January 2022

Last weekend, Scott and I attended the 2022 Portland Boat Show for the first time. This was really the first large in-person indoor show we’ve attended since the pandemic began two years ago. Not knowing what to expect, we stayed open minded. Thanks to Trey, with O’Loughlin Trade Shows, for providing us with media passes to the show. We wanted to make a weekend out of it, so we decided to take the Amtrak Train down to Portland.

We reserved coach tickets and we were surprised by how roomy the seats were. There is a “club car” that offers snacks, sandwiches, beverages and cocktails. If you sit on the side of the train looking west, you’ll get a nice water view for most of the trip. We didn’t know that and ended up looking east on the way down.

I love that train stations are so grand and full of history. You certainly won’t find an airport that looks like this!

My advice to anyone attending a show at the Portland Expo, is that you don’t need to stay near the Expo. The train station is downtown Portland and we took an Uber to the Courtyard near Hayden Island. There’s nothing near that area that is walking distance, so in hindsight, we wished we would have stayed near restaurants because we had to Uber to the Expo anyway.

The Portland Boat Show

Unlike the Seattle Boat Show, the Portland Boat Show is only indoors featuring boats under 35′. If you are looking for a runabout, a towboat, a fishing boat or personal watercraft, this show hasyou covered!

One of our favorite features of the show was the classic boat section. They had about twenty classic runabouts, dating back to the 1940’s including Chris Craft and Tollycraft models.

Check out this cool tourist boat! Maybe we check this out next summer?

There were not as many vendors as we expected, but we did run into a few that had some pretty cool things.

The first one was ewinch 2 and they were demoing an electric winch wrench. This wrench is lighter than a hand drill and really easy to use! Be sure to tune into our YouTube episode and see how easy it was for me to handle.

Crabbing and Clamming Made Easy

Scott and I don’t normally stop at too many of the vendor booths, but we stopped at CrabHawk and they were selling two cool things. First was the crab cracker tool called “Crack-n-crab”. Now, if you recall in one our Camano Island blogs, we discussed the two different ways to kill and cook crab. One way, is to boil them immediately before gutting them. Others like to kill them first, gut them and then boil them. The crab cracker tool is used for the latter method. Again, check out our YouTube episode for the demo (link at the bottom of this blog).

They were also selling the “Clam Gun”. Apparently, this “gun” works like a straw and when you shove the gun into the sand, with your thumb over the suction hole, it keeps all of sand and clams in the gun. Then you shoot it out and grab your clam. Who knew?

We arrived to the show at 10am and we were done by 11:30am, so you can do the show pretty quick. Scott and I toured two brand new cruisers from Jeaneau and Cutwater during the show. These were really well laid out and we’ll take you on a tour of both of them next week.

Exploring Portland, OR

Since we had time to kill on Saturday, we headed into Downtown Portland for lunch and to explore a bit. I used to live in Portland in the late 1980’s and hadn’t returned in years. We headed first to Huber’s for lunch, which is the oldest restaurant in Portland. Founded in 1879, Huber’s is a Portland tradition that has been serving up its famous specialty drink, Spanish Coffee, from its second location for 108 years. Huber’s Cafe was first founded as the Bureau Saloon in 1879 at SW 1st Avenue and Morrison Street. It moved to its present location – 411 S.W. Third Ave – in 1910.

After lunch, we decided to visit the Oregon Maritime Museum, which is located on an old river boat on the Willamette River. Scott and I were disappointed to discover it was closed. So we spent the rest of the afternoon, walking along the boardwalk and enjoying the fresh air.

In front of the steamship, was a pile of loose logs. As we looked closer at the garbage field, we started to find all kinds of things, including a boat, a dock, a cooler and then we decided to make game of it. What do you spot?

The boardwalk along the Willamette River is a working dock when they have festivals. In fact, Navy Ships will tie up to the board walk during the Rose Festival. Check out these cleats! To give you some perspective, these are about two and half feet tall!

Well, it was nice to get out and attend an in-person boat show even if it was for a short visit. The Seattle Boat Show starts this Friday and I’ll be working the show every day. If you are in the Union Marine booth, look for me (Ally).

