San Juan Island Pictures

Friday Harbor (Joan’s ?th Birthday)

I awoke to a lovely card and gift from Fred. During the day I received phone calls from all of my family. That was lovely. We went up to Suzy’s Mopeds and rented a ScootCoupe which is like a moped with three wheels and a little cabin for two people (very tightly). No roof, windows or doors. I made quite a spectacle of myself getting in and out of it during the day. The floor area is smooth fiberglass and so I pretty much fell into and out of it. Not a pretty sight and there are no pictures to document this! I held Merlin and periodically wrapped him up in his blanket to keep the wind out of his eyes. He likes to cuddle when we are in a moving vehicle, even one that has a maximum speed of 30mph. We spent a lot of time in the bike lane. We have never seen any area of San Juan Island except what we could walk to from the marinas. The sun was out and the island is quite beautiful. We passed very wooded areas, field’s with cattle or horses on them. We stopped at a lavender farm (http://www.pelindabalavender.com/products.html). The fields of different kinds of lavender are open to wandering. We then stopped at the Alpaca farm (http://www.krystalacres.com/). Merlin couldn’t come, but they had a fenced path through the field. There were several females with very young babies (I have no idea what a baby Alpaca is called). The babies were up close to their mothers and were the identical coloration as momma. Just adorable. We moved on to Roche Harbor for lunch. We already wandered here when Heather was with us last week. We discovered some history when we stopped and wandered through American Camp which was set up during the Pig War (http://www.nps.gov/sajh/historyculture/the-pig-war.htm). Very interesting. We didn’t stop at the English Camp. What a lovely birthday!

Friday Harbor (our 24th Anniversary)

We had an 11 AM appointment with the Notary. She is located about 3 blocks from the marina. It was exciting and a little nerve wracking to finally be able to move on about the Piedmont house. The paper work is in order and escrow should close on July 1!

Skyline Marina to Friday Harbor, San Juan Island 3 hours 16 miles

The tide was a little more than low slack, so Fred was a bit of a wreck getting out of the harbor. The channel is quite narrow and will be dredged later this summer. It took us longer than usual because we had the current against us too. However, it was a really nice feeling to finally be on our way. We still can’t leave the US until we see the Notary on Monday. We went into the marina to make it easier to pick up mail, etc. Fortunately the paperwork reached us to be reviewed.

Skyline Marina, Anacortes

We are sorry to see Heather leave today. We drove her up to Old Salt’s to catch her shuttle to SeaTac. Afterwards Fred got the car washed while I was at the laundromat. After we took the clean laundry back to Aquila, we drove out to American Heritage Storage and put the car away for the summer. The manger, Dick & Rose are so sweet. Fred was able to j\hook up the trickle charger for the Benz, which was technically against the rules. Dick gave us a ride back to skyline while having an interesting discussion about the oil industry.

Hope Island to Skyline Marina, Anacortes 3 hours 9 miles

We rocked and rolled pretty good last night, and the mooring buoy kept banging on the hull, so that was interesting while trying to sleep. That and the sounds of jets kept going until pretty late. We left Hope Island this morning to head back to Anacortes. We had to leave around 9am or so, due to the tides, to get back out through Deception Pass and under the bridge. That got us to Anacortes too early to enter the marina, because the tide was too low. So we anchored out and just read for a couple of hours. Once we could get into the marina, we did, then got our stuff together to head into town. This weekend is an errand weekend for us, so we can get out of town on Sunday. We had to hit up a few boat stores, the grocery store, Radio Shack, Bunnies by the Bay (suggested to Heather by someone who used to buy their stuff for a large retailer), pet hospital (to get Merlin’s nails cut), etc. After unloading stuff on the boat, we headed back into town to have dinner at Rockfish Grill. We wandered the street a little after dinner checking out the old murals on the building walls in town. We also checked out this ship being built in their boat yard. It has a heliport on top… interesting. Then we just headed back to the boat so Heather could pack. So bags are packed, snacks are made for the 3 hours shuttle bus then 2 hour plane ride tomorrow. We will miss Heather a lot.

