We have a new website, www.NealAndRhonda.com!

Sea Quell and I have had a super week in calm and sheltered Poulsbo. Rhonda has visited on the weekend, and we have also had time with a good friend Steve Dundas aboard "Fiddlers Dream".

Attached is a picture of "Fiddler's Dream" moored at Poulsbo. Steve and his family built that boat in their back yard! "Fiddler's Dream" has since sailed to Mexico and back. She's a beautiful schooner with lots of character and a steel hull.

Today I'll move the boat from Poulsbo to Shilshole, where Rhonda will board. Then we maneuver through the Ballard Locks, and raise all the bridges through to Lake Washington. Tonight (late), Sea Quell should be settled into her home port.

I moved Sea Quell from Friday Harbor to Port Townsend, with no wind
(motor all the way). There was fog from Turn Point rock all the way to
Point Wilson. That's about 4 to 5 hours of navigating by instruments,
radar GPS etc.

Rhonda battled Friday rush hour traffic to get Minnie and catch the
ferry, then drive to Port Townsend. It's a tough job, but the reward of
Port Townsend afloat is worth it.

On Saturday we were getting ready to go ashore for dinner, when a
thunder-storm developed. We debated whether to get in the dingy and dash for the dock, or eat aboard instead. The more we debated, the worse the storm developed. Eventually the lightning scared us enough to stay on
Sea Quell. The attached picture was taken from the cockpit as the storm
developed. You can see the rain on the cockpit windows.

After the exciting thunder and lightning show, the wind calmed enough that we went ashore in full rain gear, and had a super dinner. "T's Restaurant" in Port Townsend is right in Point Hudson now, and we recommend it. We liked the decor and mood in the old location, but the Point Hudson restaurant has a great view.

Seaplane travel is a great (no stress) way to travel. I took 2 seaplane fights at the start of this trip and one (pictured above) back home from Friday Harbor to Seattle.

For those of you who have never seen "Fantasy Island" or you're too young to know who "Tattoo" is, you may not recognize the famous quote that is the title of this blog. Here's a little refresher http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX-pVhTZg0U (You've gotta love the 70s!)

Our time on Sea Quell has gone by all too fast and now I have to go back to Seattle for my job. This has been such an amazing trip. Though we could have spent months exploring the areas we visited, we were able to spend enough time at each of our destinations to relax and appreciate nature and the cruising lifestyle.

I booked a seaplane flight for my trip back to Seattle. Fortunately, Neal can stay out a little longer. I will be joining him for the next couple of weekends before we bring Sea Quell back to Seattle to her moorage in Kenmore.

Here's a picture of Crew-member Minnie in her carrier waiting for our flight back to Seattle. She did very well on this trip. It's not really a surprise since she's traveled often with me over her 16 years. During our trip, we actually saw quite a few cruisers with their pets (dogs and cats) on board!

After our hike on Jones Island, we picked up anchor and headed over to Stuart Island on Friday. This was an island that I had read about and was looking forward to visiting. Much of the island is privately owned, but there are several county (think gravel) roads that can be hiked as well as public lands with hiking trails and parks. There are only about 30 year round residents here and they live here with no power (some have solar power), no water (some have septic tanks but most have outhouses) and no phones. You can get cell phone service from some the hill tops on the island but it is not reliable. There's no ferry service, so one must have a boat or a plane to get here. Life on Stuart Island seems quite simple and idyllic for these folks.

To add to this simple charm, there is also a floating Art Gallery in the middle of Reid Harbor (where we anchored at the South end of Stuart Island). When I spotted the art gallery as we were coming into Reid Harbor, it moved to the top of my list of places to see while there. It's actually both, a gallery and home, to photographer Peter Fromm (www.frommphotos.com) during the summer. Peter is a long time resident of the San Juan Islands and has an amazing collection of nature and landscape photos from the area. The gallery itself is a small, rustic wooden barge with gallery at the water level and living quarters upstairs. He also has a nice little wooden sailboat tied next to the gallery.

On Saturday, we went for a long hike to the other end of the island. The island is rich with history and stories from a cast of characters that inhabited the island previously. During our hike, we visited an old school house and the Turn Point light house. One of the highlights of the hike was finding an unmarked trail that bypassed the steep 150 stair climb on our way back!

Above is my attempt to make a collage of pictures in GIMP from our visit to Reid Harbor (we are limited to one photo per post on this blog platform).