Sunday, June 13, 2004

Back to Bainbridge

We are packed and ready to go, but our house doesn't want to let us go. Turns out that a hive of bees has decided to take residents in between the joists above our kitchen. After multiple calls we found a beekeeper that would remove the bees and any honey and hive that happened to be in the house. As usual this turned out to be more difficult than you might imagine, since the bees decided to take residence between our deck joists which just happened to be blocked in with some seriously thick material. But after several hours of whacking and vacuuming the bees were removed and we were allowed to depart Fort Collins.

Now this summer we don't have anyone staying at our house. We will see how it goes and see how the house holds up over the summer.

The drive out I-80 was nice and we had a nice visit with Tony Mebane in Boise. We always like to be treated to Karen's tasty food. What a nice diversion.

We arrived in Seattle early the next afternoon and caught a ferry to Bainbridge ...

The next couple of days were spent provisioning, doing a ton of maintenance and visiting with our Dock Neighbors. We even managed to get a couple of fine afternoon sails in with the Sorenson's and the Lindheimers.

BJ & Tricia on the Nelle Bly - Kalliope's Sister Ship

Eric Chasing down Nelle Bly

Finally on the eve of our departure, BJ talks me into replacing my packing glands. This decidedly simple job should only take "15 minutes" ... not! The packing was about 8 layers deep and the final two layers of flax were so deep it took me half an hour just to get them out. Meanwhile water is gushing in through the prop like a small fire hose ... too much fun. After all of that, the packing gland I bought was the wrong size! The notes in the log book were wrong! Imagine that. Of course by that time the chanderly is closed, so no departure! The next morning Kathy and I got up and headed to Bremerton to buy some new packing material then stopped into Poulsbo for a nice lunch and a visit to the Garlic store to stock up on some goodies. When we got back I replaced the packing material.

The next morning we did manage to leave and set out for Port Townsend. Not much in the way of wind but it was good to get under way again. I met up with Port Townsend Rigging and picked up a couple of more supplies.

That evening my brother arrived on the ferry from Friday Harbor and we managed to tie one over with Dan and Lisa of Port Townsend rigging at the local Sushi place.

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