THE CHEVY

Yesterday I pulled the trigger on the car.  To recap, my beloved  truck died.  It threw a cam shaft (no, I don't know exactly what that means,but I had two mechanics tell me it's bad.  Very bad).

So for the last 5 weeks I've been without a car.

Shortly after the truck died I met with a couple of car brokers and I outlined what I'd like to get.  Turns out I was outlining something bordering on impossible as I wanted a crossover type vehicle without many miles in good shape, relatively recent vintage at a cost of 10K or less.

If I had said '20K', it wouldn't have been a problem, but I wanted a car I could pay cash for without disrupting the good ship financial.  Didn't want car payments and 10K seemed like a good target.

The initial time estimate to obtain a new vehicle was 'a couple of weeks'.  That stretched into 3, 4, 5 and finally 6 weeks.  Last week I had a chat with my car guy and together we discussed a more reasonable vehicle.  A Jetta perhaps.  I really liked the Jetta station wagon.

Yesterday the car guy called.  He had a deal. The price was right, but the car was a 2008 Chevy Malibu.  I don't think I had ever  seen, heard, or had any thought about a chevy Malibu.  I had opinions and perceptions on a  Jetta, Passat, Lexus, Camry, Honda, Toyota, BMW, and Subaru, but Chevy Malibu?

As he was talking, I pulled it up on my computer.  Wasn't ugly.  In fact it was a decent looking car.  I decided to buy it.  On the spot during the phone conversation.

24 hours later, today, the car guys delivered it to Bellevue.  I drove it home.  It'll do just fine.

I know that some think I'm nuts for buying a car this way and especially for buying a Chevy Malibu.  There are plenty of cool cars out there. but as I learned during my shopping, 'cool' has a cost associated to it.  It's supply and demand, and on some level, you have to assess how much you want to pay for that 'cool' factor.  Everyone has an opinion on what you should drive.  "Sweet ride" is often heard when there's a cool car around.

So how much did I want to pay, or over pay, to be cool?  I thought about that.  Upon reflection, my amount is at or near zero.  A car is not an asset.  It is a depreciating machine that moves you from point a to point b.  Unless it is very special, it is worth less today than it was yesterday.  Every mile you drive, every day that passes, it goes down in value.

Here's the car.  It's really nothing special -- but the price was right. And, as anyone who knows me will agree, I'm not cool...

Quick footnote:  There was a problem with the power steering -- at start up the steering wheel flutters a bit.  The car guy mentioned it before I sat in the driver's seat and said he'd fix it.  I'm one for a handshake and a commitment.  He provided that.  In a couple of weeks I'll update this -- and you'll find out whether it was fixed -- or I'm one of the larger idiots on the planet for buying a car this way.

SUNDAY

Woke up over at Port Madison and Jodi made a great breakfast. Sausage and eggs.  Perfect.

We wanted to do some work in the storage facility, so we got ready to leave.  We rigged for sailing and stowed everything.  It was blowing.  Really blowing.  Force 7 on the Beaufort scale, a near gale.  25 knots of wind gusting to 30.

We launched ourselves into it and began getting pounded.  It was a little more than I would have liked, but Cambria did fine.  I only had the jib up and I sailed her conservatively, but there was spray shooting across the deck and and we lurched across the sound.

The only casualty was a ceramic coaster and about 15 minutes of straightening.

Going around Vancouver island we certainly saw bigger waves, but  that wind was stronger than anything we encountered on the trip.  Spring is volatile!!

In any case we got across, did storage, got a battery for the bullfrog, and Jodi picked up a few things for dinner.

After dinner we took a great walk down into Golden Gardens park.  The view up the sound is great.

We did see a fellow taking pictures of the sunset and chatted with him briefly.  He had two small cameras on tri pods and was doing time lapse photography.  He mentioned his web site.  He turns out some unbelievable photography

Our for more modest photographic efforts are here.  This captures the entire weekend (you'll need a PC to view, doesn't come in email).  www.cambriahikes.blogspot.com

CHORE WEEKEND -- SATURDAY

We scheduled a cleaning / maintenance weekend, so we started the weekend early by eating out on Thursday at our favorite restaurants.  First Westward.  A sampling of oysters followed by Sardines on a toasted baguette with avocado and salsa verde and pickled onions.  Italian red for me and a rose for Jodi.  Perfect.  Westward is right on Lake Union with great views of the lake and the Seattle skyline.

Then onto the Walrus and the Carpenter -- which placed 15th in Bon Appetite's 20 most important restaurants in the US.  Started with a Moscow Mule for me and another rose for Jodi.  We split the special for the evening.  Roasted onions on a bed of romesco  topped with a poached egg.  That was followed by an amazing fish.

Then a couple of oysters which we were instructed to chew throughly.  The first taste was the salinity followed by the sweetness of the inner oyster.  Yum..

