Port Townsend to Watmough Bay to Spencer Spit

With winds calm in the Strait of Juan de Fuca we headed out at 9am with the tide towards Watmough Bay. Even though the winds had calmed, there were still three foot waves rolling through the strait making our windless passage under motor a little green-inducing until we were able to raise sails later in the day. Once we were safely anchored, for reals this time, our last anchoring experience at Watmough was a little more action-packed than we wanted,  we hopped into Rosebud, with dinghy captain Isaac rowing, and headed for shore where it is tradition to hike up to the swing of doom, all taking turns swinging over what feels like the end of the world. Not being pressed for time this trip, we stayed anchored here two nights and were able to hike up to Watmough head the next day for gorgeous views over the water of Mount Baker and the North Cascades to the east and the Olympic Mountains to the south. The following day was fairly downpour-y as we made our soggy way over to Spencer Spit on Lopez Island. Once there, it was hard to muster any enthusiasm from anyone to go to shore in the rain. Isaac, however, had an excess amount of energy and jumped at the chance to take his first solo rowboat expedition rowing around the bay. We watched with pride as he cruised at speeds we never thought possible for Rosebud to reach through the calm, rain-dappled water. First he rowed to shore where he drug Rosebud up and emptied out the accumulation of rain water that had gathered. As he was heading back to Marinero, he stopped for a long time and watched three seals that were only 25 feet away from him. Around and around he paddled, offering to give us a ride as he rowed by. I hopped in and he paddled us through pouring rain over to a nearby island and wildlife sanctuary. He paddled us back and traded his dripping mother for a little less wet father who was armed with a compass, cell phone, and dry chihuahua with a large bladder, and they headed to shore as the fog moved in. After they left, the fog swallowed them and sight of land. Using their sailorly skills they safely made it back with a shivery, empty chihuahua.

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Insurance 101

Docking at a marina has always made us nervous. The tight quarters and potential for expensive damage are nerve wracking. But so far on this trip, it hasn't been that bad. While in Port Townsend, we opted to stay an extra night since the wind and waves in the Strait of Juan de Fuca were high, and dangerous passages are not high on our list of things we want to do. Instead we went out for a little sail in the Port Townsend harbor where the conditions were not quite so bad. Winds were high when we got back to the marina and docking was a little trickier than usual, but after a few tries we were safely back in our slip. During our stay in Port Townsend Jason spent most of his time working with the rest spent feverishly trying to locate and fix a small leak that was making deposits into our bilge so he was anxious to get out and enjoy some time relaxing in this little, sleepy Victorian town. Just as we were about to head out, I looked out back to see a big trawler hurtling towards the stern of our boat. As I muttered, "oh my gosh, are they going to hit us?", I hopped out to try to fend the boat away from us. I was a little shocked at how fast they were hauling towards us, with expletives streaming from the woman behind the wheel as  her husband desperately tried to slow the impact. But....they hit us, and our poor little dinghy Rosebud, and....another boat. I watched as they continued, backwards, at an astonishing speed towards, Martha. Ack! Not Martha! Poor Jason. Hanging out Victorian style would have to wait until after he contacted the insurance company to report the new trawler shaped scrapes we were sporting. Oh well.

Seattle to Port Ludlow to Port Townsend

We've sailed in the San Juans a couple of times but always from Anacortes which lies due east of the islands, so sailing from Seattle and crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which can be a bit temperamental, seemed like a much bigger adventure for us. Generally, people can sail to Port Towsend in a long day and then it is an easy jump from there to the islands, but we opted to break it up into three days instead of two. Our goal was to leave with the tide at 10am Sunday morning, but upon waking, Jason realized that the oars to our dinghy never actually made it into the boat so he emailed Pete, who hopped onto his bike to dig the oars out of storage for us. After retrieving our oars and topping off the water in our tanks we set out roughly on schedule (shocking, I'm sure, to anyone who knows us and our timeliness issues). We enjoyed a VERY leisurely sail up the sound. With very light winds, we decided to put up the spinnaker, with success, while it was fresh in our minds. Progress was very slow so we opted to anchor at Port Ludlow for the night. The following morning, in a zig-zag-a-ful pattern, I rowed the boys, the chihuahua, and myself to shore in our dinghy, Rosebud, where we played on the beach, dug up clams and watched them rebury themselves while poor Jason worked. Unimpressed with my rowing skills, Isaac decided to take matters into his own hands and rowed Rosebud back to Marinero in a very similar, but determined, pattern. After lunch, with the tide changing in our favor, we pulled up anchor and enjoyed an amazing sail up to Port Townsend. This boat can really move, we averaged 8 knots with a top speed of 8.9 knots. After safely tucking her into a slip in the same marina as the schooner Martha, our first wooden sailboat love, we headed out to say hi to Captain Robert and daughter Mary before walking to dinner. As we talked with Captain Robert, Aaron and Mary picked up where they left off three years ago when we sailed with them. The two peas in a pod quickly devised a game where they were trying to throw popply-dopples to the moon. It was so nice to see them again and we hope our paths cross up in the San Juans. As we walked to dinner it was a very strange feeling to know that we had sailed to Port Townsend, something that we had always daydreamed about doing. 

