Underway Northbound

Yesterday afternoon we left the Narrows Marina in Tacoma under warm, sunny skies and headed to Seattle, where 90 minutes later we tied up at Bell Harbor Marina downtown. Shortly our daughter Mackenzie arrived via her new commute vehicle, “Scoot” (see photo) quickly followed by her husband Matt. After a quick tour of the new boat, we headed offshore from Alki Beach, cut the engine and floated for a couple hours while we ate a picnic dinner. It was warm, calm and oh so pleasant!

We slept on the king-size bed in the salon, much better than last week as we’ve added a Tempur-Pedic pad to soften things a bit. This morning we left Bell Harbor at 8am and arrived at Lopez Island at 1pm following a fuel stop in Edmonds and a route through Deception Pass instead of our usual Strait of Juan de Fuca crossing. Though we might go via Juan de Fuca again in the future, we’ll likely only do so under completely calm, clear, balmy skies as we found Deception Pass much preferable, though it’s a few miles out of the way, and the Pass itself can be tricky depending on tides and currents. Today it was a little adrenaline producing only because we’d never done it before, and it’s narrow with a lot of traffic and fast water.

We met our good friends Mary and Agnes, who own a house at Swift’s Bay here on Lopez, at the always fabulous Bay Café for appetizers and drinks. They have FIFTY relatives here for the week to celebrate Agnes’s mother’s 90^th birthday, so couldn’t stay for dinner, but we did, and enjoyed delicious Calamari Steak (a new variant for us), Golden Beets with Gorgonzola, Mussels and Pork Tenderloin.

Back at the boat Bob is figuring out how to tether Cathryn’s netbook to his Android so we can have wi-fi on the boat and deal with photos, blog writing, email and reading the newspaper anywhere we have a cell signal. The lengths we go to in order to avoid withdrawal symptoms – from our Internet Addictive Disorder, that is! It’s a sunny, mild evening, and we’re enjoying sitting in the cockpit reading and blogging. Ah, the Good Life!

We remain comfortable and happy with the new boat and are still working to finalize a Name, so anyone who wishes to participate in the Boat Naming Contest, feel free to post a comment . . .please!

Oh, and we just sent a SPOT satellite message which has astonishing detail in the photo (down to the exact marina slip at which we’re parked) so check it out in the top right hand corner on the Tab that reads “Spot US” to see our location.