At the Walrus we met a traveling cardiac nurse and her mother.  The nurse had moved to Seattle 48 hours ago from Iowa.  She and her mom were taking in the sights and were fun to chat with.  We  welcomed them to the Northwest.

Home relatively early and in bed by about 9.  Great evening.

OK.  One more day of work, then a 'chore' weekend (we'll see how this turns out!!).

There are many chores to do on the boat.  Much has been done so far --- the engine is in great shape, the hydraulic ram for the steering has been rebuilt, but much work remains.

The upholstery for the dinghy helm seat is rough.  So rough, there was moss growing from the seems.  A new seat arrived last week and this is the weekend to replace it.  The starboard running light isn't working and I need to troubleshoot it and fix it.

We think we've figured out the carpet, but that will have to wait until a dry weekend.

The brightwork really needs attention.  Starboard side looking good, but port side and windshield need focus. That's a July/August thing where you can plan on stringing several days of good weather together.

Then there's the organizing and cleaning.  Jodi put the galley on her list -- taking everything out, cleaning, and re-organizing.  One by one the lockers will be emptied, their contents critically examined, items discarded, then everything that has a purpose will be put back in place.

Part of this is simple housekeeping, part is getting ready for Clayoquot sound.  It's good to have a longer term goal and work towards it and the Clayoquot sound trip satisfies that goal.  The boat needs to be fully ready to undergo a trip like that and, after the engine and steering work, it largely is.

Saturday morning -- Laundry bright and early followed by another "JFM" (Jodi Forced March).  The standard 3 mile circuit was enhanced by Spring busting out all over.

Little hatchlings define spring!

Then we scrubbed the decks and pushed off across the sound.

Port Madison was lovely as usual.

Someone's idea of a cool mooring pennant.

There was one boat in front of us, a 65 foot Nordhaven, that docked first at the club.  Jodi and I watched the boat dock with some amazement.  Nordhavens are large, ocean going yachts.  Most would agree that a 65 to 70 foot heavy boat pushes the limit for two crew to handle yet this fellow was single handing the Nordhaven.  He was out on his wing steering station, lined up the boat with the dock then calmly, but quickly got a spring line on then the stern.  The bow had drifted out a touch so he used his fishing steering station in the stern to touch the thrusters and realign the bow so he could tie down the bow.

By that time we had swung around him and I spun our boat around for a starboard tie.  The fellow, Murray, calmly strode down the dock to take one of our lines.  Very well done.

Our friends Jill and Andy had raced the Smith Island short course, let their crew off at Shilshole, then sailed across the sound and arrived at the club around 4:30 or so.

I changed the seat out in the bull frog which required me to lay on my back and contort my body to slide under the seat looking up to line up the bolts.  My body isn't made to do that, but it worked and now the boat has a new seat.

Another sailboat arrived and Jodi took their line to help them land.  Erin and Kathryn introduced themselves and Andy had met Erin a few weeks earlier at a mens lunch at the club.  Erin said that they were taking Porter for his first cruise.  I was initially confused as Porter has been on many cruises and Porter belongs to Jill and Andy, but it soon became apparent that Erin was referring to his own son, 6 week old Porter.  Two Porters, both infants, on the same dock.

So we went up for happy hour and dinner at the club house with each couple bringing their meal.

Happy hour started with Pliny the Elder.

Porter the Elder reviewed charts

Porter the Younger slept

Great evening

CATCHING UP

I'm behind again in blogging. So I'll just wave the white flag.  Two weekends ago we had a simply wonderful mini cruise centered on food and fun with Jill, Andy, and (of course!) Porter.  You can see the gist of it here.

This last weekend was centered on productivity, but we still had fun.  Friday night we caught the 8:25 up to the island after slogging up I-5 and getting lost in Lowes Hardware store.

Saturday was a gray day but made for an interesting time-lapse of cloud movement.  I washed the deck, Jodi weeded a bit, walked  Kuper, then headed into town to meet Mom at the grocery store.

When they returned Jodi and I washed the windows then headed over to the cabins for the annual opening ritual.  Maren had asked me to open them up so we attached things, closed the valves and with Jodi stationed at the cabin I went up to the road and turned on the water.

Unwinterizing the cabins is fairly easy, but we did have a few freezes and frozen water can cause problems.  I closed the cabins up last year and if I didn't do something right, I would soon find out.  In addition we have a 46 year old water heater in the guest cabin that has outlived its life expectancy by a factor of 2. Or 3.   It should have broken down in the 80's, but continues to work.

Aside from the normal hissing of the faucets as the hot water tank filled there was no sound coming from unusual places.  Dad and I opened the cabin up a few years ago and he had forgot he had loosened the top nuts of the main cabin hot water heater the previous fall.  Water sprayed all over!  Fortunately no such drama this year and after a quick cleaning, they'll be ready to go.

