Thursday, June 16, 2016

A place for the boat this month

Hooray! 

The 36391 will get to hang out with Coasties this month!  

The Port Townsend folks have invited us to moor the boat near their station while we take a break and get back home for awhile.  Tomorrow, we'll head over and give them a tour of the boat.

Thanks to Sr Chief Bromwell for his generosity and special thanks to Kevin Clark for going to bat for us.

It's a relief to know it'll be in a safe place and that more folks will get to see it.


Port Townsend

The weather's lovely today.  It's a great day to explore Port Townsend.

We explored a bit here before sunset last night, found the two marinas and the Coast Guard station, then returned to our mooring.  Not much at the State Park, unfortunately.  No dock to get on shore and see the park, and the moorings are in the same cove as the paper mill.

I understand the paper mill helped save the economy of the city, but it's still no fun to be hanging out next to.  At least we were close enough that the smell drifted over the top of us and was minor.

The mooring was rather bumpy due to the water traffic, so tonight we're staying in the Point Hudson Marina.  Close to old town, lost of cool sail boats to watch, etc.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Fort Townsend, not Port Townsend

On Tuesday morning, we'd planned to move from Coupeville to Port Townsend, but wind and weather prevented.  We got to the south end of Whidbey Island, and Admiralty Strait was just having none of us or any other small boats.  Thankfully, the Everett Marina provided a safe haven for the night, and we ended up having a very peaceful night's rest there.

Wednesday morning we had a great cruise across, and explored Ports Ludlow and Hadlock.  We wanted to see the Wooden Boat school at Port Hadlock, but didn't find it.  So, we went on to Port Townsend. I'm told by folks here that the School is "right there" next to Ajax Cafe.  Well, hopefully we'll have time to cruise by and look at it later.

Tonight we're staying on a mooring buoy at Fort Townsend State Park.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Raining -- inside the cabin!

Alright, people, us dry-siders are not used to this.  Raining outside all day, raining inside all night??!  The humidity and condensation gang up to produce lots of moist droplets on the walls of the cabin.  We have to towel off the inside of the port-lights, and still get dripped on now and again.  But we love her, anyway.  


Monday, June 13, 2016

A Beautiful day in Coupeville

This is one of the most charming places we've been yet.  A lovely historic waterfront, this community is steeped in history and very, very welcoming.  Great coffee at the dock cafe, too!  We've had a number of people come look at the boat, which is always fun.


Tonight, we'll have a cozy evening in cabin, tucked out of the rain.


A chance encounter

You never know who you'll meet....

Having passed up the trek into Lake Union (where we most wanted to visit the Center for Wooden Boats), we didn't expect this:

On our way out of the Camano Island State Park area, where we were on a mooring buoy overnight, we passed an interesting structure at Cama Beach.   Looked through the binoculars, and lo-and-behold, the Center for Wooden Boats livery is there on the shore.

Pulled in a spoke with someone for just a few minutes, and we hope to connect again later!


From Base Seattle onward

We had a great stay at Base Seattle. Thanks to those who hosted us and helped arrange it!

After our initial tours and talks about the boat at the station, we went for a walk through Seattle's Pioneer Square district, then went back to the station and settled in for the evening.  The next morning, we gave a few more tours of the boat.  Because it was Saturday, there weren't many folks left at the station to tour, so we left a bit early and found Illahee State Park for our night moorage.

Sunday we spent lunchtime in Poulsbo, and once again, found a terrific town, with charming, interested people.  Gave about 6 presentations about the boat, had a nice, relaxing lunch, and motored on. 

Once again, we went farther than expected.  We passed a few places we might have stopped, and found Camano State Park on the map.  Well, it has only a fishing boat launch, so we found a mooring buoy and hung out for the night.  We were tired from a long day of running.

Saturday, June 11, 2016

The tour so far...

Internet access has been sporadic, so just a quick summary of things so far.  I'll come back and add photos later.

We departed Swantown Marina in Olympia on the 7th, as the boat swelled up satisfactorily in the first 24 hours, and Glen was confident about the way things were looking.

We motored to Jerrell's Cove State Park and had a lovely evening, visited with some folks and enjoyed the peaceful scenery of the forested area, hiked the trails, and relaxed.

The next day we explored a bit, visited Boston Harbor for a break, fueled up, and motored around, eventually making it to Gig Harbor where we found a guest dock for the evening.

We spend most of 6/9 enjoying the amenities of Gig Harbor.  Lovely town, one we'd certainly enjoy seeing more of.  Met a bunch of great people at the marina, and showed to boat to about 10 folks interested enough to hear her story.  Got some fresh food and de-e-e-e-e-licious fireweed honey at the Farmer's Market before taking off for the evening.

We went farther than we expected to that evening, and caught a mooring buoy at the South end of Blake Island across from Seattle that night, just before dark.  The wind came up and it got rather bouncy, stormy, so we moved up to another set of mooring buoys in a little more sheltered area.  Little did we know, that the moorage noted in the gazetteer on the *north* side of the island was actually a very developed, very beautiful park and tourist spot called Tillicum village.  Would have been a terrific place to stay!  But at least we got to explore that this morning before coming over to Seattle. 

We got a great reception at the CG Base Seattle, and met a bunch of helpful and interested young Coast Guardsmen.  They've been very welcoming and helpful.


Monday, June 6, 2016

Back in the water

Off on our 2016 adventures!

After being out of the water all winter for project work, bottom paint and maintenance, we're in the water again.

Thanks, Casey, for doing a terrific job of transport and launch.

We are spending this first night in the Swantown Marina, making sure it doesn't leak too much, and is safe for our trip. 

Love being on the water again!