to see if there were any open mooring buoys open. When we came in to shore the tide was coming in, so we didn't want to leave zipper for too long. We were over half the way across Sucia Island when Captain Carey decided it was time t go back and check zipper. So he headed back, so the kids and I kept going. Wow, what a beautiful place this is. I saw 3 mooring balls open when we came around the meadow just before the bay. So we were just shy of power walking to get back and tell the Captain our findings, when I noticed that HalfHitch (red dog / old man) was limping, his poor feet, so we slowed to just a fast walk, and he quit limping. If we got one, we got one, no big deal, no hurries, no worries. As it turned out we were on our way over to Fossil Bay when we saw an opening in Snoring Bay, so we snagged it. So we hopped in zipper and headed over to Fossil Bay to pay our $10.00 for 1 night. What a wonderfully fabulous place this is. The sun came out, I have my umbrella for the sun, and the Captain is in the galley cooking up something to go with the ribs he's grilling, mmm yummy, delicious ribs,,,   bunkmate

Saturday, August 7th, 2010, sailing in the rain

We woke up to the drizzling rain, and just got wet air. We contemplated about just staying in port, but I decided 'that's not what we came on vacation for', an if we are going to do this forever, we better get used to being wet... So we stowed, and set out for Sucia Island, via the Strait of Georgia. I stayed below and made some bagels sandwiches with honkin pieces of jalapenos. While I was down below the Captain was up top getting soaked in his winter gear. I went and got him one of the plastic ponchos out of the head, and that seemed to be the ticket. He didn't get any wetter, hmm, now we know. I came up top to relieve the Captain so he could 'check the head'  Then it quit raining,,, So I skippered the rest of the way. It was still kinda foggy the rest of the way. We cruised past fossil bay, but it appeared all the buoys were taken, all 16 of them, as were the 2 in Snoring Bay. So we decided Echo Bay was going to be our spot for the night. The beach was fabulous, rocky, but great for 'on and off' potty breaks. We anchored out,, lots of boats. We kept hearing huge splashes, and we finally saw what was making the splashes, a seal, the cute little bugga's they are. So cute.  bunkmate

August 8th, 2010,, friday. new breakaway pin

O.K. So we got to Anacortes just in time to figure out everything that we forgot,,, my hat, my deck shoes (I thought we left them on the boat), puppy food, and that's just what we found today. This morning-or-weekend, there is an artist fair that blocks all the streets, it's kinda cool, they block all the streets just for us, to check out every one's artwork, every week time we come up.. We started the morning going over to Cap Sante Marine, to hoist Simplicity out to properly fix the breakaway pin. Plus the Captain put a swing line on just in case!!! I got to go for a ride in zipper (the new dinghy) for the first time, it was fun. We are planning on heading out first thing in the morning to the Sucia Islands, woohoooo..... For tonight's entertainment we got to listen to the band, from Simplicity's cockpit. And watch a drunk naked man run around his boat while his girlfriend tried tried to get him back inside,,, haha been there, done that. Lets see what tomorrow brings..   bunkmate

Vacation Logs

I kept a journal of our vacation. It's going to take some time to get all of the vacation down, with the work factor. With all the challenges we had,, some days were longer than others, and some were more fun than others, but every one of them were an adventure, and every one of them were spent together, and every one of them were fun.    bunkmate

We Made It

Well we made it through the first week, survived the Latts & Atts party, and are getting ready to head out for another week of sailing. We haven't seen any Orcas yet, but not for a lack of trying though. We did see some Menke Whales, They are the size of Orcas, but they have a little dorsal fin, farther down the back. When you hear them breathe, you have to take a deep breath with them, it's pretty cool. We have seen a bunch of seals, (we call them Lucy, short for Lu-seal.. haha). We saw a seal goofing off, jumping clean out of the water, she was having a ball. We also saw a huge sea lion,, I swear it was almost as big as Simplicity!!! We celebrated the Captain's birthday in Friday Harbor, having some delicious wings at Dos Diablos. More later, It's time to go sailing.....





 

Playing Tetrus

We are down to the wire. All our planning and provisioning is fast approaching. The Captain took the new dinghy out to Emigrant Lake yesterday, with the kids, and tested out the rowing ability and tested the motor. Both features passed the test. Or should I say three, because the kids enjoyed the ride with their new life vests. The hard floor works great with their little toenails,except we are probably going to need a towel to lay down so they have some gription. They don't like to slide too much. We are going to be packing the car all week, cause we got allot of stuff to take with us, with limited space. But we didn't play tetrus all those years for nothing. I have faith in the Captain, he's pretty good about getting allot of things to fit in little places. We also need to find some kind of bag to pack the oars and floor for the dinghy. The Grey whale that has been hanging around the islands, washed up on shore in Rosario Straight last week. The whale watcher blog said, that most of the time when they spend allot of time up there, they are coming up there to die. It probably didn't help that the transient Orcas attacked it every time it went into deep water. So it will be interesting to see the carcass, and just get a feel of how huge they are, and the greatness of their being. All the things that we have been planning, are going to be going on in the next weeks to come,       bunkmate