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| Sunrise from the guest cabin |
The stint in Columbus forced an ‘active’ vacation. This last week we tried to do a number of
things and largely succeeded. We had to
deal with storage as some of our stuff was in a friends basement and they are
soon to be moving. Then it was up to
the island.
Ken and Kelli were joining us at the island, but first there
was some more deck work to be done.
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| Some of the deck boards showed signs of rot and needed to be replaced. |
The weather didn’t fully cooperate.
Here we had one of the best summers ‘in
generations’ according to the newspaper yet when we get
back it rains for a few days.
On the plus side, being on the island when
it rains beats being on the boat.
Kelli had a fever that kept spiking, so Ken left early on
Thursday to get a doctor to check her out.
In retrospect she was probably on the mend, but after 3 days of a
sporadic fever it was a good move. We
took a later ferry ‘back to America’ as they say in the islands, and had one of
the most convoluted trips back dodging traffic. There were two backups on I-5, one was a 4 mile backup, the other
11 miles. Thank goodness for navigation
systems. We used city streets and
residential streets to keep moving and it worked.
Ken had secured Seahawks tickets for their last preseason
game and as Kelli seemed to be doing better we fired up the boat and headed
down to Bell Street Marina, effectively taking the boat to the game. Just as we neared the marina we were treated
to an impressive lightening storm and an absolute
downpour. You know traffic is bad when
you take a slow sailboat followed by a cab to a game and the sailboat was the
faster part of the journey.
We did avoid the worst of the rain being in the cab and just
as we approached the stadium it stopped raining – for good as it turned
out.
The seats Ken had secured weren’t really seats. They were to the corporate box on, bordering
on ‘in’ the end zone. Food was provided
and it was a very special way to see a game.
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| The view from inside the suite |
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| The view from just in front of the suite |
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| Food was provided -- including crab sandwiches! |
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| Pregame festivities |
You know you are close to the action when you can use a cell
phone camera to get decent shots of the action.
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| I sent this shot to Devin and got a very funny response from an envious son. |
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| Food included a special cake for dessert |
We took a ‘pedi cab’ back to the boat and that was a great
ride.
Friday morning we walked up to the Market to get some
mussels and fresh produce for the evening meal. We didn’t think the Market would be that crowded, but then
learned that there were two cruise ships in town.
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| Flowers near pike place Market. Note the coast guard cutter in the lower left |
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| We were trying to understand what Ken was communicating at this particular point in time. How to select the perfect peach? |
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| The fish throwers. Requests to throw fish outnumbered the requests to buy fish by about 20 to 1. |
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| The culprits for the crowds at the market |
Later in the afternoon we headed over to Poulsbo under sunny
skies. I was able to nap and Ken took
the helm navigating through Rich passage and up the west side of Bainbridge.
We lucked out by using the Poulsbo Yacht Club reciprocal
moorage. I had expected to anchor out
on what was the front side of a holiday weekend, but there was only one
visiting boat on the dock. Perfect.
On Saturday morning the seals were out in force. There’s a log breakwater that seals use as
their personal couch. Rex viewed each seal as a personal threat and gave them what for each time he walked down the dock.
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| This Heron was either practicing country line dancing or had to go to the bathroom |
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| Was it trying to clap? |
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| Hi! |
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| A Pacific Trawler |
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| Nice Trawler |
We hit the Poulsbo farmers market and then headed back to
Shilshole.
Saturday night Dinner in the cockpit was excellent. Mussels and shrimp over homemade pasta with
an ale fennel broth.
Saturday night was also the much anticipated beer tasting
event. Ken had secured a few of the
finest IPA’s available and threw in some of his personal favorites as
well. Wrapped in foil, each beer was
kept on ice. Ken wrapped them and then
we mixed them around so no one knew which beer was which. A portion was metered out to each of us and
we sipped, swirled and smelled then debated the merits of each one. I found the tasting difficult as I thought
the bandwidth between them was narrow.
I liked them all, but there were subtle differences between each one and
that was what we were focusing on.
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| The contestants |
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| The tasting notes |
After all was said and done, the Ballast Point Sculpin
IPA was declared the winner.
Sunday included a quick trip to the Ballard Market then Ken and Kelli were on their way back to Portland. A good week!
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