An eagle greeted us yesterday as we pulled into Reid Bay at Stuart Island and the sea otters were playing just off our boat at sunset. Josh and I took an evening walk through a thick green forest where the moss doesn’t know it is supposed to grow on just the north side of trees and grows on all sides. Ferns are abundant and all types of wildflowers are blooming. The air is thick and heavy with moisture even when it isn’t raining. The sign at the top of the Stuart Island state park dock says that there is fire danger in the summer, but it is hard to imagine with all the green lush grass and muddy trails. A sense of peace and tranquility has come over us after all the months of frenzied life remodeling the house, selling the house, moving to an apartment, remodeling the boat. We met a couple yesterday who have been cruising for 5 years on their sailboat and we wonder how long we will end up cruising.

We arrived in the San Juan Islands from Seattle at Lopez Island, a sleepy little island that much to Josh’s delight had many wild bunnies living in pastoral meadows filled with poppies and small daisies. There is an amazing bakery with the best cinnamon rolls and rhubarb Marion berry tarts. Friday Harbor on San Juan Island is a bustling town, the largest in the Islands. We were docked, as usual, about the farthest away from shore that you can get and right across from where the ferries come and go from 6am to midnight. Roche Harbor on the opposite side of the island is a combination of Disneyland and a Catskill family summer camp. It is perfectly manicured with lush green lawns and beautiful gardens. They even have a special boat that comes to pump out your holding tank!

We visited my cousin and her family on Orcas Island for two days. They took a leap last September and moved from the Bay Area to a beautiful home on 20 forested acres turning their lives completely upside down and they couldn’t be happier.

Sucia Island is one of my favorite stops. It is a marine state park composed of sandstone cliffs, beautiful forests and rocky beaches. It is the most northern of the San Juan Islands and the sunsets here are spectacular! Tomorrow we head to Anacortes where we will pick up friends who will join us as we head up through the Canadian Gulf Islands and across the Strait of Georgia up to Desolation Sound.

P.S. Don’t forget to check out our photo page

We finally left Tacoma after two weeks and arrived in Seattle today. We are docked at a marina right downtown in the middle of all the action! Check the photos page for updated pictures.

and only a mother can be brave enough to face!

Because life’s circumstances have kept us here in Tacoma for two weeks (Bill had to travel for work and Jackie sprained her foot), I have been intimately involved with packing up and cleaning the house Jackie and four other college students have been living in for the last 9 months.

Now mind you these are not overly messy kids, just the normal run of the mill college students who moved in the first day of school and never dusted, cleaned, or mopped the entire year. I think they did dishes and laundry on an as needed basis. The need being no clean dishes and not a single piece of clean clothing. I had the unfortunate opportunity to arrive at the end of the cycle. Good thing about rubber gloves though is that you can clean mounds of dishes with steamy hot water and your hands don’t dry out! I also got a great workout taking Jackie’s laundry from the top floor to the basement and back up again.

While cleaning the kitchen it was interesting to note that the number of empty alcohol bottles almost outnumbered the dust bunnies. One roommate told me not to worry because the liter size vodka bottle had lasted at least two weeks. This was the same roommate who told me last September that he didn’t drink. Hmmm…..

The bathroom was…. well, we won’t go there. Suffice it to say I double gloved!

Lesson learned: Oh to be young again and living life instead of cleaning up after it!

PS: Even though Jackie is all packed up and the house is cleaned (or as close to clean as it will ever be short of power washing it inside and out) and we could leave Tacoma, Bill is now sick with a “man cold”. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsvWK_EedLU

Spring is in full bloom in Tacoma. The rhododendrons are spectacular! Jackie tells us it is gray and rainy all the time, but it has been clear and sunny here every day for the last week. We had two pairs of geese come by the boat tonight with their young broods. They were looking for food and were quite insistent about it!

Thank you Sarah, Jackie and Bill for my early Mother’s Day present! xoxo

Now that we are in protected waters it is great to have Josh back with us. He enjoyed posing in front of the glass sculpture fountain at the glass museum.

We have made it to Tacoma and are spending the weekend with Jackie. It was such a strange feeling to pull into port and call Jackie and say “Come home for dinner tonight”. How our life has changed!

Check out the pictures from the rest of our trip up the coast on our photo page.

For months Bill has been saying that the trip would start once we reached the Seattle area.He said coming up the coast was work and something to be endured not enjoyed. I, being the ever optimistic one, said that of course it was fun and it was all part of the experience…..

Well, two days ago when we turned the corner at Cape Flattery and left the Pacific Ocean behind I had to agree with Bill (but don’t tell him). There was a calm that came over both of us. No longer were we bashing into a wave every 4 or 5 seconds. The swells were behind us and for the first time since Bill left Ensenada, Mexico in January with Adagio, we were no longer fighting a southerly current that runs down the entire west coast. It was an experience I am glad we endured (yes, I did say endured) because now we can truly appreciate the calm waters of the Pacific Northwest and start our trip.

I have been totally dead set against spending a night at sea. I have worried and ruminated about it. Every time Bill mentioned that it might be the best way to get up the coast I told him that only after we had spent months on the boat would I maybe entertain the thought, but then only maybe and for sure not on this part of the trip up the coast. But then, we headed out on a beautiful morning from Eureka to sail up the coast to Brookings, OR. It was so pretty and smooth and flat that the words flew out of my mouth, “Why don’t we do an overnight?” I figured that sometimes the best way to do something challenging is to do it without thinking and planning – just like ripping a band aid off all at once. Bill had a look of surprise on his face, something like who is this woman and what have you done with my wife.

As night fell I had a few butterflies in my stomach and my mouth was dry. But the sunset was beautiful, the fog lifted and the moon was full. Bill took the first watch from 9-12 while I got a few hours of sleep. I took the second shift from midnight to 4am. I quickly set up a routine of checking the engine gauges every 15 minutes, watching the radar for boat traffic, watching our heading and looking for crab pots (oh yes, those nasty little things). The night wrapped itself around me and the moonlight danced on the water. It was an amazing experience being out on the ocean 12 miles offshore in the middle of the night. I felt the weight of the responsibility, but also the freedom of a new adventure.