Cruising up Lewis Channel in Desolation Sound a couple of years ago. Thought we might be out in the wonderful B.C. cruising waters this summer, but fate seems to have other plans.
Well, we thought we might be able to do some cruising this summer while we were staying on our boat during the time our house was on the market. Seemed like a good strategy to get out of the house so it would stay cleaned up and show better. But sometimes things don’t work out the way we plan.
A serene early morning at Anacortes Marina—quiet and glassy calm, resulting in mirror-like reflections of the boats on C Dock.
Life can be challenging at times. Even though we wanted to take a long cruise this summer, we have had to take care of business before we can take off in the boat. We recently decided it’s time to downsize our house, and we’ve been busy for the past several months fixing things and sprucing up the house so we can sell it and move on. We have finally completed the work we needed to do before putting our house on the market, and we have come to stay on our boat while the house is on the market.
While we were waiting for the window on our boat to be fixed, we stopped at Larrabee State Park one day on our way back from shopping in Bellingham. Larrabee was established in 1915, and is the first state park established in Washington. It has good hiking trails and a great beach for swimming or just walking along the beach. There are wonderful views of Northern Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands. It was hot the day we stopped there, and the water looked like the perfect day for boating!
We always enjoy hanging out around the boat. Even though we hadn’t planned to come to Anacortes Marina the first part of July, it’s been fun to be at the marina while we waited to get new glass made for our broken window. The weather has been great, and we enjoyed making progress on some of our maintenance projects.
This is one of the few photos we have of us sailing Carina, our Valiant Esprit 37, with the spinnaker flying. Our friends caught us as we were sailing in Puget Sound in 1984 just after returning from our cruise to Mexico and Hawaii. Carina was still outfitted with the boat name on the weather cloths for better recognition at sea, and our wind vane was still mounted on the stern.
As we prepare to start the new year of 2014, we’ve been reflecting on friends and memorable events from the past. In thinking about New Years and our boating, what came to mind was the New Years we spent in Mexico 30 years ago. We had sailed Carina, our Valiant Esprit 37, down the coast from Washington State. We left Neah Bay, WA on August 9, 1983 and spent the next three-plus months sailing down the West Coast. We arrived in Cabo San Lucas on December 22, 1983.
On a recent trip to check things on our boat, the fresh snow on Mt. Baker really made the mountain stand out, especially on these cold and clear winter days. This shot is looking north from our marina across Fidalgo Bay.
We try to get back to Anacortes a couple of times during the winter to check our dock lines, make sure everything else is okay, and run the engine, genset, and other systems. Since it had been almost two months since we left the boat in early October, we were starting to look for an opportunity to head back to Anacortes before winter weather sets in and travel becomes more difficult. So, when we had some settled weather recently, we decided it was a good time for a trip north.
On an early evening in mid-October, the trees along the shore of Mirror Pond in downtown Bend were stunning, and their reflections were just as spectacular.
We left our boat in Anacortes in early October, and arrived back in Central Oregon as the bright colors of autumn were at their strongest. Our first order of business (after getting unpacked and plugged in at home) was to get out on nearby hiking trails to enjoy the colors before the leaves left the trees. Central Oregon sparkles in the fall!
Cruising With Phoenix 