Haul Out

Tuesday July 10th – We left Edmonds at 7:44am and set our speed so we would arrive in La Conner at 12:30 for a scheduled haul out. The boat needed a new propeller shaft seal and the only what to do it is to take the boat out of the water by sling.

We arrived on schedule and hauled the boat where the American Tug crew quickly replaced the seal while we walked to town for lunch. 1.5 hours later we were back in the water working on installing a new air filter system. A custom metal fabricator had to come and template for a bracket that evening. He was awesome! He did the templating and built half the bracket that night then finished it in the morning and had it all installed by 10am! Very thankful for his efforts to get us back cruising so quickly. Kurt at American Tug was just as quick getting everything installed in record time.

Ava’s PLOP was easily extracted by Kurt with a shop vac, and she was very thankful. We got to hang out with Kurt (one of the owners of American Tugs) his wife Kristen and daughter Grace that evening. Ava and Grace get along great and we always have fun with Kurt and Kristen.

Wednesday July 11th – After the final fitting of the air filter, we had lunch on the boat while waiting for the rising tide. A minus 1.5 tide would have been a little sketchy leaving the Swinomish Channel. As soon as we thought it was safe to head out we started north through the channel. 12’, 10’, 9’, 8’ came up on the depth sounder. Hmmmm…. Not what I wanted to see, and I know we were not even in the shallowest spot yet. We turned around and slowly motored back toward town killing time as the tide came up. About 45 minutes later we turned north again and had a fantastic cruise across Rosario Strait, through Thatcher Pass and into a little anchorage on the south end of Decatur Island called Kimball Nature Reserve. New to us we studied the charts for a good anchorage then dropped the hook.

What a fantastic place, we couldn’t believe we haven’t been here before. We were the only boat in the anchorage and it was beautiful. After some exploring in the dinghy and beachcombing we cooked dinner on the boat then settled in for the night. More exploring tomorrow.