Memorial Day, with Annie

First of all, I must apologize to my hundreds 40 two regular blog readers for letting you go so long without writing.  My only excuse is the Memorial Day weekend, which rolls over into Monday.  Then followed by all the stuff that it takes to move...  when you live on a boat, moving the boat to a new location has all the same little niggling tasks associated with it that moving to a new house does.  With the added complexity of the logistics of things such as making sure that there is a car waiting for us at the new location (you Narrow Boat folks will understand this better than most).

So.  For the Memorial Day weekend, Adam, Kaci, and Annie joined us for a cruise over to Poulsbo.   The weather was forecast to be cold and rainy (well it was Memorial Day in Seattle...), meaning that this cruise would be like every other cruise we've had Kaci on, unfortunately.  But as the picture above shows, it turned out way better than the forecast.

We needed to top off with diesel, so while Jane watched Annie sleep, I ferried Adam & Kaci to shore and gave them walking directions to the Valholl brewery.  And then I schlepped 5 gallon diesel jerry cans back and forth from the fuel dock ($3.89/gal) until we had 3/4 tank on one side and 1/2 on the other.

And then, with perfect timing, I got the call that A & K were ready to return to Eolian.  On the dinghy ride back out, I learned that they had run into one of Adam's co-workers who just coincidentally happens to be one of those two regular blog readers I mentioned.   As it turned out, they were on the docks at Poulsbo with their yacht club.  So, shortly here came a dinghy  and we were graced by a visit from Chris and Deb of m/v C-Shel!  And more brews were consumed, of course.

The next morning is a tradition aboard Eolian:  we watched the Indianapolis 500 mile race.  And as is also part of the tradition, now that we have digital TV, it was almost a stop-action viewing, since the tide had turned the boat so that reception was marginal.  (I much preferred the old analog TV - when reception was poor, the images degraded gracefully with increasing fuzz.  Not this perfect or nothing, with digital garbage thrown in.   Because of the poor reception, we always take our audio feed from the AM radio.)  It was an exciting race, and went 149 laps before the first yellow flag - unheard of!

Then the weather decided to comply with the forecast and the drizzle started.  For a change of scenary, we motored over to Manzanita Bay on the west side of Bainbridge Island and spent the rest of the day and night there.  It was a good, cozy, family time, with the talking in the cockpit going far into the nite - to far, in fact, for this old geezer, who retired early.

We returned to the dock at Shilshole the next morning at the slack at 10:00.  Adam pointed out that this would be the last time we would dock the boat here...  and I was hit with a wave of nostalgia.

Able Bodied Seaman Annie steering a course of sou' sou'west with a firm hand on the wheel

Memorial Day, with Annie