Waiting at Seatac to leave on our British Virgin Islands sailing vacation.

After finishing up our last minute tasks by noon we waited all day for our friend Carolyn to take us to the airport. Saturday afternoon TV is terrible!

In this pic, Jeff is reading about the Oracle Americas Cup boat that pitch poled and was totaled. I hope he's reading how NOT to do that to our charter catamaran.

We fly all night and get to St Thomas around 1:30 pm, then a ferry to Tortola.
More later and love to all!

Home...

We are sitting here on the couch at home watching TV for the first time in over 3 weeks. We ended up going to Edmonds after Sequim and had a great dinner with Pete and Linda. It was so good to really have some time to catch up.

We decided to end our trip in downtown Seattle and were lucky to get a slip on a summer Friday at Bell Harbor Marina. We went to the market and got lunch, salmon and veggies for dinner. Just at sunset we rode the New Great Wheel! Very fun!!!!

Today we came back to our dock in Foss Harbor. It's difficult to sum up our trip. It was such a goal for so long - never sure if it would happen. And it definitely lived up to our expectations. We were privileged to visit such beautiful, pristine places, hook up with great friends and make new ones, see wildlife up close in their environment and best of all - spend lots of wonderful time together.

A few more pics below from our last couple of days. Thanks for sharing our adventure with us!
Until our next one...
Love, hope and peace to all,
Fran, Jeff and colonel

Back in the US...

On Tuesday, we left Dodger Channel at 6:30am for a 72 mile, long day to Sooke. For 2/3rds of the trip, it was thick fog and 6' swells on the stern. The last 1/3 we sailed in windy and wavy conditions. I was pretty nervous surfing down the waves at 9.5 knots but it was a great sail. We pulled into Sooke after 11 hours... tired and hungry. Just up from the public wharf is an excellent, artisan restaurant called
Markus'. We felt we deserved the pricey, delicious meal!

The next morning we set off for Sequim and easily phoning into Customs with our Nexus cards for clearance back to the US. We went to Sequim because Chuck and Wendy from our dock in Tacoma have moved their boat to Sequim.

John Wayne Marina is quite nice and we had a great dinner with them. After blueberry pancakes this morning, we said goodbye and are currently headed to Edmonds. Yes, to see more friends for dinner! We are making up for no restaurants for 3 weeks.

Today, we got to see some of the canoes in the Canoe Journey 2012 heading our way. The First Nation and Tribes in the US, paddle their big, gorgeous canoes to Olympia. Very cool! We absolutely enjoy the NW Native culture and seeing them enriches our experience up here.

Tomorrow, we head to Shilshole Marina. Just north of Seattle, I have never stayed there. Its a HUGE marina and we'll enjoy walking the docks and looking at the cool sailboats!

Pics below are Sequim Marina, one of the canoes by Protection Island and a cat who is happy to be headed home.

Last days in Barkley Sound

After the 3 nights in Joe's Bay with the Langs, we headed to Dodger Channel. This is in the south part of the Sound and is a good staging area for the long day to Sooke. It was yet another spectacular place where the open ocean was just past the rocks about 100' away. We could easily hear thhe surf all night. We explored Haines Island which is a First Nation owned island. Wild and rough with a grove of huge cedars at the center.

Pictures are of Clarke Island and the "wild" deer there, so close we almost tripped on him! And Haines Island. And our own intrepid sailor cat, Colonel Flagg.

Backing up to Hot Springs Cove

The culmination and the most northern place we visited was famous Hot Springs Cove. There we placed another Salpare plank and initiated Jill, Corbett and Jerry as accomplices in our "urban renewal". All of us soaked in the Hot Springs and had them to ourselves for a time. The last picture is White Pine Cove where we stayed before heading back to Ucluelet to provision and more days in Barkley Sound.

Catching up on some posts...

We are now back in US waters so I need to do some catching up on posts. I have been doing all the posts from my iphone so sorry about the typos!

