Manzanita Bay

Sounds like a place that should be in the Bahamas or the Caribbean, doesn't it?  Actually, it is in the Puget Sound on the west side of Bainbridge Island.  When the weather forecast turned out to be less than ideal, we decided to head there instead of Blake Island.  It was a good decision, as the weather turned out to be, well, downright lousy.

Here's a chart of where we were.  We were in  the middle where it kind of looks like a high-heeled shoe, right about at the toe.

  We tried to wait out the rain, but finally just headed out into the weather.  The foul-weather gear helped.

It was a great spot, well-protected and surrounded by lovely waterfront homes.  It was very peaceful.

We cooked dinner on board.  It tasted soooo good.

The weather got a little worse,

then a little better,

and then more rain when we woke up Sunday.

It was a great spot for our first anchorage despite the rain. 

We are hoping to be able to use these again next weekend.

Easy-Going Weekend

The last weekend in July was a pretty easy-going for us. No great plans or trips, but we had fun nonetheless.

We started Saturday with our normal farmer's market routine. The local farmers are hitting their stride and there was a good variety of fruit and vegetables at the Poulsbo market. With all the great stuff from the market, we put together a picnic and headed down to the boat.

We set sail for Illahee State Park. Our plan was to take a mooring ball and have lunch at the park. We had a strong wind from the south and tacked back and forth all the way there. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures because we were both too busy sailing.

Once at Illahee, we just relaxed (see the first photo). There were a lot of people on the dock fishing and crabbing, so we stayed aboard.

It is a really nice spot that you can get to by both boat and car.

On the sail back, the wind subsided a bit and we cruised leisurely back home, even sailing wing-on-wing.

Carol was at the helm and had plenty of time to check her blackberry.

On Sunday, there was no wind and little sun. So we stayed at the pier, worked on a couple of projects, and prepared for next weekend.

We plan to moor overnight at Blake Island, a state park only reachable by boat. For that we'll need our dinghy, so we had to get it out of storage and make sure everything was shipshape.

All looked good and we are looking forward to next weekend.

Wish for good wind!.

Our First Overnighter.....and a Rubber Duck Race!

On Friday, we took Sun Break across the Puget Sound to the Port of Edmonds for our first overnighter.  We used to go to Edmonds a lot when we lived in Mukilteo, but this was the first time arriving by boat.  The weather was perfect and we had steady winds almost the whole way.

After settling into our slip, we had a nice happy hour before heading into town to one of our favorite restaurants for a bite of dinner.

We enjoyed the marina.  The views were fantastic.

We walked to the Edmonds Farmer's Market on Saturday.  The market there is huge and we are very familiar with it from our previous time there.  It was great to be back for a visit and to get some of our old standbys.

We had lunch on Saturday on the boat.

After lunch, we headed back to Poulsbo.  With light winds we were able to try out our new gennaker.

The boat slept great.  Last summer, when we didn't have a boat, we did what a lot of people here do and went camping. 

Camping and boating have a lot of similarities and we were able to appreciate being out in the woods, but, for now, we have put the tent away.  Baylee seemed to like to camp.  She seems to like being on the boat too, as long as it doesn't leave the slip.

On Sunday, we stopped by the Whaling Days Festival in Silverdale and caught the highlight of the day--the Rubber Duck Race.  In this fundraiser, 10,000 rubber ducks are dumped into the water. Each duck has a number and $5 tickets with a matching number are sold to the public.

Once released, the ducks begin their float race to the finish line.  With the help of the leaf blowers, that is.

Not sure which duck won or how it relates to whaling, but it was something just a little different.

Have a great week!

Fun in the (Mostly) Sun

Lots of fun activities this week with the Withrows.  Here is some of what we did.

On Monday, we headed down to Illahee State Park on Sun Break.  It was a little cooler than we had hoped, but the sun came out after lunch and the wind picked up and we enjoyed a great sail.  The kids proved to be naturals on the water and helped out with the helm and with lots of tacking.

Tuesday, we headed to Port Townsend and visited Fort Worden State Park where the kids showed their talents for successfully skipping stones on the water.

Wednesday brought miniature golf.

In the afternoon, kayaking was the main activity!  Matt and Carol sat this one out, but we got some nice pictures though!

Kayaking was followed by a stop for some ice cream. 

Now that was some ice cream!

On Thursday, Scott, Joseph and Brooks headed over to Seattle.  Max, Carol and Matt headed out to a beach on Bainbridge Island.

....Followed by a trip to the water park.

We all enjoyed seeing the seals sunning themselves on the piers during the week.

All of this and more made for a great week.