With heavy heads and spirits hanging low, we started home from our last anchorage, D’Arcy Island, in the morning on July 30 and by 4:00 in the afternoon on July 31 we were safely back in our slip at Foss Harbor Marina in Tacoma. We missed our family and friends, but wish this trip could go on much longer.

Finding my groove on the back deck.

Wait, July 31? That’s correct, you read that right. It took us less than two days to get home. Have we ever mentioned that this boat is a lot faster than our previous Cal 34? Our bodies are still timed to the Cal in so many ways. It takes us aback when passages are that much faster. Coming around Pt. Wilson with current and wind in our favor, we had speeds upwards of 12.5 knots. What a sensation! So we’re back, the party’s over for now, and it was a terrific trip fraught with beautiful scenery, PNW wildlife bingo, fine tuning what we want out of this boat, introspection, and yes, even fun. Our cups runneth proverbially over.

With friendly hands to help grab dock lines, Mike absolutely did not hit the big Vagabond ketch the marina docked next to us in our slip. I did not throw up, and I don’t think I lost any years of life this time due to stress, in spite of all the times he had to back up and tweak the wheel. Another successful docking.  We decided to spend the night at the marina to have plenty of time to get the boat cleaned up and to get used to being on land again. Man, it is noisy here. We hate this noise. And talking to my mom on the phone yesterday when we were sailing in, she was stuck in wall to wall traffic from Chehalis to Kirkland. Man. We hate traffic. To celebrate, or perhaps to anesthesize, being back in the fast lane of our land life, we walked down to The Fish Peddler on Dock St. and overindulged heavily. Damn, that Jalapeno Pineapple Margarita was delicious. All this noise activity; no wonder people drink.

We usually anchor at Dungeness Spit before crossing the strait. It’s so peaceful there. No alcohol required.

So now that we are here we get to compare notes about the trip and I have an entire notebook of a cruising journal to reference for posts and for lists. I have so much information it will take me while to get it sorted. We have a lot to tell you.  But let’s start with gear. Everyone always wants to know what works and what doesn’t and why before they buy things for a boat. So here is a partial list of small  ‘wins and fails’ to whet your appetite for the posts coming your way in the next few weeks.

Wins!

1. Marriage Saver Mariner 500 headsets from Crusing Solutions.  These were so useful it makes it a damn shame that Cruising Solutions doesn’t sell them anymore. We probably got the last pair because when I went to order them I found that they had been discontinued and replaced with an expensive pair of Bluetooth headsets. I was so disappointed I emailed them and they offered me a pair without a box and with a limited warranty from their back stock. So great customer service, anyhow!  I took them up on it and am so glad. Here’s the deal: If Mike is at the bow and I am in the cockpit, we can talk to each other. If Mike is working on the hydraulic steering and needs me to turn the wheel, we can talk to each other. When docking, I can tell him how many feet he has before he hits the boat next to us. Yes, there was static on the line, but we could hear each other and you know, these are not cell phones.

This ability to communicate was priceless. But let’s talk about price anyway. I paid about 80$ with shipping for our set. Their replacement product costs $179. Apiece. As in, you have to buy one for each person. Sure, they are ‘Blue Tooth’. Sure they are modern and sleek.  Who cares? My boat was built in 1975. We don’t need no modern or sleek. Sure, you can use them for up to 300 feet away or something. Our boat is 47 feet long end to end. I don’t need 300 feet. I just need to be able to communicate without my hands and without yelling. I hope they bring back the original Marriage Savers. Not everyone wants to spend $400 on something they use only intermittently. This falls under the category of ‘it it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. People loved those Marriage Savers. (No photo of us modeling these for you. If I tried to take a photo while we are anchoring or otherwise need them, Mike would probably have something to say about it and I probably wouldn’t like it.)

Testing out some fishing gear.

Contigo Stainless Water Bottles – We love these. I bought them at Costco as an impulse purchase because we were looking for a way to keep drinks cool and also an easy way to get enough water and avoid dehydration. We both love them so much I’m hoping to get more so we have extras on the boat. If not, I’m ordering them from Amazon. They went everywhere with us, do not leak, are easy to drink from with one hand, and even in the hot sun, water stays cool. A big WIN.

