Monday & Tuesday August 3^rd & 4^th – We left the Edmonds dock at 7:47am headed north to La Conner on the Swinomish Channel.  La Conner is where our new American Tug 485 is being built and we were super excited to see the progress.  These guys and gals construct an incredible quality boat, built right here in the USA.

At 1:05pm traveling 39.88nm we arrived at the American Tug docks.  With the new boat on the way we need to get our existing boat sold – hopefully just after we get back from this trip.  Our friend and yacht broker Steve Scruggs is going to come by and take pictures for the sale, so we all worked together to wash and clean up the boat for the pictures.

After the photo session we went to dinner at the La Conner Brewing Co – Our favorite spot in La Conner with the very best beer and pizza.

Tuesday the 4^th – We met with American Tug and got to see all the progress.  Building a boat like this is quite a long process – about 8 months – and we are about 2 months in.  Our new boat is 48’ long but the manufacturer only has a mold for a 43 footer.  To make it longer they have to cut the hull and deck in half, then add 5’ to the middle.  It’s a complicated process that doesn’t sound right, but its done all the time in boat building and creates a hull that’s just as strong.  You can see in the pictures the hull has been cut and filled in but the deck (white with forward windows cut out) has not been cut yet.  They’ve also started to build the master stateroom and head module.  This, along with a few other modules, gets built outside the boat then placed in before the deck goes on. We spent a couple hours going over a bunch of decisions that need to be finalized and made a lot of progress.

At 1:00 we left La Conner and set a course to Fishermen Bay on Lopez Island.  Steve (the yacht broker) took some action shots of our boat while underway as we cruised up the Swinomish Channel.  We had a nice cruise around the north end of Anacortes, across Rosario Strait, through Thatcher Pass, and around the north end of Lopez but then it started to get really windy.

We arrived at 4:42pm traveling 21.92nm and set our anchor in the bay.  The wind was blowing to 23 knots in the bay so we made sure our anchor was set well.  Its always a little stressful sleeping at night anchored in that kind of wind!  Dinner at the Islander restaurant was was just OK.  The dinghy ride back to the boat for the night was a little wet with spray in all the wind.

Trip Log –  113.75nm

 

 

Sunday August 2^nd – We woke up and dinghied into shore for some breakfast at the cabin.  Once again we were governed by the tides so after a nice breakfast and goodbyes to family we had to get out of there or we’d be stuck on shore for the rest of the day.  We pulled anchor and got going at 11:07am

We had quite a long day of travel ahead of us.  First we needed to stop at the Des Moines marina and get fuel for the boat.  268 gallons later we were off and running again, traveling north past Seattle to the Edmonds Marina for the night.  At 6:43pm, after about 7-1/2 hours travel time we arrived in Edmonds covering 58.18nm.

We made dinner and watched a beautiful sunset with what seemed like thousands of Seagulls stretched out along the breakwater.  Every once in a while they would all take off at once and cover the red sky, making us feel like we were getting attacked.

Trip Log 91.83nm

 

 

Saturday August 1^st – We left Fair Harbor Marina at 8:03am to make the very short run (2.24nm) around Stretch Island and into Pirates Cove where we anchored the boat in view from the cabin.  The tide cycle today is huge (17’ change) and we had to get into the beach by 9:30am or we would be stuck on our anchored boat while the reunion took place without us. 

At 9:45am we hopped in the dinghy with all of our stuff for the day.  There would be no way to get back to the boat until the tide was up again at about 4:30 so we had to be sure and have everything we needed.  We were a little late so I had to raise the motor, jump out of the dinghy and pull it by hand through the draining inlet.

We all had a great time with family – eating, drinking, swimming, cooking clams and crab, kids running around all over, and best of all seeing family we don’t get to see all that much.  Thank you to everyone who put a lot of work into a successful fun day!  Especially John and Toodie who open up their cabin to everyone – it’s a lot of work for them and we appreciate it.

Skylar slept in a tent on land while Julie, Ava and I dinghied in the night back to our boat for some much needed sleep.

Trip Log –  33.65nm