Spencer Spit to Hope Island 3 hours 18 miles

Because of the tides, we had to wait around until 12:30pm to leave Spencer Spit. So we rocked and rolled for several hours (even with the flopper stoppers) until we left. Then we had a nice ride through Rosario Straight, passed Anacortes, and on to Deception Pass. The grey skies started turning blue as they have the last couple of days. Looks like it may turn out to be a nice afternoon again. We approached the bridge at Deception Pass which was quite pretty. As we came up on it, we saw a family standing on top and the kids were waving at us and making all sorts of noise. So we waved back and I took some pictures of them. The Bay beyond the bridge was really pretty with a lot of islands. We found the moorage on the side of Hope Island we were looking for. Fred and Heather tied up to the mooring buoy, while I maneuvered the boat. We then got he kayaks down. We saw 2 planes fly over in formation. Apparently from Whidbey Island Naval base. Heather and I hopped in the kayaks and started circling the island. The water was really clear and the coastline was very pretty with lots of trees, logs and little beaches. We beached the kayaks to see if Merlin would hop out and go pee, but he wasn’t having it, so we went on our way. While out there we saw a handful of military jets go over. I thought we should maybe try to circle the island. But after what we later found on a map to be about ¼ the way around the island, we had to turn back because the current changed like crazy and we didn’t want to get caught up in it. So we headed back to the boat. We watched a little of the local Vancouver news again, which is always interesting. Back to civilization tomorrow.

Friday Harbor to Spencer Spit, Lopez Island 1 ¼ hours 7 miles

We left Friday Harbor around 9am, and it didn’t take long to get to Spencer Spit, our next moorage. It’s on Lopez Island, and has a long beach peninsula with a cove on each side. We took the dinghy into shore, and had to take our shoes off and hop ankle deep in the water to get on shore. We then walked up the beach a while looking for sea glass. Heather found a couple of pieces, and Merlin kept picking up random pieces of driftwood, etc. Including a spine of a small animal. Blech!! I bagged it to take back and show Fred. This cove is full of crabbers coming and going on their small boats, which means we almost have constant wake. Poor Heather wasn’t feeling so hot when we got back because of this, but we all had lunch. That helped a little. Fred was reading up on the topside of the boat, so Heather went up there and laid on one of the bench seats for a while. We got up and I made pork chops, rice and broccoli for dinner and we both felt a little better afterwards. During dinner we watched the news out of Vancouver. And they actually had a LONG segment on the NHL, Heather was in heaven.

Friday Harbor

Woke up early today to get ready to head out on our whale watching trip. Some people were coming in on the ferry for the excursion, which was delayed due to heavy fog. So the tour was going to start at 11:15am. We got down there and checked in and got our anti-exposure suits. They were padded and definitely warm on this gorgeous day. Made me debate why we were wearing them. We grabbed hats and gloves too as they suggested. We had 10 people of a boat that seats 15, including the captain and a naturalist. We headed out and had quite the ride, going maybe 30+ MPH and over some big waves. The captain was chatting with other boats about where the whales were, and if there were any sightings. While we were waiting, we stopped to see an island full of seals, then a few eagles on Speiden Island. We continued on, and apparently crossed the invisible dotted line that separates the US and Canada ;-) to find the Orcas. We soon caught up with a few other whale watching boats who were all watching this family of Orcas. Apparently they are a transient group, as opposed to the J, K, and L pods who live here. There were at least one or two adults and some youths that just kept hanging out. They would swim around the top, show their dorsal fins, blow their spout, dive under, come back up, dive back in and do it all over again. We moved along watching them for over an hour. They put on quite a show for us. Even the B.C. ferries coming by didn’t phase them. We took a ton of pictures, and luckily after getting them downloaded and zoomed in, Heather got some nice shots. Including one of the tail of one as it dove down in front of a sailboat. Lucky shot. We actually ended up very close to the town of Ganges on Salt Spring Island, in Canada. Heather actually visited there 5 years ago with us when she came up to the boat and we went around the Gulf Islands. After we’d been out over an hour, we had to head back. We actually went quite the distance to get to the whales, so had to high tail it back. And FYI, the distance we traveled one way today in about 30-45min (at 30ish MPH) would take about 4-5 hours (at 6 knots) on Aquila. And let’s just say that I understand now why we wore the suits that we did. It was freezing out there. We went back to the boat and made some grilled cheese sandwiches for a late lunch before going back into town. We went to The Whale Museum and wandered around. It was small but nice. On the way back to the boat we stopped at the fresh seafood place on the dock and bought a pound of tiger prawns for dinner. I made a ginger, teriyaki, honey, coconut marinade for the prawns (I stumbled upon a recipe in one of my cookbooks and faked it from there) over some jasmine rice. We decided to anchor out the next 2 nights in more rural areas where maybe we can hike and kayak.

