Gulf Islands

Kathy and I headed out for a two week trip to the Gulf Islands. I have not had a chance to write up anything, but I am including some photos.

Check em out at the link.

See ya,

andy

BYC Youths at the Races

One of the thing I get to do is drive the safety boats for the kids taking the sailing camp. As the kids get better they start coming out on Tuesday night for the dingy race. Mostly I am pretty busy since the wind has been just crazy this summer, but today I was able to relax and get some photos.

A Great Backdrop for an Evening Sail

On your mark ...

Rounding the Downwind Mark.

And some more photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kalliopeSV/2008_08_05BYCSailCamp#

Fun in the head

One of the best things about owning a boat is all of the fun projects that you get to do. Here is a quick photo of me unplugging the head:

From 2008_08_03 - Working on the Head

Cool, no?

Escape to Sucia

We have been having a big metaphysical discussion whether Blaine is a better jumping off point for Sailing than Bellingham. I say this is metaphysical, because there is no real answer. Mostly we are just trying to convince ourselves that maybe Blaine ain't so bad after all. To test out this theory we decided for just Kathy and me to head out for the weekend.

For the first trick, we decide to leave Friday so that we would have two nights there. For some silly reason, the wind decided to blow quite a bit on Wednesday and Thursday, so the South Straits of Georgia were extremely lumpy. My big plan was to sail over to Patos and see if any of the mooring buoys were available. So as we set out, the wind decided that it needed to be directly between us and Patos, and as an added bonus we had some nice big waves. Now, Bruno does not particularly like lumpy water, and, in fact, he makes this known by getting violently seasick. So much, that he literally foamed at the mouth for the entire ride over. This happened even though we bailed on going to Patos. Since the wind was out of the west, Patos would have been an extra crappy anchorage. So, we headed back to Sucia again. This time the bay was nice and smooth with none of the lumpiness from the previous week.

Since we were there a couple of days, we decided to a couple of big hikes around the Island.

View into Fossil Bay across Mud Bay

The South Side of Sucia

At some secret spot on the Island, we found tons of beach glass. I think we will start a dedicated jar just for Sucia Island glass.

Mount Baker Finally Showing Herself

Fortunately, the ride back was not as lumpy and we were extra, extra rested and relaxed. That night after we got back to Blaine, we were so much into vacation mode that we stayed the night on the boat and went to White Rock for dinner. A highly recommended weekend.

More Photos Here:

2008_06_14- Sucia wGlass

Fourth of July

Over the last several years it seems like we have always gone to a big 4th of July fireworks celebration somewhere. Since the 4th was on a Friday and we had a big three day weekend, we decided to go off for a little cruise. In addition, our friend Rick's birthday was on the 3rd so we decided to have a combo 4th celebration and birthday festival. Wayne and Trudy of Mahalo also joined us on the raft-up.

Munchin' on the South Shore - Rick you got cut out!

We ended up leaving early Friday morning and arrived in Sucia around 2pm. For a 4th of July there were hardly any boats in the harbor. Heck, there were even a couple of mooring balls opened up. A couple of hours later Mahalo showed up and we had a nice raft up with some extra yummy food.

That night we were able to watch the fireworks for Blaine, Point Roberts and Bellingham. We could also hear Orcas fireworks, but could not see them. Kind of cool to see all of the flashes on the western shores of Washington. The next day we went for a big hike and searched for more beach glass. Still not tellin' where the glass is.

On Sunday we had a great sail back to Bellingham (not Blaine!) and moored out a friend's slip. Hopefully we can be in Bellingham for the next several weeks. Did I mention, that Blaine is a paint in the arse?

Rick at the Helm

Mahalo Under Full Sail

In what I detect as a potential trend, there are more photos here:

2008_07_05 - Sucia-RickBday

Custom Spice Rack

Check out this cool spice rack that Wayne of Mahalo built for us. Very cool, and looks great!

Exiled to Blain

After a year and a half of shuffling around Bellingham harbor we finally had to move to Blaine. The last month was especially a bitch, we were in four different spots since we lost our sub-lease on May 1. The Kersey's on Navgar also got banished at about the same time, so we decided to head up to Blaine via sucia. We had great wind up with six knots all the way across Rosario.

Navgar Cruising Across Rosario

The weather in Bellingham was supposed to be all extra yucky, but Sucia came through yet again with nice blue skies and cool days. This is June remember, don't expect the temperature to get much above 60F.

Brr, even in the sun we have to bundle up a bit.

Internet Cafe on Sucia

BTW, you really don't want to moor in Echo bay if the wind is out of the SE. Kind of like the direction that it clocked around to Saturday night. It got pretty lumpy in the bay. I was about ready to move to the aft cabin.

On the way back we decided to take the scenic tour. Since it was an extra low tide, I wanted to see what it looked like at low tide even though I had visited it before and managed to end up in the mud. This time we just motored in and backed out once the depth sounder started reading a foot or so. This is just not the place to end up on a negative tide if your draft > 6'. After that we motored around to the south side of Sucia and squeezed in the pass between Little Sucia Island into Fox cove. Definitely some freaky squiggly water there. There are a couple of very cool mooring balls there. It is much more secluded than Fossil Bay on the other side of the small spit. From there we headed North West to check out Patos Island. There are a couple of mooring balls in Active cove on the SW corner of the island. It looks like a really cool place to Anchor.

