Pictures from Home August 2013

August 2013

We are settling back in at home.  There is a lot to catch up on when you close your house for several months!  But we are already planning more boating adventures - in fact Steve has gone to Whidbey Island today to look at a 18ft Grady White that we can tow for fishing, crabbing etc.  That was one thing we realized on our trip this summer - it is not possible to fish from our boat tender!
We have a short list of things we want to do to the boat before the next journey North.  The weather at home has been beautiful - some strange lightening storm the other night but the sunsets have been amazing.  I am still learning how to use the new camera!

More adventures to come!

July 28 - July 29 The Final Post of this amazing adventure

July 28 - July 29th   Garrison Bay, Port Madison, and home to Gig Harbor

It is hard to believe that the end of our amazing trip is here.  Steve and I have had such an amazing adventure.

Thanks to all our family and friends - those that took care of things so that we could go and know that things were in good hands - those that joined us along the way and those that have been reading our blog and enjoying our travels with us.

A few pictures from the final days!

                                  Strait of Juan De Fuca

                                   Heading out of Port Madison for Home

                                     Agate Pass Bridge on our way to Port Orchard Marina and Home

                                       Steve soaking up another day of sunshine.

 

 

Home!

Thanks for sharing our adventure with us - Love Steve and Michelle

July 24 - July 28 Annette Inlet, Garrison Bay, Stuart Island

We left Ovens Island for Annette Inlet which is a favorite anchorage for Steve and I in the Gulf Islands.  We spent our first  night there 29 years ago on our honeymoon and have stopped there thru the years as we are in the Gulf Islands. We were treated to another amazing sunset in our favorite spot!

We left Annette Inlet for Roche Harbor to clear customs back into the US and then we will go anchor in Garrison Bay - Jeff and Tamara are joining us for a few days - they will bring their Grady White and tie up to the Nelsea and the plan is to fish, hike, explore, crab and just hang out for our last few days of summer fun in the San Juan Islands.

 View from Young Hill above Garrison Bay

 The Nelsea is the boat in the middle with the blue kayaks on top.

                                       View from Young Hill above Garrison Bay

                                      Jeff and Tamara

                                   Steve and I on Young Hill

We decided to go touring in Jeff and Tamara's boat and went to Stuart Island - Prevost Harbor where we took the 6 mile round trip hike to Turn Point Lighthouse.  Another beautiful day in the Islands as you can see from the photos.  This is our last day - we head home tomorrow.

                                    

                                         Jeff and Tamara

 

                                         Steve and I


                                        Turn Point Lighthouse from the water.
                                    

July 21 - July 24th Cortes, Garden Bay, Ovens Island

The great weather continues for us as we make our way home. It is hard to believe that our trip is coming to an end - it has been an amazing trip.

We left Cortes for Garden Bay in beautiful weather on July 21.  We  spent one night at Garden Bay and were treated to a wonderful sunset.  The change at Dodd Narrows is mid morning  so our plan is to get up early and leave so we can cross the straits and be at Dodd by 10:00am.

After a great sunset we were also treated to a nice sunrise over Garden Bay.

 Crossing the Straits

Dodd Narrows at slack

 

 

We arrived at Ovens Island which is a SYC outpost near Ladysmith and Chemainus.  We have not been here before and are going to spend a few days exploring the area - Allen and Sue are joining us today.

 

                                          Picture of Ladysmith from Ovens Island

                                    Nelsea tied up at the dock at Ovens Island

                                            Allen and Sue- Big Easy  coming to Ovens Island

                                                Ovens Island

   Steve and I took the dinghy to explore Chemainus.  It is a great little city - it was Wednesday and they have a Farmers Market on Wednesdays in the Park which was fun to see.  Chemainus is a really nice city that has many wall murals that show the history of the town.

After touring Chemainus we went back to the boat and saw a logging barge being unloaded in the bay.  They lower one side until all the logs fall into the bay - it was an amazing site and the logs fall off much faster than we would have guessed they would.

We left Ovens Island on July 24th  with Allen and Sue and we are headed to Annette Inlet which is across the water from Ganges.  This is a place Steve and I went 29 years ago on our honeymoon and is one of our favorite anchorages in the Gulf Islands.

July 16 - July 20 Echo Bay, Lagoon Cove, Thurston Bay, Cortez Island SYC

   We left Echo Bay and travelled for a few hours to Lagoon Cove.  On the ride over we were treated to dolphins playing in our boat wake.

They surfed our wake for about 20 minutes which was a treat.

                          We were treated to another beautiful sunset over Lagoon cove.

  From Lagoon Cove we cruised for 5 hours to Thurston Bay - we can tell we are getting closer to home as we are starting to see more boats.

                              Oops - guess they forgot to check the tide table!

Our anchorage in Thurston Bay before the 5 other boats joined us for the evening!


  We decided we wanted to catch the morning change thru Dent and Yuculta rapids which meant we left Thurston Bay at just after 5:00am.  I actually got some sunrise pictures which is not something I have seen often given a choice!

 

 

The last few days of weather have been great again.  We are at the Seattle Yacht club outpost at Cortes Island in Desolation Sound which means we have internet again and will probably have it for the rest of our trip.  Some of the members caught Salmon yesterday so we had a Potluck and shared their Salmon and a lot of wonderful other dishes that people brought.  It reminded us again of all the great dinners we had with the Roche Armada group in Alaska!

 Steve got enough shrimp for a cocktail off of Cortes Island. Here he is pulling his pot - or should I say the dinghy and float are pulling up the pot!

 

Steve is going to fish today and we will probably spend one more night here at Cortes.  We are meeting Allen and Sue and Jeff and Tamara next week in the Gulf Islands  so we will probably head to Garden Bay tomorrow and plan to cross the Strait of Georgia in the next few days.