“Captain”

Saturday August 24th 2019 – 6:30am we woke (ok just Julie and I) for an early morning departure from Roche to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The sun coming up over calm seas was a beautiful sight, but then a pod of Orcas made it even better! An amazing crossing all the way to Seattle’s Elliot Bay Marina for the night. We got there about 11am, then took a taxi to fishermen’s terminal to see if we could find some Deadliest Catch crab boats. Ever since we were able to find and meet Sean Dwyer a couple years ago, Ava just had to go back and check it out. But no crab boats this trip, so it was off to the Evo store for some shopping, then a walk to Freemont, and dinner at funky Mexican restaurant.

Sunday August 25th – Took the boat over to Bell Harbor for the next 3 nights. Had a great dinner at Aerlume. It’s become evident that downtown Seattle area has become……… well how do you say….. a total S@#t hole. Ok, of course not all of it, but wow, every year it becomes less and less attractive to spend any time here at all. It’s dangerous, not a place to walk around during the day let alone at night or with kids. Dirty, smelly, people doing drug deals, shooting up, getting arrested, peeing on the sidewalk, sleeping everywhere, our kids witnessed it all in a few hours. It’s really sad because we have loved coming here, especially on the boat for almost the last 20 years. It’s a huge drug and mental health problem. These people need help, but obviously the city’s solutions to get them help is failing miserably, which everyone suffers for.

Monday August 26th – We decided to leave the tents and dirty streets of Seattle and taxied over to Bellevue for a night at the Hyatt. Skylar’s friend Jordan drove up to stay with us and we had a great dinner at the Lakehouse. Lots of back-to-school shopping and the boys had fun swimming in the pool.

Tuesday August 27th – Breakfast in Bellevue then back to Seattle for a little more shopping before a fun and delicious pizza dinner at the Alibi Room. That evening, back at the boat, we saw about a 32’ sailboat cruise by the breakwater really close. So close in fact that a guy who had climbed up the mast, jumped off onto the breakwater. Not sure how he managed that, but he climbed down on to the docks asking for help. Apparently, the sailboat he was on lost its engine and they were under sail only. Problem was that no one onboard really knew how to sail. In an attempt to stop the boat, they tied a line on one of the pilings. With the sail still up, the wind then pinned them to the seawall in a very uncomfortable and dangerous manner. No one onboard knew how to put the sail down. Skylar and I decided we better help and got in the dinghy to see what we could do. As we approached the sailboat everyone onboard was pretty scared. Skylar has some sailing experience and was able to get on their boat and put the sail down. That calmed things down quite a bit and eased the pressure off the boat that was slammed on the wall. Then we were able to carefully tow the sailboat into the harbor with our dinghy. The captain and crew were very appreciative along with a 6-month-old baby that they pulled out of the cabin after we got to the dock. The baby had been sleeping the whole time, obvious to what had been going on.

It was fun, and Skylar felt like a hero.

We found out that the guy who jumped off the boat was the owner “Capitan” who had just bought the boat. This was his maiden voyage and he decided to take some friends “crew”out with him. It didn’t go so well.