By the time we had opened up the cabins, a front had swept in and the evening descended into a gray gloom.  We could see the front coming up the channel and soon rain was pelting down.  The wind picked up and we saw a curious event.  A coast guard cutter had its blue light going and the coast guard tender was following 5 guys in a slightly overloaded aluminum skiff.  To their credit the guys in the skiff all had life preservers on, but we wondered what the story was with this skiff going across the channel in conditions that it was only marginally prepared for.  The CG inflatable stayed with the skiff until it disappeared around Jones Island.

Mom prepared appetizers and she had her first Manhattan of the year.  Let Saturday night happy hour begin!!

Mom is doing better, but her back continues to plague her.  Seems like it's 2 steps forward, 1 back.  Slight over exertion on a good day is followed by increased pain the next.  The good news is that the walker remains ready, but not often used.

Sunday's sunrise was considerably better than Saturday's and Jodi prepared a farm fresh egg breakfast (yum).  We had a cup of coffee just after sunrise and saw a couple of seiners heading north for the season.  It's odd to contemplate those seiners, just passing the house now, will be in Alaska in just a couple of days.

We had a small burn pile to attend to then I rigged Mom's medical alert system and her new weather station.  Jodi took Kuper for a long walk and tired him out.

By that time it was about ready to get ready for the ferry and after some good byes it was back to Friday Harbor then again south on I-5.

There are many nice things about living on the dock, not the least of which are great neighbors.  We hadn't even reached the boat yet when we got into a conversation with some friends and then invited aboard for a night cap.  Perfect way to end a good weekend.

Here is 40 seconds of time-lapse from the deck...

WEEKEND PAST AND PRESENT

We are looking forward to shoving off the dock tonight after work to sail over to Port Madison.   The weekend weather is looking up and in a sense it's a kick off of our cruising season -- although there are some on the dock who have taken short trips throughout the winter.

Our ability to get off the dock has been somewhat compromised the last 2 months by ongoing engine and steering work, but the (hopefully) last visit from the mechanic was this past Monday and the engine ran like a top and the hydraulic ram for the steering is now rebuilt, installed, and fully functional.  This will be a shakedown cruise of sorts to make sure everything is in good working order.

Attached is a video from last weekend.  Again I'm just practicing my editing work, but this was fun to pull together.  It's not polished, but does collapse the weekend into 4 minutes.

Mark

Note, it won't come through on email, you'll need to get to the blog to see the video.

LEAVING NAPA

This is a week late, but we've been busy.  And I'm having some storage issues with my new PC.  When you play with movies, you eat up storage at an impressive rate, so I need to learn how to better manage my files.  Fortunately when you buy an apple product they have a product you can buy called 'one to one' -- and for $100 a year, you get unlimited tutorials on how to use apple products better.  So managing space is my next lesson.

In any case, here's the last part about NAPA and the soggy drive North:



FRIDAY

Friday morning included the usual 'falderal' associated with 6 people leaving a house rented for a week, but after an hour or so we were all ready to go.  Ken and Kelli opted for a faster trip home, while Sr, Judy, Jodi and myself opted for a coastal route up through the Redwoods.

We left and soon the weather turned sour.  We did see some impressive trees, but it was POURING down rain, so the day hike was aborted.

The 'Days Inn' formed the lodging for the night and we found a fun brew pub for dinner.

SATURDAY

Breakfast was slated for 8 with departure following.  We followed 101 up the coast and saw nice ocean scenery before cutting inland.  An impressive, but impassive herd of Roosevelt Elk were lounging on a lawn.

A little later we went through the 'Lady Bird Johnson' grove of Redwoods and saw some more truly huge trees.  Pictures just don't give them justice.

Lunch was at a 'Black Bear Diner' and was pretty good.  The servings were huge, so 4 of us shared 2 entrees.

With 8 hours left on the road to Seattle, we headed north on I-5 through rain, sun, hail, and everything in between.

Here's a short video of the last day. About 3 minutes long.  You'll need a pc to play as it doesn't come through in an email.

WALKING WEEKEND

Jodi scored a Bed and Breakfast deal near pike place market on 'living social' earlier in the year.  It was a 'half off' thing where you buy the deal in advance not knowing exactly when you are going to use it.

With an 'iffy' weather forecast for the weekend, we thought this was the weekend.

I hadn't given it that much thought as to how we'd get there, but Jodi suggested 'let's walk!!'.  I countered with my best argument, sure to shoot the thought down.  "It's 7 miles away", I said, confident that would be the end of it.

Jodi brightened and said "That's perfect"!

7 miles is a nice, average hike for us when we hit the mountains, but it sounds so far in the city.  But 7 miles is 7 miles, so we hit the 'trail' on Saturday morning.

