Gig Harbor to Bell Harbor

Laura Domela — Sat, 14 Feb 2015 14:32:45 +0000

This morning (after a cute sendoff from these two friendly ducks) we left Arabella's Landing in Gig Harbor. We made another stop at the guest dock of the Tides Tavern and had a "brunch" of fish tacos before heading north to Seattle. A bit of fog coming in:

Heading out of the harbor:

Visibility in Colvos Channel was pretty limited, but it cleared up after not too long. Nice view of Mt. Rainier:

Gorgeous sky behind us:

Just as we were nearing the tip of Vashon Island, I got a text from our friend Sam (he's got a Nordic Tug 37) who saw us on AIS. I had just opened my vessel tracking app and seen him around the west side of Blake Island, and I texted back "We see you too!" and then pretty soon we saw a little boat speeding toward us fast, and guess who it was?? Sam and his girlfriend Anna coming all the way out to say hi. We slowed and chatted for a few minutes and then they took off back to Blake. Fun!

There they go!

That's Blake Island in the background:

On our way into Seattle, right off of Duwamish Head, we saw some pretty dramatic splashing (and RED in the water) ahead of us.

We slowed to see what the commotion was. It was a sea lion eviscerating a large salmon (at least I think that's what it was), so we hung out for a few minutes and watched him fling that thing around SO hard (even though surely it was dead by then):

Yay, nature!

The approach into Seattle from the water always feels dramatic:

We're back at Bell Harbor for a few days with many visits with friends scheduled. Should be a fun weekend. Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Route from yesterday:

Lakebay to Gig Harbor, WA

Laura Domela — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 23:41:37 +0000

Another gorgeous sunrise in Lakebay!

We left our mooring buoy at Penrose Point State Park this morning around 10:30am and headed toward Gig Harbor. In this shot below, you can just barely make out Mt. Rainier through the clouds, to the left of the trees on the point:

It was a beautiful, quiet cruise over to Gig Harbor. Here we are just outside the harbor:

We stopped first at the Tides Tavern, tied up at the guest dock, and then headed up to have lunch. We both had halibut and chips and it was very good…we rank it right up there with the best we've had (and the tartar sauce was crazy good…they wouldn't tell us what made it so good/different though).

Airship at the guest dock:

Tides Tavern:

We took advantage of the 4 hour guest tie up and walked up to West Marine after lunch to pick up a few things (another fender in case we end up going through the Ballard Locks, so we now have a set of three for port and three for starboard). Then, we motored down to Arabella's Landing and got a nice spot on their guest dock for the night. We put a load of laundry in, walked back up to town to exchange a thing at West Marine, stopped in a couple shops on the way back, including the distillery Heritage Distilling.

We tasted a barrel-finished vodka and a couple of bourbons and brought a bottle of the barrel-finished vodka back to the boat (it'll make a great martini!).

Mini-still:

There's a great marine supply/gift shop here at Arabella's Landing called Ship to Shore. We stopped in to check it out before going back to the boat, and I picked up a few more pieces of glass(plastic)ware so we could finish stocking the cupboard with Strahl–everything. This stuff is SO GREAT! If you prefer plastic over glass in your boat or RV, we highly recommend this brand. Almost every single guest who has held one of these wine glasses in their hand thought it was glass. It's such nice quality and feels great to hold (and has this killer little ridge on the bottom of the glass for your finger to sit in…hard to describe, but trust me, they're fabulous).

We have four 8oz (chardonnay) wine glasses, four 13oz (bordeaux) wine glasses, four of each of the small and medium old-fashioned style tumblers, and four tall "water" glasses. Love 'em! (They have several sizes of martini glasses too, but we've opted to use the small old-fashioned style tumblers for cocktails, rather than take up the room in our cupboard that martini glasses take up.)

Uh oh, while gathering links I just found these. They stack, and are martini-like. Done.

It turned into a sunny (warm!) day today:

We spent the rest of the afternoon working here on the boat, in the sun, in Gig Harbor, WA, in February, with the doors and windows open. Pretty sweet day!

Here's our route from Lakebay to Gig Harbor (light green line, kind of hard to see):

Gig Harbor – Riveted

Gig Harbor to Bell Harbor

Lakebay to Gig Harbor, WA