01/11/2011, Spieden Island

Here is the guy who really caught the octopus. Ummmmm. Sushi!

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01/11/2011, Spieden Island

Here is the guy who snagged some fresh sushi from the better fisherman. Looks like a sea gull stole a bit of the sushi, too.

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01/11/2011, Spieden Island

This guy followed our boat, keeping an eye out for us. You can tell he is a sea lion and not a seal because sea lions have ears that show.

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01/11/2011, Deer Harbor, Orcas Island

Here is our Simrad autopilot with the Nav Button we set to synch up with an activated route.

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Don/35 degrees
01/11/2011, Deer Harbor, Orcas Island

We hung out on the boat this morning a bit as Don finished a review and Debbie called her dad. Then we went up to the café for breakfast. Eggs and pancakes and sausage. Ymmm.

When we returned to the boat we called Mike in Bellingham for the fix to synch a course we had set with the auto pilot. It was an easy fix, he said, just hit the Nav button on the Simrad autopilot. Then hit it again for confirmation. Don plotted a route to Deer Harbor so we could test this. As he did so, he recalled how his dad and his brothers used to do this on paper charts with parallel rulers and calipers, marking off one nautical mile increments so that, if fog hit, we could estimate course and speed and know approximately where we were. Goodness how times and technologies change!

Debbie handled the lines as Don backed us out of our slip and headed out of Roche Harbor.

As soon as lines were in and we had exited the entrance, we activated the course, hit the Nav button twice, and we immediately locked into our course. Nice!

As we went by Spieden Island, first one and then several stellar sea lions appeared. We had seen a colony of sea lions settle in at the point of Spieden in the fall. They must be staying over the winter before heading back north to Alaska. The whole colony appeared to be fishing. One big guy surfaced ahead of us with a large Pacific octopus and started thrashing his head back and forth to release the tentacles and kill his dinner. It was 300 feet deep here so he must have picked this guy up off the bottom, where they live. (Stellars dive to over 600 feet deep for food and can stay down up to 40 minutes.) A competitor came over and snagged half of the octopus that broke off in the thrashing. There was a bit of a skirmish and then each, with half of the octopus, settled in to chow down on some very fresh sushi.

We navigated on auto pilot over to Deer Harbor, the first time we have been here. Two guys helped with the lines as we docked and tied up next to an old boat called Patrol No. 1, the first patrol boat in Seattle. Don recalled reading about this boat in a boating magazine and will have to reread it now that we have seen the boat.

Debbie went for a walk to explore the community while Don did another review and a few letters of recommendation. As dinner time approached we made what must be the most brilliant decision of the trip. We walked up to the small store and snagged a pint of Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream. It was our appetizer, entre, and desert all in one! And the best part of all was there were hardly any dishes!

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Don/Snow tomorrow?
01/10/2011, Deer Harbor

I revised this poem tonight:

The eyes of an eagle
Are yellow and black
All light that enters, reflected back

His eyes look right through you
To your inner most soul.
How you feel, what you think
Even the history of all that you know.

As I stare back, I wonder,
"Does he laugh? Does he cry?"
What must he feel?
Does he wonder what it might mean to die?

My questions continue as he continues to stare
Does he ever think how?
Or does he only perceive me
In the here and the now?

The eyes of an eagle
Both distant and near
Living a life so bright and so clear.


Draft August, 2009
Revised January, 2011

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don
01/10/2011, Roche Harbor, WA

These looked soooo good!

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don
01/10/2011, roche Harbor, WA

This prime rib was soooooo tasty! It was slow cooked and came with fresh horseradish.

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don
01/10/2011, roche Harbor, WA

Debbie saw this old lime kiln on her walk. Roche used to supply most of the lime for construction on the west coast.

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don/39 degrees
01/10/2011, Roche Harbor, WA

Here is McMillin's, the restaurant overlooking the docks. It has fantastic food and there were very few people here in the winter.

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