Roche Harbor to Friday Harbor, San Juan Island 2 hours 10 miles

We left Roche Harbor around 8am and got to Friday Harbor around 10. We took a walk to the ferry dock to get some coffee and some cranberry loaf for breakfast. Then we wandered around town. Reminds me a lot of Juneau or Ketchikan. Small but full of restaurants and little shops and galleries. However, the stores and galleries are local stuff, not “cruise ship crap”. Fred had headed back to the boat already to do some projects, so Heather and I stopped at Haley's Bait Shop & Grill for lunch. We wandered town a bit more as we contemplated what to do tomorrow. We had already decided to stay here 2 nights, but there isn’t that much in town to keep us occupied. We debated taking the shuttle back over to Roche, just to see the inside of the island, which we were told is all farmland and such and very pretty. Instead we ended up checking out some whale watching companies down on the docks. We found one that goes out on a 46’ boat, or a 27’ Zodiac style boat that seats half the people and is more high speed and you wear full length anti-exposure suits. We decided to book that one for the 3 of us for tomorrow morning. That’ll be fun.

Roche Harbor

Happy Father’s Day! And Happy birthday to my sister Janet! We hopped in the dinghy and got over to Roche Harbor around 11. We first walked though “town”, past the little airport and to the Mausoleum in the forest. Really pretty place. It is a circle of columns with a marble table and chairs in the center. The family who once lived here is interred in the base of the chairs. Afterwards we headed back to wander the Sculpture Park. It is a very large grassy park, with grass paths and high brush that leads you on the meandering way past over 100 unique sculptures by different artists. There is a large pond right in the center. Very picturesque. We spent some time there before heading back to the Marina to have lunch on the dock. Heather and I then wandered by the Hotel De Haro, wandered the shops, though the flower garden and picked up some snacks at the little grocery. At this time the sun started to come out and we headed back to the boat to relax for a few hours. This is a pretty cool port of call so far, I really enjoyed wandering here. The place has a lot of character and charm. Heather made her frittata on the boat, which turned out pretty good. After dinner we headed to shore this time to watch the Colors Ceremony. It was a little cheesy, as the ceremony was performed by three 17ish year olds in resort logo sweats. But it was still cool. Before heading back to the boat, we walked down to this one beach with a Pi, whale tail, and another sculpture that we missed during the day. It was getting pretty dark at this point so we headed back to watch a little DVD shows and head to bed.

