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!

Our family has a place at Rocky Bay and a buoy (although it’s for sale now) so we could hook up to the buoy and go in shore to do some laundry and hang out.

We headed over there. And on the way, the wind was warm, and it it was just about perfect to sail comfortably at about 5 knots with just the main sail out to make things easy.

So that’s what we did. Until some gusts woke Jackson up from his nap and he came out and devoured a bunch of chocolate.

And then tried to go back to sleep.

But that didn’t last long, because the wind picked up so much that it started to get cold, and the wind was very light then strong, then coming from this way then that way.

When that happens, it can throw the boat around a bit and make things uncomfortable for those inside the main cabin.

So I took down the sails and we motored back into Rocky Bay. It was blowing really hard in Rocky Bay too, and grabbing the buoy was a little tough, but Lindsey and I were able to do it.

Then Jackson gave Lindsey lots of puppy kisses.

And we threw the laundry into the dingy, and went into shore.

Jackson watched The Jungle Book while the laundry was going.

And we went out on the point and hung out around sunset before we went back to the boat.

In the morning we went back on shore at Rocky Bay to get the rest of the laundry. And we checked out the rocky beach of Rocky Bay.

And all the tide pools and cool starfish and crabs.

Who knew sea urchins could move like this? I didn’t.

After that excitement, and finishing off the laundry, we sailed over to Deer Harbor on Orcas Island.

Again it was very strong winds, but they were consistent this time. So I reefed in the main sail, didn’t put out the jib, and we had a pretty smooth, although cold, sail over to Deer Harbor.

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