marina – Riveted

The Sun’s Coming Out at Ganges

Laura Domela — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 13:54:26 +0000

I think before we head out of here we'll go up to town for breakfast (and get those smoked bacon potato chips already).

Ganges Harbor on Salt Spring Island

Laura Domela — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 12:07:00 +0000

Yesterday morning we left Sidney Spit and headed for Ganges Harbor on Salt Spring Island. The weather was gray and a bit foggy, but seas were smooth for the most part and we had a nice cruise. (I didn't take any photos on the way, because it was all just gray.)

These are the Chain Islands, as we entered Ganges Harbor:

Here's what Ganges Harbor looks like from above, when it's sunny.

Cool boat on our way to the marina:

Looking out of the harbor, float plane coming in:

We arrived at the Ganges Marina (which happened to be closed yesterday) and were directed (by a super friendly guy) to a guest spot with electricity, close by water, and good access to free Wi-Fi (woohoo!!!!)

We did a bit of work and then walked up to town to grab lunch at the highly recommended (by same super friendly marina guy) Tree House Cafe. The Tree House Cafe did not disappoint at all. Great food, great service, cute place.

We explored town a bit (including the three story hardware store that has MUCH more than hardware) and picked up a large stock pot (because: crab!) and a few grocery items at the market. I wanted to pick up some of the fun Canadian potato chip flavors…it's a thing we do in Canada…pick up a couple small bags to try (flavors like Dill Pickle, Ketchup, Fries 'N Gravy, etc.) but we couldn't find any small sized bags in the grocery store, and I just wasn't ready to commit to a giant bag of Smoked Bacon Potato Chips. (I know, lame. I should have gotten them.)

I know every one of these photos is all gray and kinda dreary, but this town is cool and has a really good vibe about it. Apparently the marina is already completely booked for July, so it's obviously a very popular place in the summer.

We came back to Airship and worked for a few hours, then took another walk up to town to (a) get another walk in, and (b) to do/get a few more things. We decided to exchange the 16 quart stock pot for the 20 qt one, because we were pretty sure it would fit on our stovetop, and it did:

We'll mostly use this outside with the Woodland Power Stove (once we get that…for cooking crab) but we wanted a pot that would also fit on the stovetop for when we might want to use it inside.

We also read a little online about Salt Spring Island Cheese and decided we should try some, so we stopped at the little organic market (Natureworks) and picked up a few goodies:

Here are better photos and descriptions from their website:

Ruckles: soft fresh goat milk cheese logs marinated in grape with herbs and fresh garlic in grape seed oil, topped with chives.

Juliette is a surface ripened cheese made to taste like a goat camembert. Blue Juliette (the one we picked up) is made essentially the same way as its white sister, but the Blue Juliette is made half with blue and half with white cultures. It takes on a very mild blue taste and also grows softer and stronger as it ages.

Garlic chèvre is covered with roasted garlic and dripping with olive oil; it has a sprig of rosemary too, which adds a subtle flavour and a splash of colour.

We're still full from lunch, so we probably won't try these (or even have dinner) until tomorrow. But check out the rest of their cheese on their website here. It's very pretty cheese.

Here's yesterday's route (16.08 nautical miles):

Next we'll head down to Cabbage and Tumbo Islands, near Saturna Island. These are the Gulf Islands that stick out the closest to the San Juans. We hear there's some good hiking down there (and potentially more crab to be caught).

We’re in Sidney, BC

Laura Domela — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 23:42:34 +0000

This morning we got up early to get some work done, since we were planning to head over into B.C. today (~5 hour cruise). We stopped in at the Department of Homeland Security/Customs office at Cap Sante Marina and asked about (and got the form for) getting a new 2015 Customs decal (the one on our boat is a 2014 sticker). The customs agent was super helpful and nice. He even told us that when we come back to the U.S., if we come straight back to Cap Sante (without stopping anywhere else) just to give them a call when we get to the marina and they'll come clear us through customs from our slip. We can clear customs from our own slip at the marina. Could that BE any more convenient? No.

People are always talking about how rude the customs agents are when you come back into the U.S. via Roche Harbor or Friday Harbor (which we'll still try sometime, because it's hard to believe that if we are super nice and aren't trying to smuggle booze, they'd still be mean), but I think we'll usually aim to clear from our slip instead, because why not? This Department of Homeland Security office will totally get some good Yelp reviews from us, that's for sure!