Sucia to Roche Harbor, San Juan Island 2 hours 14 miles

We decided to get the kayaks down and Heather and I went for a nice paddle for an hour and 15 mins or so. At one point we spotted a seal, so we stopped to see where he would pop up next. He poked his head out of the water about 15 feet from us and looked right at us, but I couldn’t get my camera in time before he went under again. The winds picked up and it became harder to paddle, so we headed in. Why don’t we just head on to Roche Harbor now? The tides are with us, and we already stayed here last night, so we might as well move on. So we pulled the kayaks from the water and prepped the boat to get underway. About 2 or so hours later we were in Roche Harbor. Cute harbor with some really nice houses on the shore. Kinda reminds me of the Hamptons of Washington, the way the adults and kids whiz around on their boats and such. We just spent the afternoon/evening on the boat and watched sea planes and boats come and go. We had dinner, some freshly made brownies, and watched some more Beauty and the Beast (Fred & I are way sucked in). Tomorrow we will explore shore. We are exhausted, and it’s only 8:15pm, it’ll be an early night. The sun doesn’t even set for another hour. Every night at sunset (9:08pm tonight) here, they do a colors ceremony. I borrowed this description I found on someone’s blog online… “Every night at sunset, Roche Harbor's Color Guard performs the flag lowering ceremony. They play the national anthems for England, Canada, and The United States before taking down each of those flags. At the end, there is a cannon fire and then a bugle plays taps. It is really neat because the whole harbor goes quiet for the ceremony and when the bugle plays taps, the sound just glides all over the water. But when Taps is done, tons of boaters honk their boat horns, and it gets a little crazy.” And that’s what it was like for us too. We didn’t go ashore for it, but we could see the flags in the distance and they played the music over a loud speaker which carried over the water. There was a wedding reception taking place in a tent on shore, and we could here all the music from the band and D.J. playing everything from Black Eyed Peas to Bell Biv Devoe to Elton John to John Cougar Mellencamp (info from Heather, I had no idea...). But when the colors ceremony commenced, their music stopped and all the guests lined the outside of the tent to watch the ceremony. Pretty cool. And all the while this was going on, there was a magnificent sunset.

Rosario to Fossil Bay, Sucia Island 3 hours 18 miles

It is a beautiful sunny day today. I made a batch of brownies for later. Fred got the dinghy down so we could go explore the shore. We went for a walk over to this beach where a bunch of kayakers were camping. Then up a short hike to Fox Point which had some awesome 180 degree views. We then wandered this beach where we saw some cool sandstone formations. As we were walking towards it, an otter came out of the brush and started sand bathing about 20 yards in front of us. We took a bunch of pictures then started slowly walking towards it to see if he would flee in to the water so we could get by, but he didn’t. Must be used to humans. We decided to leave him be and turned around. So we went up another path and I walked the trail over to a second dock to take a look at Mud Bay from a different angle. Very pretty island. Heading back to the boat on the dinghy, the wind had picked up, so we got a bit wet. Decided to head back to the boat instead of exploring more and wait. This bay (Fossil Bay) has now filled up with about 22 boats between the docks and mooring buoys. Fred decided to take a nap, and while he did so, Heather commented that she was sad my trip was already half over. Then I said that it was a bummer that I suggested Heather only come for a week. So the wheels started turning, and after talking with her father to make sure he was still cool watching Nala, Heather called the airline and turned her 7 night trip into an 11 night trip. Since the winds didn’t die down too much today, we didn’t get the kayaks down. We decided to stay in this cove another night and go kayaking earlier in the day tomorrow. We made BBQ salmon for dinner, watched some Canadian turn of the century cop show that we got on tv, an episode of Star Trek Voyager, then an episode of Beauty and the Beast to wrap up the evening.

