Ghostsailor's Monthly Update

Pictures from trip:  http://www.ghostsailorphotos.com/August2006/?page=16

Scott had the weekend off, so we decided to head over to Port Madison.  Rich and Echo from Lorien decided to meet us there, and Krazy Mike, Ashley, and Alyssa joined us aboard Ghost.  We left around 3:00pm on Saturday and had a great sail over.  We got there right before dinner.  Mike was making his famous spaghetti, which was absolutely delicious and Rich and Echo made some shrimp appetizers that were wonderful, as well.  Our friends CB and Dan showed up and decided to stay the night, also.

The next morning, the guys decided to do some fishing.  They started catching these huge dogfish sharks:

We all took turns trying out each others kayaks and just playing in the bay.  At one point some local girls headed over on their surf board to say "hi" to the kids.  Ellie asked if she could get on and she had so much fun:

Then Zak and Alyssa wanted to join in, as well.  The girls were so nice and patient with the kids.

It was a nice relaxing day.  We headed home around 5pm and had a wonderful sail home.  Krazy Mike was at the helm:

and Lorien was under sail off the bow:

It was a great weekend with great friends.  We are hoping to do this much more.

Posted by sailormomma at 07:06 PM | Permalink

Pictures from August 2006:  http://www.ghostsailorphotos.com/August2006/

If you haven't read part one or two, please check it out in the archives on the right side of the page.  For some reason it didn't post on the main page.  Probably too long.  Ok, back to our trip:

August 11th, Day 18  Friday Harbor

We got up really early in Echo Bay and headed to Friday Harbor.  We had quite a bit to do for the day.  Scott's brother and family were coming in on the 6:30 p.m. ferry.  We had to clean the boat for an interview we were doing for Lats and Atts TV, reprovision, get the mail, and make sure Zak & Ellie weren't inviting themselves on everyone elses boat in the marina.  Luckily when we pulled in and asked for a slip, they gave us the slip we used to have when we lived in Friday Harbor.  It was a busy day, but we accomplished everything we needed to.  Scott's brother and family got in and we made it a pretty early night. 

The next morning, while I was checking email and paying bills up at a little coffee shop with wi-fi, Zak and Ellie were teaching their cousins, Mason & Maddie, how to catch shrimp on the docks.  They had a blast.  Zak has become a pro at catching shrimp:

We headed out around 10am, headed for Stuart Island and Reid Harbor again.  There was supposed to be a bake sale at the little schoolhouse and we wanted to support them.  It was a great sail all the way to Reid Harbor.  We pulled in and tied up to the linear.  We all headed ashore and started walking to the schoolhouse.  On the way we ran into some neighbors from our dock here at Shilshole and then some friends from Lats and Atts.  It's kind of nice running into people we know, and Scott's sister-in-law was a little suprised.  We made it to the schoolhouse and really enjoyed the wonderful food and talking to the locals about the school.  They tried talking us into moving there, so Zak & Ellie could go to school on the island.  It probably wouldn't take much persuasion, as Scott and I have talked about it often.  It was a great day.

On our way back to Friday Harbor the next day, we decided to fly our new (used) spinaker.  It was beautiful:

After dropping Bill & Heidi off in Friday Harbor, we headed to Picnic Cove on the south side of Shaw Island.  We had plans of meeting some friends the next day across channel on Lopez Island.  We had a nice quiet evening.  Zak caught some fish on his own and was in heaven.  The next morning we took the dinghy across to see our friends.  It was a great visit and the kids were excited to see some friends from home:

We spent the morning with them and caught a ride into Fisherman's Village to get some provisioning done.  It was a great visit and a nice little campground they were at.  We left around 2pm to ride the tide up to the northern islands.  We arrived into Shallow Bay right before sunset and were excited to head over to Patos island the next morning.  We have both read the book, A Light on the Island, about a little girl who's father was a lighthouse keeper on the island in the early 1900's.  It talks about her day to day life on the island and it made us want to explore the island to find some of the things that she talked about in the book.

