Day three, July 5, 2010: Blake Island to Bell Harbor
Departure time: 10:30, Travel time: 1:17, Mileage: 7.24nm, Average Speed: 6.2kts

This morning was like most every morning, which is the way I like it. Get up brush the fuzz off my teeth, making some coffee, log and blog the previous day's adventure. Nice having Tom around. He's up early too and we enjoy coffee together. When we were at Boston Harbor I noticed my anchor light was out. So Alexa was looking for any reason to go up the mast. She loves being a little mast monkey. We sent her aloft in a bowsen's chair. The mast is 55ft tall. She was a little worried at first, but soon she wanted us to hoist faster. She found out the bulb was blow. So she wanted to do some sight seeing and was reluctant to come down the mast. With a little groaning she came down. She brought down the bulb and cap. So now we've added in a trip to go ole West Marine.

By 10:00 we pulled out and headed for Bell Harbor. I was pretty excited to get to Bell Harbor. I knew that my daughter would be there waiting for me. When we got into cell reception, I saw that I had several messages waiting for me. I called and found out that Katie had missed her flight and was on the next flight. She had even called her Granma and let her know all the pertinent information. So she would be in by 12:30, no harm, no foul, all is good. The trip over was uneventful other than it being a little rolly.

Bell Harbor was a great little harbor right down town Seattle. We made port and the sun came out. It was warm in the sun and still a little cool in the shade. My Mom phoned me and let me know that she had Katie and they were in the market doing a little shopping. We all made for the showers having not showered for a couple of days. It was good to knock off the stubble on my face and scrub off the layers of sun screen.

After we cleaned up and headed up to the Market. Michelle and Alexa were hungry and got a bite on the way up to the market. It was take out so we stopped on the stairs on the way up to the Market and people watched as they ate. My Mom called and we said that we would meet at the Pig by the fishmongers on the corner of Pike and Pike Place. I was pretty excited to see my daughter again. It had been sometime since I last saw her. The market was quite packed as usual. But I saw her at once. How can one describe the feeling this is one's own flesh and blood after a long, long sabbatical. I could tell that she was apprehensive as was I. There was some awkwardness kind of like a first date. My Mom was there with her Husband Mike. It was the first time in a while that I had seen Mike. There had been some family drama and because of it we had not seen each other. All in all a pretty weird afternoon.

I could tell my Mom was a little apprehensive and wanted to leave. She said that the meter was running on the car and she only had two hours of parking. So we walked a bit and did a bit of window shopping. Katie and I stuck our heads into the cheese Kurd place and grabbed a couple of samples. Katie said that she was hungry, so we found a restaurant to park her as I went with my Mom and Mike to collect Katie's things. I walked back to my Mom's car with the two of them. Made pleasantries and said good bye. I made a quick trip back to the boat to drop Katie's things and ran back to the market. Katie and Annette were sitting in Vietnamese restaurant. We sat as Katie ate. Tom and Michelle met back up with us.
Afterwards we walked though the market trying all the goodies the vendors were hocking. Katie and I were doing our reunion dance that comes from awkwardness of not seeing each other for a while. I could not stop looking at her. How does a father verbalize how much he loves his daughter? Every time I see her she takes my breath away. Katie will never know how much I love her. I hope to spend the rest of my life showing her.

Tom wanted to show us the "Gum Wall". It's down the stairway by the pig. It's in Post Ally. It was disgusting but kind of cool. We took a couple of photos and hung out for a bit. The girls wanted to do some shopping and the boys did not. So Tom and I went to the Pike Market Brew Pub and had a cold one. A short time later we met up with the girls and started for the boat. Ben had called me and he meet up with us. Back at the boat we sat around in the sun and enjoyed cocktails. Michelle had made reservations at Anthony Pier 66.

We met up with Michelle and Tom at Anthony's on the deck overlooking the harbor and the Seattle cityscape. A friend of Michelle, Selena met us for dinner. Selena was there to take Michelle to the airport. Tom and Michelle had a French foreign exchange student flying in to visit. It was a surprise to Alexa for her birthday which was in a few days. Also the dinner was to celebrate my birthday. After dinner they brought out a dessert, which we all shared. Katie had bought me a Fart Book and Alexa gave me a Whoopee Cushion. How appropriate the gift. To the delight of the Katie and Alex I tested the Whoopee Cushion. I'm sure the other patrons in the restaurant did not appreciate your since of humor.

After dinner we all went back to the boat. Michelle, Alexa and Selena headed to the airport to pickup Clair Sophie. Back on the boat, we enjoyed cocktails in the warm evening air. Ben said that he would have loved to come on our trip. Annette put on a full court press to have him come along with us. After several drinks and a bit of planning, Ben agreed to come with us. He said that he would be on the boat by 09:00. I said that we would leave by 10:00 with or without him. Ben said good night and took off. We all packed it in and closed the hatch boards for the night.