Blind Bay to Rosario, Orcas Island 1 hour 7 miles

Poor Heather woke up at 6:30am to Merlin barking like crazy. Fred & I didn’t hear him, so she went up to see if he needed to go out. Once out, he just stared at her. So back to bed she went. We had a very short cruise to Rosario on Orcas Island. We wandered up to the mansion, which is now the resort hotel. Very beautiful building with a lot of character. It has a spa on the bottom floor, common areas and restaurant on the main floor and a museum and music room on the 3rd. We wandered down to the beach and let Merlin run around. Then there is this great pond above the marina with water lilies, fountains, a bridge and little islands. We walked further back up toward the hotel and spotted a deer just off the side of the road. It was staring at Merlin while we got some nice photos of it. There was a pipe organ concert by Christopher Peacock back in the music room of the hotel at 4pm. The performance was wonderful. He played a 1900 Steinway piano, enormous pipe organ and gave a wonderful history of the Moran Family and Rosario. We wandered around the small museum and saw many old photos, a replica of Rosario and a model of the USS Nebraska that was one of the ships that the Moran family built. The music room what really great. It had 2 walls of organ pipes, which were apparently just decorative and hid the working ones. Between the two walls was a 1900 Steinway Grand Piano. Christopher Peacock is the entertainer who has worked at this hotel for 30 years. He played the piano, organ, played a slideshow of Robert Moran’s early 1900’s photos and told stories about the family. It was a very enjoyable hour, very glad I went. We stopped at the restaurant in the resort after and decided to eat there instead of on the boat. The restaurant is brand new, only open for 4 weeks, called The Quilted Pig (http://www.quiltedpigrestaurant.com/). All the tables are right at the window overlooking the cove. Everything, except for one small side dish at the menu, is made from scratch right at the restaurant or locally grown. After dinner we headed back to the dock and spotted our waiter there. Fred left his credit card at the restaurant and waiter knew we were on a boat, so came down to return it. Very nice of him. We watched an episode of Beauty and the Beast as I caught up on my journal and downloaded some pictures. And change of plans for tomorrow… we’re going to try for Sucia again instead of Reid Harbor.

Anacortes to Blind Bay, Shaw Island 3 hours 16 miles

We wanted to get on the fuel dock before 9am so we could fill up and get on our way. We took 154.8 gallons @ $3.27/gallon. Just outside the marina we spotted a couple of Dall porpoises playing in the water. What a nice way to start our cruise. We’re headed to Sucia Island. We have never been and it’s supposed to be nice, and also pretty popular, so we’ll see if we can get on a buoy or anchor. Well after a little time of going against the tide and only going 1.5 knots, it was going to take several hours to get there. So change of plans. We hung a left and cruised another 90 mins to Blind Bay on Shaw Island. We anchored with no problem. After getting the dinghy down from topside, we took a short trip over to Orcas Landing on Orcas Island. They have a cute hotel, several gift shops, and espresso place and a great grocery. Heather ran into the grocery to buy some stuff for a frittata she’s going to make one of these nights. They had a great deli with awesome cheeses, specialty candy, and specialty food like herring, Greek feta, blue cheese in olive oil, crème fraiche, etc. Pretty great little place. We hopped in the dinghy and headed back to the boat. On the way back there was a small island we passed with about 10 seals sunbathing on it and one swimming around. We slowed down from a distance to take some pictures. Once we got back to the boat and unloaded everything, Heather asked me for my purse so she could get her glasses out. Well what do you know, the purse is no where to be found. Heather stayed on the boat with Merlin while Fred & I headed back over top Orcas Island in search of my purse. I asked at the gift shop, hotel, grocery, etc with no luck. We were about to give up and get back in the dinghy when I spotted my purse at the far end of the dock. I apparently had placed it on the dock while I put on my life vest (and Merlin’s). I can’t believe we just left it there. Had I looked on the dock before running all around Orcas Landing I would have saved a lot of leg work. When we returned to Aquila we started planning our next 4 nights out, as Heather’s final night (Monday) will be back in Anacortes in the marina. As of now, we are looking at Rosario on Orcas Island, Reed Harbor on Stuart Island, Roche Harbor then Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. After dinner we decided to watch a movie we borrowed from Heather, Laagan. It’s a Bollywood movie and wasn’t sure how we’d like it. It was subtitled, which is fine. However, it was also 3 ½ hours long and cute but a bit boring. Finally we were fast-forwarding on the singing sections and were able to see it to the end.