Nice and calm crossing Haro Strait:

Zoomed WAY in on an eagle in flight. Not too bad, new camera/lens:

We arrived at the Port of Sidney marina and pulled up to the customs dock. There's a phone on a pole there for you to pick up and it automatically connects you with a Canadian customs agent somewhere in one of the eastern provinces I think. The agent asked me a couple questions (boat registration number, our names and dates of birth, how long we plan to be in Canada, whether we had any alcohol and how much, a couple questions about food items, etc.) and that was pretty much it. We got a clearance number and then called the marina office for a slip assignment, and now we're here.

Sporting our Canadian courtesy flag on the bow:

We went up to the moorage office, paid our slip fee, and then walked around town a bit. We picked up some eggs and a few things at the market, got sucked in to the bakery several people recommended (bought a small loaf of sourdough, two macaroons–Kevin loves macaroons–and a couple of thin lace cookie things with chocolate on 'em). We had a macaroon once back at the boat and OMG it was amazing. I'm not even a fan, but these were chewy and a little crusty on the outside and the texture and flavor was perfect.

Looking back toward the marina:

This fish market had very little fish to choose from, but it was the end of the day so maybe that was why. There was a guy hosing down the floor we were standing on (inside) with a big industrial hose and he seemed annoyed we were there, so between that and the sparse selection, we pretty quickly moved on.

When we got back from our walk, Kevin realized he'd left his wallet at the bakery so he walked back over to get it (with a "Hey, you could grab two more macaroons!" prompt from me). He came back with his wallet (yay!) and a bag looking suspiciously fuller than the space two macaroons should take up. I said "That bag looks like it's got more than two macaroons, honey" and he said "Ohhh. I thought you said to get half a dozen." Heh.

The only Wi-Fi we're getting from our many-headed set-up on Airship is the limited Verizon international data plan that we added before we left. We've got nothing from TMobile (the one we had high hopes for here) and just okay service on our AT&T iPhones (also with an international plan we added on the way over). If you're a Shaw cable subscriber, there's free Wi-Fi all over town, but we aren't, of course.

The marina has its own Wi-Fi we could use, but only IN the moorage office. That would have been fine, but after we gathered our laptops and gear and got all the way back up there, we found that the area with the nice cushy chairs (and laundry, and televisions showing sports) gets locked up at 5pm and doesn't reopen until 8am, and there's nowhere to sit besides the cold concrete floor — so we went and had a beer instead.

We're back at the boat working now.

Kingfisher digesting a worm it just shook the heck out of and then swallowed:

It's been rainy most of the day, but just about an hour ago the sky cleared up a little and the sun came out. It's turning out to be a beautiful sunset.

Today's route (37.5 nautical miles):

Last Night in Tacoma

Laura Domela — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 13:16:00 +0000

Our friend Ingrid met us at the boat yesterday at the end of the day, and we all headed over to her part of the city to have dinner at a spot called Marrow. The cocktails and the food were fabulous (dijon beignets with gruyere sauce and crispy prosciutto, squash confit, house-made pasta with clams and pork belly….), but the company and conversation was the BEST. Such a fun evening!

Here are the photos I take when I first turn my camera on:

I like these Chihuly rock candy pops (that’s what I call ’em…they probably have a different name) on the bridge to the glass museum:

Yarn-bombed bike racks outside of Marrow:

We caught a ride back to the marina via Uber and OMG we had the most hilarious driver. Uncle Kenny! Here are just a few tidbits of the in-car conversation:

Kenny (while discussing the economics of Uber income): “My brother is a high IQ kinda guy. He can multiply and shit.”

….then….

Us (trying to help him navigate to the marina): “It’s right by the glass museum.”

Him: “I don’t go to no museums! I’m from the ghetto!”

He was actually quite charming, and has his own business cards (which, as he tells us, other Uber drivers think is “brilliant” and he says “That’s just what you call business intelligence!”)

We may go to the glass museum before we leave this morning (since it’s RIGHT there) and then head out to catch the Narrows at slack tide as we head south.

