Week 1


The first thing that I have to say is that this does not suck. This is at least 12 million times better than working. Its only been one week since we left Seattle but its been a great week. We haven't really done anything that we have planned on doing but that's part of the adventure.
 
At the end of week one, we are still at Hope Island near Deception Pass. I shouldn't really say that we are still at Hope Island, more so, I should say that we are back at Hope Island. We have had a few things go awry with the boat and we had to spend a few days chasing down parts and making repairs. It amazes me that with all of the spare parts that we have brought along, and I thought we brought everything, the couple of issues that have come up weren't in our massive array of spare parts.

We don't really have many rules on this boat...except for one major rule...water is supposed to stay on the outside of the boat. Our first mishap broke that rule and it was a little bit unsettling. There is a seal where the rudder post goes through the hull of the boat that is supposed to abide by our one major rule. This little seal decided to break our one major rule and stop sealing at some point on our way up to Hope Island. Water was coming into the boat and that is not a good thing. We weren't in any real danger of sinking or anything like that...just a little dribble. But sometimes a little dribble becomes a big dribble so we decided that it would be best to take care of it sooner rather that later and then we can go back to abiding by our one major rule. Luckily for us, through the magic of our smart phones, we found the parts we needed in Oak Harbor which was just a couple of hours of sailing away. So off to Oak Harbor we went to get what we needed and then we fixed the problem while anchored in the bay.

Anchored in Oak Harbor

 We thought that we would check out the town since we were there, but when we looked online for “things to do in Oak Harbor”, there were only 8 things that came up and 4 of the 8 were to get out of town (the 4 that were in town we already did...walk through town, rent a boat, walk on the beach, go to the theater...ok, we only did 2 of the 4, but number 2 wasn't going to happen since we already have a boat and number 4 wasn't open). So back to Hope Island we went.

We wanted to get some hiking in and explore Hope Island but on our attempt to get onto the island, the water pump in the dinghy's motor decided to quit pumping water. Another spare part that I didn't have. Luckily for us, we had access to a truck near La Conner that we could use to chase down a water pump. It just meant that I would have to row the dinghy about 4 miles to get to the truck (Brenda thought it was more like 1 ½ miles but she wasn't the one rowing...she also thought it was romantic that I would row her around...she also thought it would have been more romantic if I would have sang to her and packed her a picnic...neither of those things happened). Anyway, we got the truck and found the needed water pump near Cornet Bay at a super friendly and helpful little mom and pop shop that fixes boat motors out of their house. Got the part...and another spare for later.

At this point we are 5 days into our trip and haven't set foot on the Island. But on day 6 it finally happens. Its a miracle. We actually get to explore the Island and its great. The trails were almost non-existent since they were so over grown and there were TONS of mosquitoes and flies but it was still great. It was the first day that we have felt like we were on vacation. 

We made it!!!
This is officially the longest piece of driftwood I have ever seen!
Today we are heading through Deception Pass and into the San Juan Islands. It's gonna be great!



Comments

  1. Split CrowJune 7, 2014 at 9:40 AM

    40 miles in 6 days (144 hours) Excellent progress . You're averaging 0.27 kts. Exactly which century had you planned on in arriving in Mexico?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownJune 8, 2014 at 6:37 PM

      We may not be fast but we will still get to Mexico approximately 318 years sooner than "Split Crow".

      Delete

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