Day: July 29, 2015

Wednesday, July – 29^th. This is the start of our big summer boat trip. We will be out on the water from July 29^th until the end of August.

Getting ready for a month long boat trip is a lot of work! On the water, where we typically go cruising, you can’t just quickly run into the grocery store to pick up something you forgot. If you don’t have food or something you need, it may be a few days before you can get it. We stock the freezer with food and plan out meals for a couple weeks. The boat also must be in top condition before you leave, reducing the chance of any mechanical failures while out on the water. We spend a couple weeks getting ready for a trip like this.

Of course the day before we left the septic system in our rental house decided to act up. We had to delay our departure until later in the day on July 29^th so we could make sure that was taken care of. We left our home port at 1:24pm, all stocked up and ready to go.

Our destination today is Oro Bay on Anderson Island. The plan is to go crabbing for the next couple days then take off (hopefully with lots of crab) to Allen for “Hinckley Family Fun Days” -Julie’s family reunion.

As we approached the narrows bridge I looked out the port pilothouse door and saw a rare Pacific White-Sided Dolphin playing in our wake just 15’ or so from the boat. It was amazing, something we’ve never had happen! Julie and the kids were down below so I quickly called for them to come up. Thinking something had gone massively wrong they sprang to the pilothouse. We couldn’t believe it! The dolphin played in our wake for a few minutes, twisting and turning as it kept speed with the boat. Then it took off leaping out of the water several times at least 5’ in the air like a marlin does when caught on a fishing line. What a great start to our trip!

We arrived in Oro Bay at 3:15pm traveling 15.07nm. We quickly all worked together to get the crab pots ready so we could let them soak as long as possible today. After the first pull later in the day we didn’t catch any Dungeness but there were several large rock crab that we chucked in our bucket!

We spent the evening cruising in the dinghy over to the Nisqually Flats to see if any pots were over there, then watched the sun set as we came back along the south west side of Anderson Island.

Trip Log – 15.07nm