We woke up the next morning.  I left in the kayak and Scott and the kids followed in the dinghy.  It was a little hairy when we got closer to the island, but we all made it there in one piece.  We pulled up onto a little beach that can only be reached by dinghy.  It was fun to do some beach combing on our own little private beach.  We ate lunch on the beach in Active Cove and then set off to do some hiking.  The kids and I found some blackberry bushes by the lighthouse and enjoyed them very much. 

It was a great hike!  We all enjoyed it quite a bit.

After getting back to the boat we headed out to see if we could get a spot at another favorite island, Matia.  Luckily there was a spot at the dock and we headed in.  We decided to stay a couple days.  It was wonderful.  We did some fishing, beachcombing, hiking, and just plain being lazy.  The water in the bay was warm and the kids had fun swimming.  From there, we headed to Roche Harbor so we could head home the next day.  Our trip was coming to an end.  I think we were all a little sad about that.  In Roche Harbor we saw Timber and Pam from Savarna, and KC and Elaine from Hawkwind.  It was good seeing everyone, but we were planning a really early wake-up, so it was another early night.

The next morning we woke up around 530am and headed south.  It was a long day, with fog in the straits, but we made good time and arrived home at 330pm.  What a great month.  Now it's time to recoup.

There will be a more detailed version of the trip in our logs in the next couple months.  I just have to find the energy to update.  Hope everyone is doing well and chat with you all soon.

Posted by sailormomma at 01:19 PM | Permalink

Photos from August 2006:  http://www.ghostsailorphotos.com/August2006/

 The morning of the 1st Scott, Zak, CB, & Tawn all went fishing.  They didn't have any luck, but had fun.  Ghost had been without provisions for a little over a week and we needed to head into port for food, gas, and water.   Instead of going into Friday Harbor, we decided to go to Orcas and then spent the night at Blind Bay on Shaw Island.  After a good nights sleep we woke up to find that we had wrapped our anchor chain around a partially submerged moorage buoy.  Didn't see it when we were anchoring.  Unfortunately we had to cut the anchor free.  I keep wondering why Scott wasn't more upset.  I think he is excited to get a new anchor.  We headed to Turn Island and Scott took the dinghy to Friday Harbor to get some parts to set up our spare anchor while Zak, Ellie, and I explored the island.  We then headed to Park's Bay for a nice relaxing evening.

The next morning our friends, Echo and Rich from Lorien, and CB and Tawn on Palarran met up with us in Parks Bay to wait for a higher tide to enter Fisherman's Bay on Lopez Island.  We were getting ready for the Pacific Northwest Latitudes and Attitudes Party and couldn't wait.  We went through the tricky entrance into Fisherman's Bay around 5pm Thursday night without any problems.  It was shallow, but we were o.k.  We rafted with Palarran and Lorien for the night and enjoyed a great evening with friends.  The next morning we moved to our slips at the Islander Resort where we would spend the next couple days.  The Lats and Atts party was absolutely amazing!  We all had so much fun.

Zak aboard Savarna

The girls dancing on the dock:

Scott and the gang at the L&A party:

Ghost played host to the kids for movie night on the sails.  The first night was Treasure Island and the 2nd was Captain Ron.  Here the kids are getting comfy for the movie:

It was such a wonderful weekend.  It was so great seeing old friends and getting to know new ones.  From there we headed to Reid Harbor.  The sail over was great with Palarran sailing off our bow.

 When we arrived into Reid Harbor we were invited to Raft up with Typhoon, a big steel ketch from Bellingham.  We also had Lorien and Quest rafted up with us.

We stayed 2 nights in Reid Harbor.  Got some fishing in and caught enough to feed everyone dinner that night  (caught 1 huge Cabazone, 3 rock fish, and 2 greenling).  We also had been given a large amount of corn leftover from the party, so we had a feast.  The girls aboard Typhoon had an Aqua Port.  They pull it around with their dinghy.  Zak & Ellie tried it out.  Zak was a little scared, but Ellie loved it.

