Boy have I been having fun. I apologize for neglecting you all, but there is so much to do. First we spent two nights at Bell Harbor, right downtown in Seattle and I fullfilled my dream of waking early, heading up the steps to the Pike Place Market, buying fresh berries and good yougurt for breakfast. With a little honey on top. Yummmm! And beignets, OMG.

We walked all over Seattle for two days, had a great dinner at Le Pichet in Bell Town the first night and at Anthony's the second night joined by Uncle Bev and his lovely wife Nancy. We walked some more and ended up at Lake Union which was in the last throes of prepartations for the Boats Afloat Show. We poached our way onto the docks and got to visit a very sweet Krogan 42 Widebody that is for sale. It iwas still for sale when we left.

We are now in Port Orchard which will be the temporary home for the Lady after we head out on our land leg of the trip. And it's official, she is listed with Port Orchard Yacht Sales. Today we head for Brownsville to join the Willard Rondezvous. Tonight is Apps on the dock (I'll be making a boatload of salmon cakes with caper tarter) and tomorrow is the pig roast. Not too sure about that. Then we are going to meet up with our friend Marlene in Gig Harbor and she is going to join us for a short week of cruising around Puget Sound. The weather is forecasted to be around 80 and sunny for the next ten days. Marlene will be picking up a case of three buck chuck for our visit.

Port Orchard is right across Sinclair Inlet from Bremerton - the Navy town featured in the old Richard Gere film, An Officer and a Gentleman. We are entertained in the mornig with Reville played loud and live,in the evening there is Taps and just now a recording of the National Anthem. Hokey, but cool. And our observation of Port Orchard is there are a lot of dog groomers and bail bondsmen here. Must be the County Seat for a bunch of hariy dog owners.

Speaking of dogs, Milo has taken a turn for the wierd recently, spending hours every day hiding under the bed in the stateroom. Don't know what that is about, maybe the heat. It has been very warm.

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Sometimes when I sit to write these entries, it's hard to sort through all the things we encountered and experienced since the last entry. I think I will be glad to have this record to refresh my memory when all is said and done.

So, Damn it, we are here - just about. It has been some kind of journey, 2260 miles as of today. We left in May!

Lopez Island was our destination after Friday Harbor. I picked it and it was really nice. We went to a state park on a spit and anchored out. We met some folks on the beach -real sand! They were from the adjacent sailboat "Free Spirit" which sported about five graduated-size pirate flags . We figured they must be fun. Ho Boy! In the course of our beach conversation we learned they had a cannon. GUESS WHAT? So do we. When we skiffed back to the Lady a couple of hours and a couple of miles of beach walking later, they saluted us with a big bang. Patience is a virtue, so Rob waited until sunset and then he let them have it. They of course returned the fire, but what they weren't expecting was Rob's immediate return volley and the next one and the next one. It was a real pirate battle, broadsides! Then the other boats started hollering about their dogs and stuff. Indeed Mr. Milo, who is immune to the howitzers at Alyeska freaked out over this skirmish. He was te rrified, hiding under my side of the bed. Battle over, we offered "Parlay" in the form of a beach bonfire. It was great. 2 bottles of Naked Grape, the Canadian version of 2 buck chuck. Our fire was fierce; The company fun and the wade through the water back to the skiff was damn cold.

Today we made our way to Port Townsend for the Wooden Boat Festival, and to meet up with Rob's sort-of Uncle Bev, whom he last saw 40 years ago. He met us for lunch on shore and they really enjoyed reconnecting. It was an honest 80 degrees while we ate our lunches on the waterfront.

And then there are the boats here at the festival. I had a hard time fixing on which picture to feature - but what the heck. Can you believe this dude? I am not exaggerating when I tell you he circled in front of the wharf four times. He wins. Anyone who tries that hard deserves to be the centerpiece of the Anne Blog. But the second runner up was the boat "You've got Male". See the gallery. I'm concerned that I am so far out of the loop that I don't get it. You've Got Male? Ok people, clue me in - help me - I am worried that I am not dialed into the cool stuff anymore. Shoot ,I hardly heard about the looney Mexico hijacker until I went to clear customs. Which by the way was a breeze. You've got Male?

Sometimes when I sit to write these entries, it's hard to sort through all the things we encountered and experienced since the last entry. I think I will be glad to have this record to refresh my memory when all is said and done.

So, Damn it, we are here - just about. It has been some kind of journey, 2260 miles as of today. We left in May!

