1st Month of Cruising
30 June 2009 | Roche Harbor
Heidi
Today marks the end of our 1st full month of cruising! After leaving Gig Harbor on May 31st we've had a great time visiting old favorite places like Stuart Island, Jones Island, Sucia, Spencer Spit, and of course Blake Island.
We've gone into a few new places, too. We visited Blind Bay on Shaw Island and Fisherman's Bay on Lopez. We've enjoyed a couple visits to Turn Island, a place we've only grabbed a buoy before and never gone to shore, but found it to be a fun place. We still have some time here in the San Juans and plan to get to more spots that we have never gone to -- or that we haven't been to in years.
We've made some new friends and have run into old friends passing through. Last week our daughter, Carly, flew in on a float plane and spent a few days with us in Friday Harbor and for a day trip to Turn Island.
Right now we're anchored in Roche Harbor with our good friends, Jack & Joan Eddy aboard Interlude. We'll stay here through the 4th of July to see the fireworks -- plus, Dave Calhoun is going to be part of the musical entertainment at the resort!
Days seem to go just as fast as they did at home! We get to sleep in a bit later -- no more 4:30 wake ups for Terry to head to work. And our daily walks don't have to be crammed into the end of a busy day somewhere around dinner. Now we get to go for great hikes around these beautiful islands at our leisure and enjoy lunch and dinner in the cockpit watching all the activity and fantastic sunsets. It's better than TV!
We've also been busy getting to know all the new systems on the boat -- and just enjoy sailing. Always before when we'd be up here we were on a short time schedule, so we'd usually motor from place to place because we didn't feel we had time to sail in light winds -- we had places to be. This time we've been able to decide where to go after we saw which way the wind was going and because of that have had some great spinnaker runs.
We'll continue on like this until about the middle of July when we will cross the straits and spend some time in Sequim Bay so I can get down to Gig Harbor and take care of a few things and then head to Neah Bay to wait for a good weather window to start heading down the coast around the 1st of August.
Once again I'm doing this as a remote post thru our SSB radio, so no pictures until I get to internet service and can upload -- but there are already lots of pictures in the photo gallery to the right.