The walk itself is a great walk.  From Shilshole we headed towards Ballard, then walked the length of Ballard Avenue to the Ballard Bridge.  Nestled near the North end of the bridge we saw a new establishment called 'Pono Ranch', which looked interesting.  Nestled in the industrial part of Ballard it was a unique cafe with a great outside space.


We crossed the near 100 year old bridge (it was built in 1917) and got a nice view of fisherman's wharf.

From there we headed south on 15th and found a pretty cool community 'pea patch' operation then poked our noses into 2 of Seattle's new distilleries.  Sound distillery and batch 206.  We  met the distiller at batch 206 and he gave us a quick tour of the facility.  They make a couple of gins, a vodka, and are making bourbon just as fast as they can (which isn't very fast given the aging requirements).

Just after Batch 206 we crossed the 'double helix bridge', a pretty cool looking pedestrian bridge that crosses the BNSF rail line and links 15th avenue with Centennial Park, a long, narrow strip of land that forms a waterfront park between the shore and the railroad line.

The park has separate bike lanes and pedestrian paths and even on this gray day made for a beautiful walk.  The paths go under the grain elevator and an old freighter had just docked to take on grain.

The park ends at Pier 70 with an abrupt transition from a peaceful shore walk to the hustle and bustle of downtown.  We walked around pier 70 then on to Bell Street Harbor where the winter tenants have about a month before they need to give up their dock space for summer transitional moorage.  We've met one of the liveaboards there and they spend the Fall and winter months at the dock with sporadic trips and during the summer they roam the sound or go north and come back in the Fall to their downtown moorage.


After Bell Street the elevation gain kicks in.  Up the stairs to  Western, then up the steep grade to first avenue where the B&B is located.

The B&B was comfortable, but nothing super special.  The rooms were fairly small with shared bathrooms.  They had a large common room with decent views of the harbor.  For our weekend adventure, it was perfect.

After settling in and a shower, we went down to the Market.  Packed on this Saturday afternoon.  Athena was our first stop.  Located in the Market it has a view of the sound.  We watched a Hanjin Container ship come into Elliott Bay.  The ship was loaded with containers and two tugs met it as it slowed.  With one tug at the stern and another at the bow, they pushed and assisted a 90 degree port turn lining up the container ship to the wharf.  It would be interesting to observe the dynamics of the port pilot, the ships captain, and the two tug captains as they dock a 1,000 foot ship.

After Athena we went to 'Place Pigalle' for mussels.  Long ago a brothel, 'Place Pigalle' is an intimate part of the Market for us.  Their small bowl of mussels is usually excellent, although on this visit they fell a little shy as the mussels weren't piping hot.

For our meal we ended up at Lecosho, co-owned by a gal who had il Naso over in Sun Valley.  We had Sardines on Toast, oysters, and Lentils with home made pork sausage. Excellent.  The evening was wrapped up at new wine bar up on 5th.

A pretty civilized way to backpack from Shilshole.

The morning started with the second 'B' and B&B then again back to the Market for a stronger cup of coffee at Starbucks first store.

We debated whether to call a cab, take a bus or call for a car service, but decided to simply start walking.  We took a slightly different route back through Seattle and then again dropped down to the water.

On the reverse trip we crossed the Ballard Bridge just before it opened.  It's amazing how utterly quiet the bridge is as it opens. Nearly 100 years and apparently still working flawlessly.

We took a closer look at 'Pono Ranch' and will definitely come back.

We had lunch at the Ballard Market then just couldn't pass up going into the Noble Fir.  Ellen was hosting a fundraiser in honor of her mother who had passed away one year ago.  They had established a memorial fund to help cancer patients as her mother had volunteered by driving cancer patients to and from their doctor visits.  The fund will help that legacy continue and several local pubs and donated their daily profits to the fund.

Ellen's father was there and I asked him how he felt when his daughter, who was a lawyer, decided to open up a pub.  He laughed and said 'well, there goes a $100,000 law degree!'.  As it turns out, he had retired from his profession and opened up a pub in Arizona, so it must run the family.

Rick, Ellen's husband, worked at REI and both of them love the outdoors.  If you could turn REI into a pub, it would look like the 'Noble Fir'.

Rick and Ellen have a gem with the 'Noble Fir' and while we were there we went back to their library and perused some books on coast hikes for another, somewhat less civilized, backpacking trip we have planned.

As we neared the boat, Jodi was going to cook dinner, but we just couldn't walk by Rays.  We ended up there and split a Salmon dinner.

What a fun weekend.  Including walking around the Market area, we figure we put in close to 20 miles, all on foot, most of it carrying a backpack.  Definitely going to do that again, perhaps up on Queen Anne Hill next time.