Lopez Island was our destination after Friday Harbor. I picked it and it was really nice. We went to a state park on a spit and anchored out. We met some folks on the beach -real sand! They were from the adjacent sailboat "Free Spirit" which sported about five graduated-size pirate flags . We figured they must be fun. Ho Boy! In the course of our beach conversation we learned they had a cannon. GUESS WHAT? So do we. When we skiffed back to the Lady a couple of hours and a couple of miles of beach walking later, they saluted us with a big bang. Patience is a virtue, so Rob waited until sunset and then he let them have it. They of course returned the fire, but what they weren't expecting was Rob's immediate return volley and the next one and the next one. It was a real pirate battle, broadsides! Then the other boats started hollering about their dogs and stuff. Indeed Mr. Milo, who is immune to the howitzers at Alyeska freaked out over this skirmish. He was te rrified, hiding under my side of the bed. Battle over, we offered "Parlay" in the form of a beach bonfire. It was great. 2 bottles of Naked Grape, the Canadian version of 2 buck chuck. Our fire was fierce; The company fun and the wade through the water back to the skiff was damn cold.

Today we made our way to Port Townsend for the Wooden Boat Festival, and to meet up with Rob's sort-of Uncle Bev, whom he last saw 40 years ago. He met us for lunch on shore and they really enjoyed reconnecting. It was an honest 80 degrees while we ate our lunches on the waterfront.

And then there are the boats here at the festival. I had a hard time fixing on which picture to feature - but what the heck. Can you believe this dude? I am not exaggerating when I tell you he circled in front of the wharf four times. He wins. Anyone who tries that hard deserves to be the centerpiece of the Anne Blog. But the second runner up was the boat "You've got Male". See the gallery. I'm concerned that I am so far out of the loop that I don't get it. You've Got Male? Ok people, clue me in - help me - I am worried that I am not dialed into the cool stuff anymore. Shoot ,I hardly heard about the looney Mexico hijacker until I went to clear customs. Which by the way was a breeze. You've got Male?

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From Pender Harbour we made our way to Nanaimo anchoring out in Mark Bay offshore from a beautiful Provincial Park. We spent two nights here, eventually reconnecting with our friends on the Contagious. We were mooching around the docks at the marina and low and behold, there was Contagious, all battened down and locked up. We worried a bit that they had encountered trouble; their engine had been a little fickle. We called and they reminded us that their plan was to take a week for surfing on the outer coast and that they were headed back to Nanaimo as we spoke.

Hang on, it is such a nice morning, I'm going to take a baileys and espresso break. That's better.

It is really lovely today. We are now in the San Juan Islands. The forecast today, September 11 is for 82 F. Not a cloud in the sky. The only concern is the ferry traffic. Our destination this morning is a short hop to Lopez Island, a place called Spenser Spit Marine Park. We are hoping to get on one of the mooring buoys and spend the day climbing around on the shore and maybe do a little paddling.

So back to yesterday. As my son Adam counseled me, "even if you get a two foot bigger boat, you're still gonna grow sick of each other, maybe you'll postpone it by a week or so." We could have been an episode of that reality show Kate and what's his name. Snarking back and forth. It took me some time, but I realized we have been in each others' company - uninterrupted for four frickin' months. 2200 miles. And to top it off, the door to the head has got an issue and is inoperable until we hit a dock store so one cannot even get any privacy there, if you know what I mean. So here we are, Rob barking orders, me second guessing his orders, you know the drill. Of course resetting the anchor three times in an hour doesn't help matters. So we decide to put the sour stuff in Al Gore's lockbox and skiff to Friday Harbor. That was fun. We walked off some tension and then I brilliantly devised the perfect way to change the mood-I tossed my spectacles in the drink as I was unt ying the dinghy. Cunning, huh? And no, Terry I wasn't even wearing them. They were in my almost completely zipped backpack and slithered out as I bent over to get at the knot. Well, TA-DA, we have an underwater remote camera, thanks to aforementioned Adam. We retrieved that and a treble hook we use to grapple the shrimp pots and zoomed back to the dinghy dock. Pretty soon we had a crowd. And then one fellow stepped forward and he and Rob spent an hour on their knees, sighting and then losing the glasses in about 8 feet of kelp. I offered to don my mask and fins and dive into the nasty, but by then we has lost our light, the tide was high and my glasses were gone. Oh well, they were the spare pai, resurrected from my ski-pack glasses that had been broken before.

Lest I forget, between Nanaimo and Friday Harbor we spent a great evening in Ganges, a community of art galleries, restaurants and coffee houses. And a family of swans. Milo was totally nonplussed. The father swan however made some really cool hissing sounds.

We have decided to continue the marriage and the journey. And spend two nights in the big city, at Bell Harbor working off a little steam, doing some shopping, maybe a movie. What movies have you guys seen?

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