Anacortes

Heather was expected to arrive this afternoon via Bellair Shuttle service. Her flight was late so she would have had to wait at the airport and take a shuttle that would not have her getting here until around 8 PM. Since we still have our car we decided to pick her up at SeaTac (90 miles each way…) We arrived back in Anacortes around 5pm or so. We were all hungry, so we stopped in town at the Brown Lantern and all had fish and chips with sweet potato fries and slaw. It was delicious. We drove through town a little and showed her a bunch of the murals painted on the sides of buildings and even some downspouts on buildings shaped like watering cans. Afterwards we finally headed to the marina to go to the boat. We watched an episode of the old show Beauty and the Beast while having some popcorn.

Anacortes

We have a beautiful sunny day today. I saw in the paper that there was going to be a “fly-in” at the Anacortes Airport today. It is a bit chilly by the water but the airport is located in a little valley here on the island. It was in the 70’s without much of a breeze there. It is mostly a general aviation airport but it is also a hub for San Juan Airlines. San Juan Airlines uses small 4-6 passenger planes to get around the islands up here (as opposed to via boat or ferry). Merlin had a wonderful time checking in with the other dogs who attended. There were several fly-overs by acrobatic aircraft. It was beautiful to see. Many of the hangar doors were open and we got to see some of the many toys these aviators have acquired. There were beautiful model aircraft as well as vintage cars.

Anacortes (Whidbey Island)

Looks like the fog will burn off and we will have a lovely day. Since we are still stuck here on the dock in Anacortes, we decided to head south today. Between Fidalgo Island (where we are now) and Whidbey Island to the south is Deception Pass. Deception Pass is a strait separating Whidbey Island from Fidalgo Island, in the northwest part of the state of Washington. It connects Skagit Bay, part of Puget Sound, with the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We stopped at the pullout before the bridge so we could walk out onto the Deception Pass Bridge and look down on raging current below. On the other side of the bridge is a state park. There is practically no one here (it is Friday). It is really beautiful. The beaches are full of driftwood and many rocks for the courageous to climb. We also were able to see the bridge from below. Maybe one of these days we will try and go through there on the boat. As we continued our drive down Whidbey Island we passed mostly farm and ranch land. There were also areas with very dense woods. There aren’t many cities here and everything is a 100 shades of green. We stopped for lunch in Coupeville. This is small town whose main industry is tourism. This is apparently a great place to retire. I can see why. It is located on the east side of Whidbey Island so it is completely protected from the ocean. We are pleased that Heather will becoming up to join us next week. We will have a nice itinerary for her in the San Juan Islands. She has never been here before.

Anacortes (La Conner)

The weather is rainy but Fred suggested that we go to La Conner for the day. It is approximately 20 miles from Anacortes but very different. The main street is full of restaurants and art galleries. Somewhat like Carmel, but on a much smaller scale. It was raining earlier but we were able to walk around town without getting wet. Fred asked a local where the best food in town was and she suggested The Tavern. It is overlooking the Swinomish Channel and the food was excellent. When we got back, I took Merlin over to the beach which is on the SW edge of the island and about ½ from the marina. I just let Merlin run and he had a wonderful time. He was chewing driftwood and looking for interesting rocks in the water. He got filthy but I know he didn’t care. Of course, he probably wasn’t anticipating the bath that awaited him back on the boat. His fur is a magnet for leaves and sand.

Anacortes - June 3-9

Due to the process of selling our home, we have had to remain available via phone and internet to our realtor. We are happy to be moving forward on the sale of the property, but really very frustrated that we are living on our boat, but tied to the dock here in Anacortes. This is why blogs about our exploits have been so slow in coming. We are done with most of the pre-cruise work and provisioning so we are going to do some exploring of Fidalgo Island and Whidbey Island soon.