Arctic Cool Towel – Another impulse buy for Mike’s birthday, it was actually hot enough in our PNW heat wave to use these and in spite of my worries that these might be a ‘gimmick’, they actually work! Is this some kind of wierd magic that makes these towels nice and cold when you get them wet and give them a bit of a snap? It sure did feel good to have ones of these around the old neck when temperatures were in the ’90s. We got ours at Costco, but you can order them from Amazon.

Adorable little ‘Scamp’, built in Gig Harbor, anchored at Liberty Bay for the July 4 festivities. Couldn’t we have this as a dinghy? So cute!

Fails

Verizon phone plan for Canada.  Three words: Just don’t bother.  Reception was terrible, even in places like Ucluelet where there should be plenty of reception. And the data plan was laughable. If you want to update your Facebook application like we did, you won’t be able to post any photos or you will eat your data really fast, even small photos. With Verizon’s plan, you get 100 mb of data and when you go over, they just tack on another 100 mb for 10$.  That sounds good until you realize that you’ve used more than half your data in about 4 days. Even after turning everything off on the smart phone, an Iphone 5s, I eventually learned to just turn the phone off. At least I was able to text with my kids on occasion. I didn’t bother checking email, but Mike did on his phone. I kept the FB application page updated without photos but you’ll notice the updates to the blog stopped. That’s only partly because we were having so much fun. We will have a fat phone bill this month. I believe there must be a better way, and I’m going to find it before next summer.

Motorola rechargeable weatherproof walkie talkies of unknown model since it’s not indicated on the unit anywhere. These are a fail because the battery sucks. And since they don’t put the model on the unit, I now am suspicious of all Motorola radios.  When one of us wants to go rowing or paddling and the other one stays on the boat, it’s nice to be able to stay in touch. That way we don’t worry. But in order for this to work, you have to be able to leave your radio on. And that’s the problem with these. After about an hour, the battery is dead even when you start with it fully charged. So maybe I can see Mike in his little boat way out there in the middle of the channel, or maybe that is some other fisherman. Maybe he’s waving his arms at me because he has snagged a whale by accident and it’s pulling him out to sea. I’ll never know because I assure you the battery on the radio is dead. We will  need a better solution than this.

Got your radio, honey? Oh, never mind. It’s dead, Jim.

There’s more, oh yes, but I couldn’t wait to get back to posting updates, which we stopped doing due to the data usage and poor cell phone reception. I don’t know how people post to their cruising blogs all the time when they are actually out cruising. I see lots of people going to internet cafes but on this trip we were primarily in wilderness areas where towns were few and internet cafes even fewer. I’m in touch with Behan Gifford of Sailing Totem to see how they do things on their boat. (Read her latest post about minimizing data usage in exotic places.)  This is another little issue that needs solving before we cut the lines next summer.

D’arcy Island. Ready to go back there.

Today we did our part for the local economy in Ucluelet, and we’ll get to telling you about that, but first let’s talk about checking into Canada from a boat. Because this is where the story begins. We didn’t even plan to come to Ucluelet. Why? Because we have a Nexus pass. Let’s talk about that first.

The Nexus Pass is a special card that allegedly allows you to go across the U.S/Canada border without hassle. At least, that’s what it’s supposed to do. You apply, pay a $50 fee for the card (each), wait for an application number, then schedule an in-person interview at Boeing Field or another location that may or may not be convenient to you. We waited several months for our interviews to avoid driving to Blaine.

Really cool garden art in Ucluelet.

The interview is really pretty easy since they already know everything about you down to the size of your hair follicles before you even appear. Basically they probably just want to make sure you are not a robot or an obvious drug mule. So then you get your approval and the card comes in the mail. You call and activate your card as though it’s actually going to make things dead easy. But why would anyone believe that?