The Light House on Patos

After that the weather just got nicer and nicer. We ended up having a really nice broad reach to Blain. The new slip was pretty easy to get into and after we got there, we had Geri and Steve over for a little cocktail. Kathy and I even decided to stay one more night.

Cats Attack Deer

My cats are really territorial. When this deer started chomping on the flowers in my backyard, Bellini and Bruno lost no time checking him out.

Bellini on the Attack

She actually sniffed the deer just after this was taken. I missed the shot though.

Bruno Getting on the Action

Looking for New Logs?

I am in the transition phase of moving my blog from citydesk to something else. However, this summer's postings can be seen at www.kalliopeSV.com.
I've also been looking at wordpress, but it needs quite a bit of work to get the template the way I want it.

Spencer Spit

Wow, we really have been getting out a bunch here lately. The heater install has made these early season excursions downright nice.

We ended up leaving early Friday morning so that we could meet with BJ and Tricia. We hadn't seen them in a while and it was nice to hook up. We had a nice dinner and spent the evening playing games. The next day several folks from Bellingham showed up and they had a mini raft up. We decided to bail on the raftup since the wind was a bit stronger than I was liking.

On Saturday, my outboard really started pissing me off so I decided to completely rebuild the carburetor. These are the thing that we like to do in the wilderness. Luckily I had a can of carb cleaner and a bucket. I pulled the whole thing apart four time cleaning out the gunk. Each time I would put it back together, it would start working and quite. I would pull it apart and find more gunk in the jets. After pulling apart everything in the fuel system except for the fuel pump and reassembling everything, I finally gave in and pulled apart the fuel pump. Of course there was all kinds of little pieces of shellac in the pump. The source of the goo. After a final reassembly everything started working fine. Of course, that night I decided to motor ashore and the motor quit about half way there! This time I ran out of gas. Geez. What a bonehead I am sometimes. However, now the motor runs great and I can work on fixing some other things.

Not a bad place to hang for the weekend.

The Old Cabin at Spencer Spit

The obligatory Bruno photo

As always, more photos can be found by clicking on the link below:

2008_05_23 - Spencer Spit

Inati Bay Raftup

Whew! Spring finally arrived with temperatures in the high 70s to lower 80s. Even if we already had opening day, I don't think boating season really was up and moving yet. So to commemorate that yellow thing in the sky that we haven't seen in quite a while, we put together an impromptu raft up in Inati bay. Inati bay is only about an hour away from Bellingham, but mentally it seems much farther. Kathy and I sailed over on Friday night and were joined by Wayne and Trudy aboard Mahala. Trudy made a most excelent spaghetti dinner.
The next day we were invaded by many boats from the BYC. As you might guess, this involved some serious lounging about

From 2008_05_17 - ...

From 2008_05_17 - ...

That evening Steve Heyward and Monica of San Suci (A 50' steel Belgium canal boat) made a huge plate of Enchiladas and Margahrita. Yum.

From 2008_05_17 - ...

The evening was spent lounging on the beach by a fire doing the S'mores thing.

The next day, Kathy and I took Kalliope home on a nice beam reach with about 18 kts. We managed

7.5 kts across the entire bay. Yowser! Much fun. And this is only May!

More Photos

-a

BYC Junior Sea to Ski

This year Kathy and I helped out with BYC's junior regatta. It is held in combination with the Junior Ski to Sea event the next weekend and finally culimates in the big Ski to Sea event over Memorial Day.
The wind was super brisk and we had to rescue a couple of kids. In the afternoon things mellowed down a bit.







More pictures here.

BYC Opening Day

This year we moved Kalliope down to the BYC quest dock so that we could be in the thick of things. As always we had quite the party. Things started off Friday night with a full crew on Kalliope and Navgar. Soon after this photo I put my camera on the binacle and promptly forgot about it.



That night is started raining as only it can out her in the Pacific Northwest. I awoke to Steve Kersey asking me, "Whose Camera is this hanging on my boat?" Uh oh! Well I pulled the batteries and memory stick out, heated up the over to 280 degress. Turned the oven off and put the camera in the oven and finally crossed my finger. Meanwhile we start motoring out for the parade. This years theme was Mardi Gras. We managed to get the boat decorated in the rain on the way to the parade line up. Photos you ask? Hmm, the camera was in the oven.

However, the oven trick worked and we got the camera back in action for the afternoon festivities.



Finaly the weather cleared up and we had about ten people in the boat for dinner.

Sunday was super nice, sunny and warm, so we just lounged around.

Check out this video from the weekend.



Asta Pasta

Port Towsend Wooden Boat Festival

Rounding Point Wilson

Mount Baker

Full Steam Ahead

BJ Out for a sail

Tall Ships on Bham Bay.

Making a sailor out of my nephew Sammy.



Tall Ships on Bellingham Bay.

The Big Snow - 18"

I used to be in the islands. What is this?



The Ice Hill at 13th

 

Some new photos

Trying out the picasa photo site. No flickr, but what the hell.
Here are some photos from some recent sailing and hiking trips.

2006_10_22 - Mt Baker