Category Archives: Maintenance

Ready For Winter

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sunrise anacortes refinery

Tesoro’s Anacortes refinery was lit up in the early morning light, with the Cascade Mountains in the background. The interesting thing about taking this photo with a zoom lens is that it makes it look like our marina is built right next to the refinery! Actually, there’s quite a bit of distance between the marina and the refinery.

What wonderful weather we’re having now! Just in time for us to leave the marina and return home. Bummer! But the sunny skies, calm winds, and dry weather have really helped as we reach the end of our list of fall projects to get Phoenix ready to sit over the winter months. We don’t even mind the cool nights and morning fog!

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Seals On The Docks…And Boats!

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cute seal face

One of the seals on a finger pier across from us checks us out as we walk by.

Thankfully, last weekend’s storm is history. This week’s weather was more typical of fall—cooler with off-and-on rain. But we had enough dry periods to finish waxing the important parts of the boat…important being those places that are most exposed and likely to have more abuse from the winter weather. So we can move our waxing supplies to the storeroom until next year!

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The Day After The Storm

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anacortes marina fairway

The storm clouds were slow to leave the area today, but the wind finally settled down. The water in the fairway between B Dock and C Dock was completely calm by late afternoon and it was hard to believe that it had been so windy yesterday.

After a very windy and rainy weekend, the storm is finally on its way out of our area. The wind continued to gust this morning, with rain showers that were heavy at times. The wind finally died down by mid-afternoon, even though rain showers are continuing into the evening.

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More Stormy Weather

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Mt. Baker sunrise

On a recent morning when the weather was more settled, we were treated to a spectacular sunrise, and snapped this photo of Mt. Baker. Very inspiring!

Wow! We’re having quite a storm today! Strong winds are howling through our marina and we’re listening to the clanging of halyards on nearby sailboats, as Western Washington is being hammered by a strong fall storm. Our boat is rolling around a bit in the wind gusts, but we feel the boat is secure. We already replaced our summer mooring lines with the winter lines, and to help secure our boat during this storm (and all the winter storms yet to come), we have doubled up the mooring lines that take the most force from the prevailing southeast winds in Anacortes Marina.

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Always Something…It’s A Boat

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sunset at anacortes marina

Tonight’s sunset at Anacortes Marina really lit up the sky above the boat houses. Gorgeous!

Our plan was to get varnish on the exterior teak and then, weather permitting, start on waxing the cabin and hull. As soon as we finished varnishing the cap rail, fog and mist set in. It lasted 4 days, and ended with a thunderstorm on Sunday night. We got the varnish supplies put away, but have not been able to get started on the waxing.

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September in Anacortes

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reflections in the marina

We’ve had some nice weather this week, including some colorful sunrises. The glow from this sunrise created some wonderful reflections of the boats and boat houses in the calm water at Anacortes Marina.

Working on maintenance and projects at our house this summer kept us away from our boat in July and August, when we usually set aside time for exterior boat maintenance—varnishing the teak and waxing the cabin and hull. However, in order to protect the boat over the winter months, we still need to take care of the varnishing and waxing, even though it’s September and the weather will make this work more challenging. So, we packed up the car and headed to Anacortes in the middle of September, hoping for some decent weather.

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