We left Seiku in the morning about 8:00 and motored all the live long day. It was pretty calm on the rolling Pacific and we had many miles to travel with no safe place to anchor. We either had to motor or we would be facing an overnight passage. We figured we would check in by phone, get our number, then anchor at the south end of Barkley Sound. Having already visited Ucluelet 5 years ago on Moonrise, we didn’t feel the need to go there again. It’s a nice enough area, but we thought we’d stop there later. Such naiveté.

Mike phoned the Nexus number when we got to Trevor Channel at the south end of the sound. The customs man wanted to know when we would get to Ucluelet. Um, never? Mike thought fast. He said we’d be there in a couple of hours. This was not an adequate answer for the gentleman on the phone. He instructed us to travel to Uclulet and call from there. We would be given a number and then we were to wait 15 minutes. If no one came to the boat to clear us in, we could go. Confused, but not wanting to thwart big authority and thereby call attention to ourselves because we feel a goodly amount of protestant guilt about things even when we aren’t doing anything wrong and are leery of possible punishment, we motored onward to Ucluelet.

Fog rolling into Ucluelet from the sea. This is from our anchorage.

In Ucluelet we found there was no room at the dock. Sure, we could possibly squeeze in between two very large and very metal fishing boats, but why should we? Tired and cranky is no way to try that kind of docking maneuver. The rest of the dock was full of other boats that appeared to be staying the night. I idled Galapagos in the bay and Mike called customs.

Mike explained the predicament to the much more helpful and reasonable woman who answered the phone. She asked all the usual questions about what we were bringing into Canada and if we had any illegal aliens on our boat. She gave us our clearance number and we were good to go. But Mike wanted to know exactly why having this Nexus card was beneficial to us when checking into Canada? Here is what she said and I will tell you right now I am not making this up. I could never make this shit up because it is not even logical in my own free thinking mind. When you call in, you must tell them exactly what time you will be in Ucluelet, the only check in port on the west coast of Vancouver Island. (Never mind that we are a sailboat and don’t know exactly when we will actually get there. Just make up anything, apparently.) Give them an exact ETA, even if it’s wrong. They will then give you your clearance number. You’d think that would be the end of it, but it isn’t. Once you get your clearance number you then GO TO UCLUELET and dock at the customs dock. You wait 15 minutes and if nobody comes to check you in, which they won’t, then you leave and go on your merry way.

Squeezed in between fishing boats on the public dock the following day.

Again, totally not making up anything here. For those who don’t live here or travel these parts, many check in places in Canada are unmanned. There is a phone at the customs dock which you use to call customs. You answer your questions, they give you your clearance number, and you post the number in the window on your boat. Done. The whole thing generally only takes a few minutes and we have never had a bad check-in experience coming to Canada. We were somehow convinced that having a Nexus card would shortcut this activity but apparently all it really does is allow you to call from your boat, which you can do anyhow. You still have to show up at an unmanned dock, wait 15 minutes, then go wherever. One has to wonder if Customs has some kind of deal with the economies of the local areas where these docks are located because sure as the world, our being in Ucluelet led to our spending money in Ucluelet. At least they had free water at the dock.

Look who came to visit while we were anchored in Ucluelet.

So we anchored in 20 feet of dead calm water near the head of the bay and had an excellent night’s sleep. In the morning we awoke to a lovely black bear bumbling around the shore about 20 yards from our stern. That was worth the trip, just those 5 minutes of bear watching. We had our breakfast then motored over to the public dock where all of the exact same boats were still tied up. Mike maneuvered Galapagos like a boss, we slipped in between the monstrous steel boats, and tied up. I only lost 2 years of my life to anxiety during that docking, rather than the usual 5, so things are looking up.

Expensive, but worth it. About 32$ Canadian for us to both have fish and chips and a drink. Yep.

It was a pleasure to get in a good long, brisk walk around town. If you get to Ucluelet, please have some cash ready to spend at the fish and chips food truck between town and the marina. It’s pricey, but worth every penny. Sorry Scotland, this fish and chips beats the hell out of yours. Mike got a 2 piece and I got a 1 piece, and our bill came to about 32$ American. I told you it was pricey. And for a good cup of coffee and a locally made dessert cookie of something figgy with oats, big enough for two, try the Cap’n Hook coffee place down by the marina. They also sell fishing supplies, an interesting combination. Mike got a fishing license, we bought beer, and minor groceries. We’ve done our part.