Provisioning at the Seattle Public Market

Laura Domela — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 22:06:01 +0000

This afternoon Kevin and I made another trip up the hill to the Public Market for some serious provisioning. This is a great place to provision if you don't mind not having the "one stop grocery store." We brought all our reusable shopping bags and went to a cool gourmet deli (good cherries for Manhattans, truffle pasta), the Mexican Grocery (tamales to put in the freezer for later, fresh corn tortillas for tonight's tacos, two kinds of salsa, black beans, jalapeños, some spices), two produce stands in the market (a ton of stuff), City Fish Co. in the market (fresh salmon, and some prawns for tonight's tacos), the butcher (for some chorizo and thin-sliced bacon for jalapeño poppers, because…Super Bowl), the creamery for some farm fresh eggs and sour cream, and then to Beecher's Handmade Cheese for some cream cheese and Flagship cheddar (also for the poppers).

It's super foggy down on the water today. It's been mostly coming and going but now (5pm) it's pretty socked in. And the sea lion is gone.

Blake Island State Marine Park

Laura Domela — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:07:20 +0000

Yesterday was our day to move from Elliott Bay Marina over to Bell Harbor Marina. We'd planned to go back over to the boat show and hit three more short seminars, but then this:

Get a load of that weather! We decided we'd rather go out cruising around a bit, so after we finished up a bunch of work, we headed out to Blake Island Marine State Park.

Blake Island State Park is a 475-acre marine camping park with five miles of saltwater beach shoreline providing magnificent views of the Olympic Mountains and the Seattle skyline. The park is only reachable by tour boat or private boat. Indian-style salmon dinners and demonstrations of Northwest Indian dancing are offered at Tillicum Village, a concession on the island.

Seattle in the rear view:

Approaching the little marina at Blake Island:

Airship, at the dock:

We went for a little hike around the island, checking out the beach and the wildlife:

Nice fort!

Tribal decor:

Downtown Seattle is just over to the right of this photo:

Many, many deer and geese in this open grassy picnic area:

These are beach front campsites, with Seattle just off the left edge of the photo:

Once back at the boat, I made us a couple of salads and we sat on the top deck and had lunch in the sunshine. It was probably 65 degrees F and it was just fabulous.

We circled Blake Island before heading back toward Seattle and our new moorage at Bell Harbor, and passed a couple of container ships anchored out near the island:

Here's our route…about 20 nautical miles total:

We just couldn't get over what a glorious day it was yesterday. Sunny and warm and JANUARY!!

Blurry Wildlife

Laura Domela — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:01:38 +0000

Last night I was in bed reading and I heard a little "clomp clomp clomp" above my head so I bolted up to go see what it was (didn't sound like a bird). From the pilot house I looked out toward the bow and up pops the little head of an otter! I could see his breath against the darkness, even! He came around to the dockside pilothouse door, looked in at me, and then hopped down onto the dock. I quickly grabbed my camera but it all happened too fast to get a good shot. (Also, I tend to look at the thing happening far too long with my eyes before I think to grab the camera…I know, some photographer I am!)

Otter, looking left:

I stood outside and watched several of the otter clan splashing around on and off the dock with their midnight snacks. They hopped off an onto the swimstep of a nearby boat…I figured that's how they got onto our boat as well.

Here's a blurry heron a few pilings over:

This morning I got up and was taking a couple photos of the bay here (those weren't blurry), and I noticed about ten feet from the boat, two seabirds fighting over a pretty good sized fish. I watched for a few seconds, then thought "oh hey, I should grab my camera" and as soon as I turned away a giant bald eagle swooped down in an attempt to steal their fish!

The wildlife around here is just too fast for me!

We're headed down to Poulsbo, WA today. Here's what it looks like here this morning:

LaConner to Langley

Laura Domela — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 22:00:34 +0000

We left LaConner early this morning around 9am. I know, that's not super early, but by the time we left we'd both showered and cooked breakfast and made coffee and topped off our water tank, so considering all of that, it was early!

On our way through the lower part of the Swinomish Channel we saw many, many geese flying in cool formation overhead:

And then just out from Maple Grove Beach on the northwest tip of Camano Island, our sonar was picking up SO MANY FISH! For about 10 minutes we had solid lines of fish showing up at about 75 ft, like this:

Wouldn't it be cool if it just showed you the orcas, like this, just once?

