Prepping for the big trip!

Next week, we are leaving for the San Juan Islands for a five night trip.  My brother, Ron and his wife Patsy are joining us. We’ll tag along with my sister Susan and her husband Kurt, who will be on their trawler.  We stayed Friday night on the boat last weekend to relax and then do some prep work on Saturday.

Friday night, we decided to eat at Maggie Bluffs restaurant, as we didn’t want to bother prepping dinner on the boat.  What a great spot to relax and enjoy the views!

Mac was once again a trooper. For an old dog, at 14+ years old, having to walk to the boat which is a quarter mile, he does very well.  But he doesn’t really enjoy “boating”. So with that said, he will have a dog sitter next week when we go to the San Juan Islands.

Saturday, was our day to take the boat out by ourselves – our first time!!! We wanted to measure how long it took us to get to Shilshole Bay at 7 knots.  It ended up taking us 30 minutes, BUT our boat cannot go that slow. The engines rumbled and were not happy. We were testing that speed, as that is how fast my sister and husband will travel in their trawler.  So on the way back, we increased our speed to 14-15 knots and it hummed happily.

This means we will be far ahead of them. With that said, we plan on leaving about an hour after them and catching up in Mukilteo.  We will get to La Conner a few hours before them, barring any issues. (fingers crossed!!!).

We were planning on having me practice docking the boat along our main dock where the yachts park, but we had too many rolling waves that were making me uneasy.  I want to practice in calm waters to fully understand what I’m doing.  I will say, that Scott is doing an AMAZING job operating / docking the boat.  He was my instructor!

Our next big test was to bring it back to our slip and this time docking with another boat next to us! I wasn’t sure if I should be on the bow to push off, or on the stern to jump off. I decided to stay on the stern and Scott brought the boat in perfectly, swung the stern to port and we tied off in less than a minute! Wow!!

We spent the rest of the day, taking stuff off of the boat that we wouldn’t need next week, to make room for storage (under the seats, closets, etc).  Our plan is to go down for the day this Saturday, get gas, clean, load up anything we can in advance and get things ready.

In order to feed six people and have plenty of food and beverages, we knew our little galley fridge would not be sufficient. Scott and I bought a great cooler, Coleman 120 Quart Coastal Xtreme Series Marine Cooler from Amazon and when we are at port, we leave it on the swim step. Obviously, when under way, we bring it on board.

We are scheduled to leave Thursday, July 20th no later than 10am after we load up! We are headed to the La Conner Marina for one night, then to Fisherman’s Bay on Lopez Island for one night, then to Deer Harbor on Orcas Island for two nights, then to Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island for our last night.