As always, thank you for following our journey. Be sure to subscribe to our blog and channel for future updates on our search for our liveaboard boat. We’ve got some exciting things in the works for 2022, including our BVI bareboat charter in less than four weeks! Be sure to follow us on social too @BoatingJourney #BoatingJourney.

Cheers,

Ally and Scott

Though Scott and I didn’t buy a boat this year, we still had an amazing year in 2021. We figured out how to stay on the water and create some fantastic memories even without a boat of our own. The year started with the virtual Seattle Boat Show and luckily I’m in the boat business, so we still got to tour a few yachts.

In March, we took a ferry up to San Juan Island and stayed at Snug Harbor for a whale watching trip. While we didn’t see any whales, we saw lots of other wild life and cruising the San Juan Islands is always so beautiful.

The following month, we took another ferry ride to Whidbey Island to meet our God Dog, Soleil. We shared our story last April about how boats and dogs brought us together.

Cool & Unusual Boats

Throughout the year, we got up close and personal with some pretty cool boats. We started the year with a tour of the 1909 MV Lotus Edwardian Yacht, which is a historical yacht moored on Lake Union.

Scott and I rode on an electric Nautique GS22E tow boat on Lake Tapps and it was wild as you can’t hear the engine.

Every year, Seattle hosts the classic yacht show and now we are looking forward to next year’s event! So many cool old boats.

How do go boating when you don’t own a boat

As we got into summer, we got pretty creative on how we would stay boating. First we went sailing on Seattle’s Tall Ship on Elliott Bay, where Scott was able to get hands on.

Thanks to my job (Ally), we experienced the PNW debut of Sea Ray’s first 37′ Outboard cruiser on Lake Washington. This is such a cool boat and it has so many fun features!

Then we rented an electric Duffy boat on Lake Union! It was so much fun and affordable!

Maybe for 2022 we’ll rent a hot tub boat? Let us know what you think!

Our BVI Bareboat Charter Trip

In 2019, we booked our first bareboat charter to the British Virgin Islands which was set for March 27, 2020. Unfortunately, our group was the first one to be cancelled due to the pandemic. Originally, we moved the trip to October 2020, but the pandemic was far from over. So we moved it again to February 2021, only to learn that in order to arrive into the BVIs you would need four tests and quarantine for over eight days. This time we moved it to February 2022 and we are still on schedule for this trip! As a result, the four of us decided to keep our flights and visit the USVIs in April 2021 instead.

Scott and I visited all three territories: St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix. It was truly an epic trip! We took a catamaran to Buck Island, we rented a dinghy on St John and explored all of the islands.

What’s it like to live on a boat?

Scott and I need the experience of living on a boat, before we buy one. Though we owned a larger yacht, it wasn’t set up well for a liveaboard. Solutions? First, we interviewed a great couple, Scott and Laurie who live full-time on their 50′ Vista on Bainbridge Island. They shared some great info with us! Be sure to check out that video here!

Next we rented a tiny home for four days. That was a great trip and a learning experience. On a boat, you have separate “rooms”, but not in a tiny house. We actually survived and had a great time!

Then a couple of weeks ago, we rented a 50′ Ponderosa for the weekend. Another great experience living aboard. The weather was cold and wet, yet we had an awesome time!

Our New Year’s Resolution

Our resolution this year is to buy a boat! With inventory levels at an all time low, it may be another full year before we can find a boat, but we hope that’s not the case. We may have to buy another boat and keep our condo. We’ll see. Otherwise, we’ll continue our boat tours and figure out cool ways to go boating. If you think about it, we spent a lot of time on the water this year even without a boat.

In the first quarter of 2022, we’re attending the Portland Boat Show and the Seattle Boat Show. After that, we’re finally heading to the British Virgin Island and St. John. Stay tuned for that epic trip! There’s a lot we have to do in order to get into the country, so we will fill you in.

As always, thank you for following our journey! Be sure to subscribe to our channel (click on the video below) and follow us on social @BoatingJourney #boatingjourney.

Happy New Year Everyone!