Memorial Day

So you get a new boat and get very excited about all the possibilities ahead of you so you write a few blog posts and just assume that you will write one every time you take the boat out … but then reality sets in and you realize that you live across an entire state from your boat (and not a small state). Well, things have changed! I hope this means that there will be more blog posts going forward and there really should be some retrospective ones as well because we had Nootka hauled out in October for some repairs that might be of interest and our first real cruise in September to the Gulf Islands. I think I have just been thinking too much about what the blog should look like, what tone it should have and who it is for. I am overthinking it. There is nothing at stake here. The purpose is just to keep people (friends and family) updated on what is happening with Nootka. The key there is friends and family. These are people that presumably are already fond of us. Who am I trying to impress? Truthfully? No one. So here it is. I am more likely to keep up with these things if I do what I do best. Transparently share what is going on. This means I don’t need a rough draft and excessive editing. I just need to write something down and publish it on our site in a timely fashion. Perfection is the enemy of the good enough. So let’s try this again.

We sold our house in Liberty Lake and bought one in Ferndale, Washington and that brought us 5 and a half hours closer to our baby! It is now a short 25 minute drive to Nootka. When we lived in Liberty Lake we were 50 minutes away from our boat in Bayview so this is a big improvement. We are still adjusting to our new home and neighborhood but no adjustment is needed for our boat because we have spent quite a bit of time on her. I owe three more blog posts because we took Nootka on a quick cruise with friends then to the Gulf Islands over Labor Day and we had her hauled out in October, but those will come. This one is about Memorial Day weekend 2025.

Here is how Memorial Day weekend went down for us. It wasn’t particularly exciting to any external audience, but it was very exciting for us because it was drama free and super fun and relaxing. Because I haven’t written a blog in a while no one could know about how much trouble we have had docking our boat. I will write about that and publish it. It has been a test of our nerves historically and resulted in very scary minutes of our lives but we have made significant improvements in our techniques and docking has been much better which means we have higher confidence in our coming and going which makes up more inclined to take the boat out on quick trips.

Friday of Memorial Day weekend slack tide is at 4pm. We are not so confident that we don’t check the tides. We know our chances of successful docking and undocking if the water isn’t moving quickly underneath us. So … for now … slack it is. Destination = Sucia. We backed out of the slip like we were born to do it. Almost exactly three hours later we were anchored in Echo Bay. I mean anchor set, engine off. We are getting better at it and we are finally learning to take advantage of favorable currents.  Nootka is becoming a little less intimidating. She is still a lot of boat, but we are learning to tame her. Sucia is such a great anchorage. There is always room to anchor even in busy summer months.

Saturday morning we decided to go to Friday Harbor. We have been there once before but we didn’t anchor. We tied up at the visitors dock just for the day. We thought we would give anchoring a go this time. We dropped the hook in 50 feet of water – pretty deep for us – but we felt good about the spot we picked and how we set. Good enough to take the dinghy to shore. We named the dinghy Troy. We found the dinghy dock and tied up Troy then headed into town. It was an absolutely gorgeous summer day. Sunny with a high near 80. We wandered up to the Farmer’s Market and then through all the streets. Before we headed back to the boat we decided to stop in a San Juan Brewery and we ran into Baron and Peggy Lee! What a treat. We enjoyed a tasty beverage in the sunshine with them and got to pet their cute puppies.

Sunday we headed back to Sucia and we were actually able to sail. We had the wind and the current on our side! It was a glorious sail! It is hard to adequately capture the feeling of elation of shutting down the engine while you continue to make progress directly towards your destination. So often the wind is coming directly from the spot you want to get to and that makes it really hard to sail there. It is possible, of course, but it takes forever to tack back and forth and claw your way towards your goal. With the wind going our way and the current going our way, we make excellent time sailing in about 12 knots of wind. It was quite comfortable on board and we had a great time. It was a validating feeling. We went through a lot of trouble to get to this point and we had several hours of it all being worth it! Truth be told, we had an entire weekend of it, but the hours of sailing was icing on the cake.

Anchored overnight in Echo Bay, went on a fabulous hike in the morning to a new area of Sucia. There are so many trails! Then we headed back to the marina with the tide and we were even able to sail a little (downwind again). Docking … happened. Not graceful docking, but damage free docking that provided free entertainment to the crowd of onlookers. The crowd was a couple that were on the top deck of their power boat. In the end, we got her tied up at the dock with no harm done. Success! We want to do a good job of taking care of our baby so we sprayed her down with fresh water, cleaned up Troy and hoisted him on deck. We try to leave her cleaned up and ready for her next adventure. We chalked up her Memorial Day voyage as a big win! Until next time …