We got into Langley (on Whidbey Island) at around 12:30pm, washed off the boat, paid for two nights, and headed up into town for some food and some wandering. We had lunch (and delicious espresso drinks) at Useless Bay Coffee Company. Look at Kevin's latte art:

We shared a jalapeno burger and some fish tacos and both plates were excellent! After lunch we stopped at Callahan's Firehouse to watch some glass blowing. Next we stopped into The Star Store and picked up a few things: a nice pair of wool fingerless gloves for Kevin, a pretty sweater for me, a new tea towel for the galley, and a proper captain's hat for whoever happens to be manning the helm. Score!

Next we stopped in at the Ott & Murphy Winery Tasting Room for a little wine tasting (with a view!):

We shared one tasting and brought 4 bottles back to put in Airship's wine cellar: a viognier, a syrah, and two bottles of their red blend called L'Entente (syrah, petite syrah, mourvedre, and viognier).

Here's a quick snap of the (full!) wine cellar:

Now we're just chillin at the boat (watching Deadliest Catch, heh). It's rainy and a bit windy outside and we plan to stay put and wait out what is supposed to be a windy day tomorrow.

Tomorrow we'll go back up into town and explore some more, and probably hit Kalakala for lunch. When we passed by today it looked like they had a couple of ramen specials that sounded perfect for a gray rainy Sunday.

Gray marina at Langley:

Tonight we're going to use some of the pulled pork we made and froze at home last week in some Cubano sandwiches. (Kevin brined the meat for 4 hours, smoked it for 4 hours, cooked it in the sous vide for 60 hours, then finished it on a hot grill to get a good bark on the outside. I made a Carolina vinegar sauce for it — apple cider vinegar, red chili flakes, sugar, soy sauce, ketchup, and pepper.) It came out so good and works wonderfully on a Cubano.

Oh yeah, I forgot to post these shots from yesterday. This is as we were about to enter the Swinomish Channel, between Anacortes and LaConner:

Here's a map of today's route (about 30 nautical miles):

No whales today, but we did see a few seals and some porpoises. They're out here though…we'll see some this trip…I just know it.

Langley to Port Townsend

Laura Domela — Wed, 26 Nov 2014 00:55:49 +0000

This morning we got up early and worked a bunch, had some breakfast, and then decided to take one more quick walk up the hill into town before heading for Port Townsend. Langley is such a cute town, even in the drizzly gray.

On the way out of the marina, more of these cool birds. If someone knows what they're called, please tell me. I googled up a storm and still didn't find them. Found the Mergansers, but the ones I saw had different markings:

Here's a blurry closeup of the one with the cool paint job:

The trip around the southern tip of Whidbey and up to Port Townsend was calm and uneventful. A little rainy and gray, but calm waters and beautiful scenery.

Update: Thanks readers! It's a Barrow's Goldeneye!

Arriving at Port Townsend:

We stopped at the Port Townsend Boat Haven Marina first and made a quick trip across the street to West Marine. (Oh, it was nothing, we just, um, lost one of our fenders somewhere between LaConner and Langley…oops!). We then headed north a little ways to the Point Hudson Marina (the marinas are on either side of all the downtown cuteness) where we'll stay the night. I took some photos of town from the water as we passed by:

Our new spot at the Point Hudson Marina:

So, we're back where the whole boat thing started, back in July. Maybe you remember this photo (and subsequent blog posts) of the cute Ranger Tugs that caught our attention in the marina. This was taken from the dinette of the Airstream:

And here we are now with our Nordic Tug, and we couldn't be more thrilled:

(A little less crowded here in late November, isn't it? Still completely charming though!)

Tonight we walked the length of Water Street a couple times, and then came back to the marina and had an early dinner at Doc's Marina Grill. Doc's is convenient because it's right here at the marina/RV park, but we'd eaten there before so we thought we'd go try the well-Yelped Cellar Door in town tonight. Unfortunately, it looks like they had some kind of plumbing emergency and are closed. The sign on the door says they hope to be open on Saturday. Doc's was a good backup.

We'll check the weather again tomorrow morning and decide if we're going to stay here one more night, or head north to the islands!

Here's today's map:

Our New View at Porto Bodega

Laura Domela — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:48:15 +0000

We decided to stay here a few more days. You're surpised, I'm sure. We got a spot with a marina view this time. Not bad.

(Click image for larger view)