The weather has been beautiful here with sunny skies and nice temperatures. We were pleased to hear from our Miami friend Emy that she was planning a trip to Seattle with her group of friends, Hazel, Judith and Ed. They do a lot of traveling together and planned this trip to the PNW as the first trip since COVID. They came up to Anacortes for a day and we had a great time sailing. The Read more…
Erik and I decided to spend the holiday in Anacortes. The City was having their 4th of July parade for the first time since COVID. We had a great time watching the parade. It has been so long since either of us has lived in a small town, it was fun going to the parade complete with fire engines, boy scouts, local businesses and community groups. The Anacortes Yacht Club had a great float and Read more…
Erik and I just got back from a two week cruising trip in our backyard, the San Juan Islands. We were preparing S/V Callooh! Callay! for our departure, when two Washington State Fish and Game Officers came up to our boat carrying a large basket full of spot prawns. They apparently seized them that day from illegal harvesting and were looking for people to give them to. Erik and I were very much willing to Read more…
While traveling is always fun, it is also nice to get home. We regrouped from our trip, then went out cruising. S/V Callooh! Callay! enjoyed getting off the dock and anchored in Eagle Harbor at Cypress Island. It is a beautiful harbor surrounded by bluffs, beach and views of Mt. Baker. We were able to tie up to one of the many mooring balls in the harbor. While there, we went ashore on the dinghy Read more…
We finally got back to the east coast to visit family and friends. Our intention had been to visit much sooner, but COVID changed those plans. We had so many places we wanted to visit and people to see which required a carefully choreographed travel itinerary. The trip involved multiple plane, train and automobile arrangements. First stop Seattle. We had an early flight and didn’t want to get up at 2:30 am which would have Read more…
As we are approaching summer, we have been completing quite a few repairs to the boat. Ever since we had the boat, the tachometer has not worked properly. After much troubleshooting, a rebuilt alternator, new tachometer and replacing the battery isolator with an automatic charging relay, we finally have a fully functioning battery charging system and tachometer. We also had to swap out a bad engine temperature sender. In addition to these repairs, we replaced Read more…
The weather outside is warming somewhat from the winter pattern. Although not exactly balmy, we decided to take a road trip to check out some of the campgrounds, and popular State and National Parks on the Olympic Peninsula. This is a great time of year to do this, as most sane people are not camping due to the cold. This allows for getting camping spots at places we would never be able to visit in Read more…
We are so pleased to be living near so much cool outdoor stuff. Despite the cold and wet weather, there is always a great outdoor place nearby to explore. One of our local favorites is Deception Pass State Park which is close to home on our island, Fidalgo Island and Whidby Island to the south. We packed a picnic and went hiking on a blustery day and really enjoyed the scenery. It is so beautiful, Read more…
We have had the installation of a composting/dry head on our boat project list for quite some time. When we moved to our permanent marina in November, we started being charged $135 per month for a mandatory weekly pump out for liveaboards. This fee caused us to move the composting head up on the priority list so we could stop paying this fee. Sanitation Engineer Erik and his trusty one armed assistant got to work. Read more…
COVID has certainly impacted the activities we can participate in with social distancing, and the broken arm has added to the challenge. Time to get creative! What can one do with these restrictions? We have been wanting to become more familiar with the local flora and fauna, so we decided to give bird watching a try. We decided to start with seabirds since we live around water. The birds here are really cool and fun Read more…