On to Olympia

Wednesday, Sept 14

This morning we took a harbor tour of Boston Harbor, and ended up at the Boston Harbor Marina for breakfast.  This is a delightfully random place.  It reminds me of some of the stores we saw in Desolation Sound - over a friendly uneven floor they sell beer, ice, boots, gifts, food, clothes, books, chandlery, fresh seafood, and more that I have forgotten.

Later, I put the final coat of varnish on the port caprail and pulled the tape (cruising = working on your boat in exotic ports).  Then we relaxed until mid-afternoon when we hoisted anchor and motored off for Olympia at the south end of Budd Inlet.  This is the southernmost anchorage in the South Sound, and is also, completely coincidently, the capitol of the State of Washington.  In fact, as soon as we turned left into Budd Inlet proper, the capitol dome was visible in the distance.

It's a little tricky getting down to the far end of Budd Inlet - you must traverse a long dredged channel (35' deep; 3' deep on either side), but there are range boards, and the GPS is definitely your friend for the passage.  We ended up anchoring right in front of the Anthony's restaurant, and virtually under the capitol dome.

When you anchor directly in front of Anthony's, you must, of course, eat there.  We had a great dinner, and enjoyed watching Eolian resting peacefully while we munched on northwest seafood cuisine.

The capitol dome is illuminated at nite.  This is pretty neat, but they do turn off the lights later in the evening, presumably to save us taxpayers some money.

But the huge yard filled with logs waiting to be loaded onto a ship was also illuminated, and the work there continued all nite.  This did not contribute to my personal sawing of logs.

On to Olympia