Anacortes – on to Aquila

Today we moved out of our second motel and onto Aquila . We are still trying to figure out what stays of the boat and what goes back in the car to take back to California . It is a beautiful, sunny day and good for moving a lot of “stuff”. As we checked and re-checked our belongings, we are sure we do not have our passports and boat information which would allow us into British Columbia . I’m sure many people think cruising in Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands is wonderful. However, we crave the peacefulness and beauty of the wilderness. Too many people down here. The hawse pipes are done and look wonderful. Poor Fred has an employee discount at West Marine and they have very few of the items he needs. Fred immediately made sure all systems came online. The generator & heater came up without trouble. Much to Fred’s surprise the wireless internet equipment came up without a major headache. Fred is happy to report that his bilge is still dry. Jason graciously offered to go to the warehouse where our belongings are being kept to look for our passports, etc. He was on the phone with us most of the time and we believe that he went through every crate without success. Neither Fred nor I can remember what we did with the documents. I called Heather after Jason’s failure to find our stuff and she agreed to go to our small storerooms in Alameda . She and Ann went together and went through the larger of out two storage units and spent over an hour without success. Ann offered to look in the smaller of our two units. We really didn’t think she would find anything there. We hung up the phone and the next I hear is a text message on my phone. It showed Heather holding our two passports!! Thank God. We have been so very worried. Now we can start planning our summer.

Anacortes

We got to the boat early to meet with Danny from North Harbour Diesel. He is going to install our new hawse pipes in the stern. Fred had them made over the winter. One cannot just go to the store and buy these to fit an older boat. We had them chromed (made from brass) and they look very good. They are a bit smaller that the ones already on the boat, but overall looks good. We got Danny set up and then the Ship Shape folks showed up to finish waxing the boat and shampoo the carpets. We had to empty part of the lazerette for the hawse pipe guy to have access to put reinforcement in the transom for the new pipes. We decided to head north to Bellingham . We heard it a very pretty and interesting town. The rain held off as we wandered “ Old Town ”. They have numerous interesting stores and restaurants. We had a great lunch and drove around a bit. They have a very nice Amtrak station and a ferry terminal. We got back to the boat about 3 PM. One hawse pipe was completed and the carpets look great. We think we will check out of the motel tomorrow and finally move aboard Aquila .

Anacortes

The weather is overcast and muggy, but no rain. We headed back to the boat to continue cleaning and getting it ready to hit the water. We were able to get a 3:30 PM splash time. The folks from Ship Shape Yacht Care finished up waxing the hull and started on the house. They brought their one year old St. Bernard, Harley. She is gorgeous. Weighs about 130# and still growing. Her father weighs 165#. She and Merlin got along fine. She wanted to play but she is just too big. She did follow Merlin around. So cute! Atalo (the yard manager) was right on time to get Aquila into the water again for the 2010 season. Fred followed the boat and I went to car with Merlin to follow them out. I found out that I did not have my key with me. I called Fred was he was busy with the boat. So, Merlin & I walked to 2 blocks to the boat and left the car in the lot. We tied the boat up and started the engines. They came up and running quickly. When we moved to the slip we will occupy for 3 days or so we started to fill the water tank. After about 5 minutes Fred said “I hear water running”. I said yea, up here into the tank. He said no, it’s something else. We found that the bilge pump came on and was pouring out water. After some investigation, Fred found that the valves for fresh water were open to the bilge and flowing right out of the water tank. Well, fortunately it was a minor crisis and the bilge pump worked just like it should. We were working and tidying and both said “Oh s__t at about 5:15 PM. We couldn’t believe it. We had managed to get the car locked into the boat yard again! We just couldn’t call the owner again. He might kick us out of the marina. We decided that we would just stay on the boat (we have no food) tonight. I would walk up to the corner store and get some basic provisions. About half way to the store I saw Atalo driving past. He stopped for me and said he came back because he knew our car was locked in the lot. How sweet! Now we have the car and we can head back into town for some dinner. We were both feeling a bit frazzled to say the least. When we arrived back at the motel room, Fred received a call from our realtor. She said we received an offer on our house for the full asking price! We’ll see if it all pans out.