Because we had no cell coverage, I skipped alot of the Clayoquot Sound portion of the trip. This area is magical and you can see why the fight to protect old growth forests reached a head here back inthe 90's. This is where we hooked up withour other sailboat friends - Jill and Corbett, Kathy and Jerry and Bill and Linda (and their friends Mary Lou and Tad who joined them in Tofino. This group has traveled together many times and they are not only competent sailors but easy going traveling companions. Each night, we had happy hour at 5pm and shared many dinners, to. They were terrific to travel with and share the Sound.

Clayoquot is different than Barkley in that it doesn't have the islands like Barkley. Instead you go up inlets in the mainland that are surrounded by steep mountains. You can tie close to shore because that steepness underwater, too. Below are pictures of the Sound and Bacchante Bay, our favorite place we visited. Its a rockstar in the area but we had it to ourselves. The last shot hopefully gives you an idea of the scale of things with little Salpare in the shot.
Jeff is in our little inflatable kayaks that worked perfect for exploring in these bays. I bought these for Jeff for his birthday just after his surgery. Since they are red, he named them "Pancreas" and "Liver".

Next post will have the famous Hot Springs!

3 nights in Joes Bay

After 3 glorious nights in Joes Bat, we are heading to Dianna Island today. This will set us up for our long day tomoorow rounding the southwest tip of the island and ending at Sooke.

Greg, Cindy and their daughter Aven have been camping on land next to us. They brought their pimped out fishing boat and our days have been filled with fishing (and catching), whale watching (one was 10' off our boat!) and visiting other islands. So many more islands to see . Barkley Sound is definitely an incredible place. Jeff is now returning from pulling his crab pot. 2 Dungeness but they were females so he will have to try at Dianna Island. They all had a crab feast last night on the boat after 4 crabs were caught.

The big winds never showed and our sunny, warm weather has continued.
Love to all!

Back in cell coverage! And Ucluele.

It's been a fantastic week
In Clayoquot Sound. We have has no cell service so sorry there were no updates. We have been going to one after another fantastic, remote anchorages. Bacchante Bay was our favorite but so many to list. I ahve attached some pics. Jeff continues to catch crab and he is hoping for Salmon this week. We will be back in the US next thursday and I will do a complete update
Love to all!

Ucluelet for the night

Laura and Ricky's last night with us ended with another couple, from Port Alberni, who were anchored close by bringing us a bucket of large prawns and 2 big dungeness crabs. So at 10pm they were cooking all of them! The folks put the live crabs right on our deck and it scared the bejeebers out of me!

This morning, Jeff pulled up 2 crabs in his pot so he is pretty happy!

We dropped off Laura and Rocky, did laundry and food shopping. It was all very rushed so we decided to stay the night and relax. Our other 3 sailboats got here, we just came back from happy hour on their boats, and we are all off early tomorrow morning for Adventure Cove, just north of Tofino. We will be out of cell range for a few days so I won't be able to post updates. But u can follow us on the Spot Tracks.

We haven't heard any news for a week now... Wonderful...

Nettle Island in the Broken Group Thursday

What a spectacular place! We just keep saying that each day is better and better. We are tucked in a all cove off of Nettle Island. There are tons of small coves to anchor in all over the islands.

These islands have a different feet than the mainland with a rough, alpine look to them. Pure blue skies with warm temps all day. An eagle sat just off our stern for quite awhile not caring at all that we were in his cove. No crab in the pot yet but Jeff keeps trying.

A great dinner and sunset yet again...

Pipestem Inlet

On Tuesday we had a great sail to Pipestem Inlet. We anchored in this tranquil, gorgeous little cove. We took off to see the falls at Lucky Creek and have a rainy picnic there.

then. Laura and Rocky took off in their kayaks and we ran around in the dinghy to explore. We saw more beautiful falls and steep mountain peaks.

The 3 other sailboats that we hoped to hook up with found us later in the day and we had happy hour together and shared crossing stories.

The next day we were in no rush to leave so Jeff took over an old fishing shack to work on the planks for Hot Springs Cove . It worked great and he also did boards for the other boats.

After the boards were done, we headed to Mence Island. The weather improved and the clouds disappeared A tranquil and spectacular. After beach combing and exploring we checked the crab pot and we caught one! It was a crab feast for Jeff, Laura, Rocky and Colonel! An incredible sunset topped a perfect day!

The crossing!

