The parade was fun, and here’s a quick sample of it.

Parade - Sea Creature

Parade - Unicorn

Parade - Wicked Witch of West

Parade -Pirate Bubbles

Parade - Pirates Throwing Candy

After that parade, we went shopping for dinner stuff for Matt, Robyn and their daughter (I’m not going to mention their daughter’s name just in case they care).

And then we saw Popeye. The seal that hangs out in Friday Harbor pretty much all the time. Jackson and Lucky were huge fans of Popeye. Jackson took to shouting “Popeye!” at the top of his lungs pretty quickly.

Popeye 1

Then we made hamburgers.

Hamburgers

And hung out with Popeye more.

Popeye 2

Looking for Popeye

Then we waited for the fireworks to begin.

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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.

Sailing To Friday Harbor

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.

Sailing To Friday Harbor Fenders Sails

It was a nice sail.

Sails Pan Down

And others were having fun sailing too.

Sailing with Other Sailboats

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.

Ferry Fly By Front

Ferry Fly By

 

The views again were awesome.

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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.

Crazy Tide Docking

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

We walked down to meet up with them.

Walking Down Friday Harbor Dock

 

Jackson ran around in Friday Harbor.

Running Jackson

And Jackson and their daughter got along super well.

Baby Hand Hold Dock Walk

Parents Baby Dock Walk

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

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

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

Dragonfly Baby

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

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We’ve been piling up lots of adventures and therefore a bunch of animated gif action.

And with everything going on it’s been tough to update here. More like, I’ve not been to motivated to post. Cause we’re having too much fun.

But I’ve got a bit of time, as we’re winding down for the night watching National Lampoon’s Family Vacation.

As far as this update is concerned we’re in Rocky Bay on San Juan Island. (In reality we’re in Port Townsend, but I haven’t taken the pics and videos off of my camera yet.)

So here’s a map of where we are, and where we were since last time.

Deer harbor to friday to rocky bay

This is going to be another 4 part update as the animated gifs take awhile to load on each page and breaking them up helps things go quicker.

So let’s get started.

Ah yes, we were still in Deer Harbor, being lazy, eating microwaved burritos on the dock and ice cream.

Burritos

Ice Cream Eating

We didn’t want to leave Deer Harbor, it was pretty incredible. Not much to do there in theory, just a dock, a little store, a pool, and a limo ride to a restaurant.

But the docks were super nice, roomy, easy to actually dock the boat, the people were super nice. Everyone at the store knew Jackson by name, and were friendly and warm. It was good stuff.

And after an incredible sunset…

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We left on the 3rd of July, whereas Deer Harbor has a 3rd of July celebration instead of a 4th of July celebration. Too bad we didn’t know that in advance, cause we had reservations at Friday Harbor on the 3rd and 4th of July, so we had to go.

On our way out we stopped by the gas dock to refuel and pump out. Lindsey did some gas dock yoga with Jackson.

Gas Dock

And we saw a cool really small steam boat.

Steam Boat

And right outside the marina we saw a float plane come in. (Jackson is a huge fan of planes.)

Float Plane

And then it flew off later.

Sea Plane Fly Away

We decided to go the scenic route, and saw some more great views of Mt. Baker.

Mt Baker Peeking

And you’ve gotta be careful about gawking at the scenery because you never know when an unexpected log will show up right in your path.

Log in Water

And once we were out in the channel we could see Deer Harbor back behind us through the islands.

Deer Harbor Zoom Out

Next we put up the sails and headed towards Friday Harbor.

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