I was hiking to the lighthouse with CB, Tawn, Echo, Rich, and Mike at the time, but I heard that you could only see teeth from Ellie because she was smiling so much.  It was great getting to know the crew of Typhoon and spending more time with our friends.  The next morning we all split up.  Lorien headed back home, Typhoon into Canada, and Palarran, Ghost, and Quest headed to Echo Bay on Sucia.  That night as we were getting ready for dinner we had a visit from a beautiful lady:

That would be Lady Washington.  She was one of the boats in Pirates of the Caribean.  What a sight to have that come in and anchor by us.   After dinner we headed ashore and met up with Timber and Pam of Savarna, Scty and the crew aboard Petra, CB & Tawn, and Krazy Mike and the girls.  We had a bonfire and smores.  Yummm! 

The next day was spent beachcombing, kayaking, fishing, dinghy sailing or just plain ol' relaxing aboard the boat.  Everyone went their separate ways and it was great.  It was our last day with the gang and we ended the night with a friendly rum-based game of Dread Pirate.  Whenever anyone rolled a 1, they had to take a swig of rum.  It ended up being pretty fun.  Palarran and Quest took off the next morning and we decided to spend another night in Echo Bay.  The four of us headed ashore and went hiking.  We found these caves, which are pretty cool:

After hiking we had a nice quiet night on the boat and retired early so we could get up really early the next morning to head to Friday Harbor. 

Well, I'm going to get this posted since it's been taking me a little longer to get this done than I thought.  I will try to post San Juan Islands - Part Three soon.

Posted by sailormomma at 05:19 PM | Permalink

Photos from July 2006:  http://www.ghostsailorphotos.com/July2006/

We left around 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday the 25th to time the tides right.  Both kids woke up as soon as we started the motor.  They were excited to do a "Dawn Watch".

We didn't have any good wind, but made it to Cornet Bay in approximately 12 hours.  We have some friends who have a boat repair shop at Cornet Bay, so we went over to visit with them later that evening.  It was great seeing Big John and Trish.  The kids had so much fun.

From there, we headed thru Deception Pass on our way to Blind Bay.  We rafted with our friends, Billy & Trish (Kwinhagak) and some of their friends, Mike and Mare (Mare n er Man).  We also saw some of our old neighbors,  Patsy and Greg (Patriot), and some other good friends, Steve and Karen (Unfurled).  We had a great BBQ that evening aboard Patriot.

The next day was my Birthday and what a wonderful one.  We just spent the day at Blind Bay.  We had an amazing dinner of steak with crab, asparagus, and Hollandaise.  Yummm!  They suprised me with a cake and it was perfect.

From there we headed to Parks Bay with Kwinhagak.  We rafted up and enjoyed the evening.

We said goodbye to Billy and Trish and had a great sail to Reid Harbor.  The plan was to stay a couple days at Reid Harbor and it was perfect.  The first morning Scott and Zak went out fishing.  Scott caught this lingcod:

Unfortunately they aren't in season and this guy was a little too small anyway.  But they are always fun to bring up.  Later in the day we all went ashore and took a quick hike to the Stuart Island school.  There is a big treasure full of T-shirts for sale.  It's a IOU system and we always try to support them by getting some new t-shirts.  When we got back we did some beachcombing and took a family photo with Reid Harbor in the background:

The next day we took a walk to Turn Point Lighthouse on Stuart Island.  It's always a great hike. The kids did really good.  We had lunch at the lighthouse, which is being restored and turned into a museum later this year

When we got back to Reid Harbor, CB and Tawn on Palarran were coming into the harbor.  They rafted with us and we met Tawn's parents.  It was great meeting them.  They are avid sailors from Chicago and really nice people. 

Well, that's the end of July.  I will be adding the August entries soon.  Hope everyone is doing well.  Best wishes!

Posted by sailormomma at 08:53 AM | Permalink