Our crossing went very well with good weather and the current pushing us along. We arrived in Ucluelet in pouring rain and chilly temps.

Laura and Rocky were waiting for us with fresh and smoked salmon and lots of gear. We picked up fishing licenses, fuel and food.

Ucluelet is a fishing and tourist town with super nice folks. We didn't get to check out the entire town due to the weather but in our experience it's equal to Tofino as a good provisioning stop. Tuesday we are off to Pipestem Inlet for our first days in Barkley Sound.

Neah Bay

After a very long day of fighting opposing currents and waves, we are here in Neah Bay. For those not in Washington, we are at the most northern and western part of the continental United states. We are on the Makah Reservation so I won't be wearing my Sea Shepherd Hoodie tonight!

This place is all about fishing!! We decided it would be heaven for my brother in laws Dodd and Dean! There is only 1 other Sailboat here and no
other pleasure boats.

We also bought some smoked salmon as a treat for our cat, The Colonel - and for Jeff.

Tomorrow,we do the big crossing to Ucluelet - 50 miles to the northwest . There we meet up with Rocky and Laura for a few days. Cannot wait to see them. That's when the more restful
part of vacation starts!

Every night Jeff fills out his spreadsheet/log like every good captain does. The Colonel likes to
give input! See photo.

Port Angeles tonight...

After an early start to Port Ludlow on Friday, we had great wind and sailed most of the way. At Point No Point, we did have very big winds with following seas. A jibe with a bit too much force broke a fitting on the boom. Dang... No actually its called a Tang. Anyways, if you have to break something like that it certainly helps to have Port Townsend and our friend/rigger Brion Toss just an hour away.

After alot of pulling and tugging against strong sidewinds, we got the boat docked in Port Ludlow. We thought we'd be early to meet Nat and Linda but instead they found us frazzled and wrestling with the boat. We jumped into nice clothes and headed to Dick Hamptons Celebration of Life. And I can tell you that is exactly what it was. Over 200 friends and family came to share stories, laugh and support dear Marilyn. It was such a good time and we were able to visit with many of our RHYC friends. Dinner at the excellent Fireside restaurant at Port Ludlow with friends topped off a busy but great day.

This morning we headed over to Port Townsend to see Brion. I had forgotten that the last time we saw him was right after Jeff was diagnosed and we escaped to the San Juans. Brion said it was just so good to see Jeff walk through his door! Brion is a gem and got us fixed up and on our way to Port Angeles-where I am writing this now.

The Straits were pretty tame with just an hour or so of 5-6' waves on the nose. Port Angeles Boat Haven
is newly updated and the docks and fairways are very nice. The harbormaster was really great. And since we were due in after closing, he literally left us the key under the mat!

It looks like the sun is shining to the west of us which is very welcome. A beautiful sunset! Although the rest of the country is sizzling, we are very cool and cloudy. Its supposed to clear up for next week. Fingers are crossed!

Tomorrow we have a 50 mile day to Neah Bay. Then Monday is the crossing to Ucluelet.

We are tired and off to bed now. Goodnight!

Finally, we are on vacation.

Not too long ago, we weren't sure we would be taking this trip. But here we are... heading north again.

We're in Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island tonight. Easy going to get here. We cast off at 4:16pm according to Jeff's log/spreadsheet!

Tomorrow morning we get an early start to get to Port Ludlow by midday. There we will meet up with our friends Nat and Linda to join them and others at a Celebration of Life for Dick Hampton. Marilyn Hampton, Dick's wife, has become a close friend of mine as we and 2 other gals get together each month to laugh, cry and support each other. What brought us together was that all of our husbands were diagnosed with serious cancers this year. Marilyn is an incredible woman. And, although what got us together was terrible, I am so very glad she's my friend.

We will get to see many of our crazy Roche Harbor Yacht Club friends at the event and we are definitely looking forward to seeing them.

The Colonel is doing great but it hasn't sunk into him yet that he'll be on this dang sailboat for 3 weeks!

All for now.

Our next sailing adventure!

We are off on our next trip to the West Coast of Vancouver Island. If you would like to follow us on pur SPOT page, here is the link.
https://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=1deueqhcqMK32YGsoiPZCsrkCMM5eAZqr