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Marinero move-in

After a whirlwind two and a half weeks of dandelion-pulling, garden-planting, and general lawn-catch-up stupor, my weed-weary shoulders and I packed up the car with boat related items, my three boys, and the chihuahua, as we headed back out to Seattle to move into Marinero and make her our home for the next four weeks. After spending the first day extensively cleaning her, we moved her from Seattle's Lake Union to Shilshole Marina on Puget Sound. With the help of Pete and his nine-year-old son Alden, who demonstrated the art of penguin-sliding on the hull of our up-side-down dinghy, we successfully maneuvered Marinero under three drawbridges, through the Locks, out into the sound, and safely into her slip, where we have views out over the water to the Olympic Mountains. The following couple of days our frenzy continued as we got to know  Marinero, both inside and out, and prepped her to sail up to the San Juans. Pete was super helpful, walking us through different systems and teaching us how to do things like set up the spinnaker. After a couple of test sails in the sound and four exhausting days we were ready to start our adventure into the San Juans.

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Meet Marinero

Our long search is over.  As we slowly worked our way around the country, we looked at more sailboats than I can remember or count. Sometimes it was fun. Sometimes, not-so-much. We started our search last July in Seattle where we met Pete the broker, who has been more helpful than we could have ever imagined. He has answered what seems like an infinite number of questions that Jason has emailed him as we looked at what seems like bazillions of boats, exhibiting super-human patience as he replied to us with incredible detail. Two weeks after getting home from our camper van trip, we headed to Seattle for a work project so we also set up an appointment to meet with Pete to look at a few more boats. Long story short, we finally found what we were looking for, and as soon as all of the paperwork is done, she will be ours. Marinero is a 1980 43' sailboat from New Zealand made from ancient swamp-salvaged Kauri wood and she sails like a dream. We had no idea that a boat could be so responsive and sail so well. With her cozy forward bunks for the boys and huge fore-decks to sprawl out on, she is perfect for us and we can't wait to sail her through the Pacific Northwest. In the meantime we are going to enjoy being home among friends and family. If this isn't our mid-life crisis, I feel a little worried to discover what we'll do when the crisis does hit.

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Seattle

It's been a crazy year. I feel a little tired, but am happy we have had the opportunity to travel and see so much. After resting and playing at home for two weeks, we headed out to Seattle for a work project. Since we used to call Seattle home, we have our favorites that we love to visit, the zoo, the aquarium, the Pacific Science Center, Pike Street with all of its yumminess like the French bakery, the Crumpet Shop, and all of the fresh fruit. In addition on this trip, we spent an evening with Jason's team that will go down in history starting with dinner at a funky little neighborhood restaurant called Skelly and the Bean where the boys bonded electronically with a co-worker's kids. Afterwards we headed to what is called the Shadow House, an old mansion that three of Jason's hacker co-workers live with a few other hackers to roast coffee beans...at 9:00pm (after all, this is Seattle). Upon entering we each stood under a jaggedy knife to measure our height where we wrote our hacker names on the wall. After watching some coffee bean roasting action and taking stock of the impressive number of different coffee-making apparati (we didn't even get to see the French-press cabinet), a non-hacker resident of the house who is a gemologist enthusiastically showed us her gem and jewelry collection, giving the boys all kinds of gems to bring home and allowing us to check things out under her uber-microscope. It was very cool and at 10:30 we reluctantly pulled ourselves away to head back to the room to get some sleep. Other highlights from the trip were meeting with an old college roommate and his family to eat dinner and play in the park, a trip to the Japanese garden in the arboretum, a hike up Little Si mountain for mothers day, and accidentally walking into the middle of a street fight where I got run over by an enormous black guy.

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Home Again

We had doubts that this day would actually come, but we successfully almost-circumnavigated the U.S. in a 1985 VW camper van. Clocking just over 13,000 miles, in a surreal moment, we finally drove Sylvia back into our driveway and tucked her back into her space in the garage. It is with relief and regret (it's funny how we can miss home and feel sad about the trip ending at the same time) that we close out this chapter in our insane camper van life. We will miss being smushed into such tight, stinky quarters together. We discovered along the way that we live in a very big country, especially when traveling at camper van speeds. I love that the kids have seen so much of it now. I love the diversity that we were exposed to. I love that our kids are at home in the woods and water of Maine, the streets of Boston or New York, the warm, tropical mugginess of Florida beaches, the swampiness of Louisiana, the cool dampness of Carlsbad caverns, and the dry deserts of the Southwest. I love that they have seen so many different ways that people live, the quiet neighborhoods of Newton MA, deemed the safest city in the U.S., peering across the border into battle-torn Juarez Mexico, the brownstones of Jersey City, the tents and dilapidated campers of the Appalachians, the high-rise apartments of Washington DC, the uber-mansions in Atlanta, the cute-as-a-button cottages in New England, and houseboats in Boston. I love that we saw so many different forms of wildlife, manatees, raccoons, dolphins, alligators, crocodiles, owls, portuguese-man-of-war, sharks, bioluminescent plankton, sea turtles, iguanas, lizards, and more fish and bird varieties than we can name.

Here is a collection of photos shot from the camper van windows as we drove across the country and back.