We have a lot to celebrate around here lately. This month our youngest, Andrew, graduated from Western Washington University. We’re proud of this accomplishment for him, and also for us. It marks the end of a significant part of our lives: the part where we felt responsible for educating our children. This called for a party. And that called for friends, a venue, and good food. Mike wanted to throw the party on a boat. I wanted to turn the cooking over to someone else. A plan was hatched.

Classic family photo from graduation. Dan, Claire, Andrew, Jill, Mike, and Me.

Several years ago we were sailing past Port Hadlock when we happened to see this magnificent old wooden boat anchored out. We did a couple of circles around the boat, hoping someone was aboard, but the boat was all alone. It had a covered deck up top, with wicker furniture mixed in with wooden built in seating. Curtains fluttered behind the portholes. 

It looked romantic and a little bit mysterious. We loved it and wished we could go aboard and poke around its nooks and crannies. Still, nobody was home so we toodled along and I kind of forgot about it. Mike, however, has a long memory. When it came time to plan Andrew’s party, a vision of this boat leaped out of the recesses of the file cabinet in his head. He had to locate this boat.

Due to the beauty of the interweb and my diligent searching skills, we finally located the boat, named ‘Lotus’. Turns out, she is now permanently moored at the south end of Lake Union, just behind the Museum of History and Industry. Who knew?

For real.

She was launched in 1909 and has all of the Edwardian charm you would expect of a wooden boat of this era. Built especially to cruise around the Puget Sound area in comfort and style,  even at the ripe age of 106 she is a head turner. Caretaker Christian Gruye, whose family has been caring for Lotus since the 1950’s, has kept the boat in original condition and stepping onto this beautiful vessel is like stepping into a living museum. You can read more about Lotus here on Three Sheets Northwest. She has quite the dramatic history of late, including being blown aground off her mooring. Yikes! She was the perfect choice for our party. We secured a date and the venue was decided. Onward to the food, but how about a few more photos?

Ok, one more. Twist my arm.

Because who doesn’t love a tiny folding sink?

Christian was nice enough to recommend a few caterers who had worked with parties on the Lotus in the past. We chose to go with Honey! I’m Home! Catering and we are so pleased we did!  Owner Beth Young was professional, easy to work with, listened to us, and met with us down at the Lotus to show us how she could set things up for the party, leaving us to enjoy the evening. She made suggestions but was not pushy, a tender balance so many don’t seem to have mastered. She ‘read’ our needs right the first time and sent us a sample menu that was almost perfect and within our budget.  I have to say this was my first experience having a party catered. You know us. We do everything ourselves. But this was going to be too much for me to handle. We decided to bite the bullet and hire someone. Alas, now I am spoiled and I will never go back. The food was outstanding and beautifully presented.

Teriyaki chicken skewers? Yes, please!

The title of this post says it all. If you are in Seattle and want the perfect small venue combined with a caterer who knows her stuff and does exactly what you want with style and flavor, this combination of the MV Lotus and Honey! I’m Home! will serve you well. How many times can you say, “If I had it to do all over again I would do it exactly the same way with no changes.”?  Yeah. Not many.

The wheelhouse of deliciousness!

Unfortunately some of the cake still lives in my fridge. Must. Give. It. Away. Now. (Cakes are from Corinna’s Bakery in Tacoma)

So we celebrated our boy, ourselves, and also his girlfriend, Jill, who turned 21 yesterday. And what better way to end a perfect party than staying in the master suite aboard Lotus for the night? A couple can walk to the local eateries and bars and walk safely back to their beautiful room for the evening. I admit to having serious boat envy when it comes to this master suite.

Serious boat envy. Phone photo. Sorry.

If you get the chance, go down to Lake Union and go aboard the Lotus. She is a grand old dame and is worth the trip.

Jill and Andrew

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