Cambria: JULY 4th WEEKEND - Thursday and Friday

July 4th weekend started at 4:30am on the 3rd. Crabbing season started on the 3rd and just before 5am the crab pot was down off Discovery park and by 6am I was at work. Great start.

Ken had come up from Portland and when I got home we threw the kayaks on the boat and then we headed out. Jodi had prepared the menu to accommodate a crabbing failure, but we were hopeful our first try of the season was successful.

We neared the pot, Jodi made the snag with the boat hook and Ken pulled up the pot. The contents? 5 large males (each over 7 inches, the largest 2 were over 8 inches) and one female who was returned to the sound to make more crab babies.

We motored over to Poulsbo and we rafted onto the shilshole raft. 23 boats in total, most from 'D' dock, although several other docks were represented as well.

The Raft -- largest one in Liberty Bay

Rafting with others is a lot of fun and we were treated to Jackson (age 4) and Russel (age 3) who were old friends the moment they met. They regaled us with the 'Monkey Show' on the foredeck, grabbing the jib sheets and swinging around, just above the deck.

Russel and Jackson, stars of the 'monkey show'

Dinner was the crab. Jodi served it up and we all feasted and hammered through most of the crab. Andy came over to help as did one of their friends visiting from Florida.

The fireworks were pretty good and we all enjoyed the show from the bow.

Friday morning we hit Sluy's the bakery in Pouslbo. Their apple fritters are wonderful. To work it off, we went for a kayak trip, then prepared the boat for departure.

Our destination was Quartermaster harbor, some 34 miles away. A fairly long day.

After we had gotten underway, Ken emerged from below decks with the bad news. The situation was grim. As the potential disaster affected all souls on board, we broke the bad news to Jodi. She slowly nodded her head accepting the facts at hand. She asked the critical question and we looked at the chart. There were no options. No places that could help. The circumstances were truly desperate.

We were down to our last two beers.

Ken, ever enterprising, consulted Google and found there was one brewery on Vashon Island, but it was inland and we had no car. As hope faded Ken called anyway. The single brewery was named 'Cliff's Beer' (only sold on Vashon Island) and a brewery employee answered the phone. It was Cliff himself.

He mentioned he may be able to help. He was on his way to bottle some IPA that very morning and he lived close to Quartermaster harbor. He could help. He also took debit cards and provided directions to his home.

With renewed hope we motored onto Quartermaster harbor, rafted up again, and walked to Cliff's house. The walk was just over a mile and we learned that Vashon style directions involved features (take the first right after the bridge) and sketchy math (I'm the 3rd driveway on the left). Cliff happily greeted us at then end of the drive, (
which was the 2nd driveway on the left).

In any case Cliff had a cool older electric car/mini van and had sold beer out of his garage. Cool. He sold them in reusable mini growlers (growlets).

With the evening libations secured, we walked back to the boat, had appetizers on the bow and Jodi prepared a wonderful BBQ chicken dinner.

The quartermaster harbor fireworks are unbelievable. It's a big show with huge shells. By coincidence Jodi and I had run into an old acquaintance and he now arranges the details for the fireworks show. He described the 16inch shells and said it was the biggest fireworks show in the state. We found no evidence to contradict him.