Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Obstacle course through Commencement Bay!

The weather just wasn't as good as we'd hoped, so yesterday, instead of heading further north, we turned south out of Des Moines and pulled up at Jerisich dock in Gig Harbor. Getting here was interesting. There is so much debris in the water from recent heavy rain and flooding that it sometimes looked like there was a solid line of stuff in our way. After slowing down - I know, hard to imagine us going even slower, right? - we carefully found what seemed to be a break in the log jam and gently nosed our way through. We made it without any bumps. We've got to make our way back through the bay to get home at some point so hopefully most of the junk will clear.
clearing a line of debris
We are always happy to visit G.H. I contacted some friends last minute and were able to spend a bit of time catching up yesterday afternoon. Cooked another pot roast - we love to be in a warm and cozy boat while something yummy smelling is in the oven. It really does a nice job...as long as whatever you're fixing is on the small side.

Just had lunch at The Tides Tavern - never disappoints. We are going to hang around until tomorrow. We don't have any real reason to go home, so we as we often say, "If we can't decide to stay or go home...then just stay!"

Monday, February 10, 2020

Auspicious beginning to our 2020 boating season - Orcas!!!

After months of waiting for decent weather, we are out on the water again. And oh boy, has it been good so far!

We left the Foss around 10am yesterday...it was a bright and beautiful morning. As we neared the Des Moines marina entrance, all of a sudden Nick saw a big black dorsal fin! A pod of Orcas was coming right for us so he put the boat in neutral and let it happen. I grabbed my phone and got one shot and some video. Not great quality video but enough to really see them. This is the closest we've ever been to whales. Spectacular! The pod of 6 or so moved around us and continued south into Poverty Bay. We hung around for a little while, enough to see that they began to frollick a bit. They were too far away by that time to see much of anything but there were big splashes, so something was happening.
Coming straight at us!
We took a couple of short walks in the afternoon and spent some time cleaning Europa a little. She's been sitting for too long!

Steve and Tracey joined us for wine, cheese and crackers (yummy - thanks again you two!). We had a lovely time catching up with them...and talking about boating...of course.

We are headed north to Bainbridge Island later this morning, at least that is the plan. We've got until Thursday, and our hope is to visit Everett. We have not been there and have heard good things. We're going to do a little research first, though, as the marina is on the Snohomish River and with all the flooding, it might be interesting.

Side notes: We had a very, very good trip to Florida in January. Perfect weather and abundant wildlife. Manatees, dolphins, pelicans, and more osprey then we've ever seen in one place. We are heading to San Diego in a couple of weeks. Other than that, we have been spending quality time with Mac.

Good to be boating again!