Once the sails were up it was a really fun and relaxing trip to Friday Harbor. The wind was almost directly behind us and that means that it felt nice and warm, and relatively smooth.

And we were lazy sailing in that we didn’t put back our fenders, because we were going to put them back down again once in Friday Harbor.

It was a nice sail.

And others were having fun sailing too.

It was relaxing enough that Jackson fell asleep. We didn’t want to turn on the motor and wake him up once we got close to Friday Harbor, so we just sailed around more. Thinking that he’d wake up eventually, then we’d turn on the motor and go in.

Suddenly, I realized we were in the Ferry path. And one was headed pretty close to us.

So we tacked and got out of the way.

Minutes later another one was in the distance, looking like it was going to be way away from us. Until it turned right into our direction. I realized I forgot where the Ferry paths were right outside of Friday Harbor. And while we weren’t in its way directly, it whizzed right by us super close and fast.

The views again were awesome.

Once into Friday Harbor, it was a zoo. So many people going in and out, due to the Fourth of July no doubt.

And right when I got into the marina, I noticed a significant tide pull. Like, I felt like something was yanking on the boat towards the shore. We were drifting. Plus the wind was blowing enough to influence our direction.

We had called for help on the dock, but when we got close, we could see no one was there to help.

Luckily our friends from before who had been on our same basic trip path, and had a toddler saw us coming in. Matt yelled to us, “Need help?!”

I shouted, “Oh yea! Thank you!”

He started sprinting down the dock. And hardly made it in time.

But by that time, I realized that I had overshot the slip, I didn’t see the number in time. And the tide was more of an influence than I thought.

After missing the slip, and a fairly harrowing 12 point turnaround I left the marina completely to turn around, and came back. By that time Matt and 3 others were there to help, and they were yelling at me super loud to crank the wheel way before I would have thought.

Against my intuition I cranked the wheel, and we slid in like a rally car sliding around a corner at a mile a minute.

Thank you Matt for saving the day. And my nerves.

Later, we watched boats trying do dock and failing over and over. One took 6 tries before it made it.

You can see how the tide was pulling people sideways (and then backwards once they bounced on the dock) with the video below.

We hung out with Matt, Robyn and their daughter that afternoon and night.

We walked down to meet up with them.

Jackson ran around in Friday Harbor.

And Jackson and their daughter got along super well.

The next morning we hung out too and got some breakfast.

Then Jackson found a dragonfly that was hanging out in the breakfast joint.

Jackson needed to tell that dragonfly that it was bad, and NO!

Then we went to the Friday Harbor Fourth of July Parade.

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I had both my coat and life jacket on for the first time this trip due to the strong winds and chilly weather.

Once around Deer Harbor, the wind died down and it got hot again. We radioed into the harbor to get our slip assignment in the marina. And they were super helpful in assisting us while docking. That was awesome. It’s nice to have help. Docking always makes me nervous.

Deer Harbor is our first marina we stopped at this trip, and it’s kind of fun knowing that you can stay out without refueling water, or gas or plugging into shore power for over a week. We could have gone longer as we weren’t out of any of those things yet.

Once docked, and set up, Jackson and I went to go check in.

Jackson got the yellow slip to put in the window to signify that we are all paid up, and brought it back to Lindsey, who was hooking up the shore power.

We hung out and went to the little store they have here, and walked the docks a bit, got familiar with the place, and ate some ice cream.

Jackson got so messy we had to hose him off, which he was totally cool with.

On the docks we met up with a couple who were also on a sailboat, and also had a toddler (about 3 years old.)

They said they saw us in Fox Cove, and were on a buoy right next to us, and then they saw us in Patos. And now we were all in Deer Harbor, for the first time, together. Pretty crazy!

To make things even more nuts, we are all planning on being in Friday Harbor on the 3rd and 4th. So we’re accidentally stalking each other. Kind of weird, and fun.

They ended up going to the pool that night, so we decided to meet up later, as we weren’t in our pool gear yet, and wanted to grab dinner.

While asking the reception people at the resort above the marina about the pool, the topic of a free limo service to pick you up to get dinner at a place called “Deer Harbor Inn” came up.

Jackson was really into the little bunnies that are all over the Deer Harbor area, and without knowing that, the reception lady said “Deer Harbor Inn has lots of little rabbits right next to the restaurant.”

So I went back to Lindsey and said, “Hey, how about we grab a limo, get something to eat, and watch the bunnies, all we have to do is call them from phone in the laundry room.” She was confused.

But we did it.

The limo picked us up.

And we were off.

Dinner was an adventure. The place was super busy, but no one was inside. Everyone was outside, because of the nice weather. So we snagged the entire inside to ourselves.

Jackson was running around. Inside and outside. And it was totally cool.

The outside area around the Deer Harbor Inn is really big, it’s like a park.

We did see bunnies, but I didn’t have my camera with me.

But more crazy, Jackson almost got ran over by a deer. It came out of nowhere right behind a building.

Jackson thought that was incredible and wanted to see more. I didn’t think we’d have the opportunity, but we saw lots more.

And there were a couple kittys on the property as well who were walking around inside and out of the restaurant.

Jackson also played ping ping in front of the limo that took us there.

We relaxed outside.

The next day, we decided to stay another day to check out the pool.

I didn’t think he would be, but Jackson was a huge fan of the pool.

He was jumping in over and over again.

We really didn’t do much else than hang out a the pool.

And hang out on the boat. And grab some more food and ice cream at the marina shop.

Today, we’re going to see if we can stay another day so Jackson can hang in the pool again. But we’ll see what we end up doing.

Oh, and we’ve been lazy with food stuff. So here’s some random food stuff we ate:

Until next time!