The last couple days have been fairly lazy. But in an attempt to keep updating this blog and “web log” this adventure, I’m going to post about it anyhow.

I don’t have a ton of pictures, as last night I messed up and formatted my card before I downloaded the pictures into my laptop.

Whoops!

I got the videos but not the pictures. Oh well…

Worse things could happen right?

Like your anchor not working… we’ll get to that in a minute.

But first, we’re in Eastsound on Orcas Island right now. We stayed an extra night in Spencer Spit on Lopez Island before this.

BTW, I’m going to try animated gifs instead of pictures, because I have video but not many photos due to my formatting blunder.

We didn’t plan on saying 2 nights in Spencer Spit, but we didn’t plan on anything really. It was overcast and rainy the second day at Spencer Spit so we just decided it was a good day to do pretty much nothing.

I went on shore with Jackson, but just for about an hour.

He had fun though.

Jackson paid for the mooring buoy.

Then we climbed on the driftwood.

He found the dinghy.

And tried to start it.

And to sponge out the bottom of the boat.

He’s a good helper.

Then we went back, made dinner (a potato hash with soft boiled eggs, but I cooked them a little too long.)

Watched another movie, and went to bed.

In the morning I made us some breakfast burritos, (beans, chillies, bell peppers, onions, cheese, eggs, salsa, sour cream and tortillas.)

Then we set sail and sailed away from our buoy without even turning on the motor. That was kinda fun.

But it didn’t last long because soon the wind died down completely, and we did want to make it to Eastsound on Orcas Island before the end of the day, so we turned on the motor and kept the main sail up to speed us up and keep us more stable.

The views of Mt. Baker were awesome.

Once we got to Eastsound, we knew we had to anchor, as there’s no docks or buoys. So Lindsey and I were doing our best to avoid the rocks the cruising guide mentioned, and maneuvering to find a spot to anchor between boats. And right when we thought we had it figured out, Lindsey went to the bow of the boat to drop anchor, hit the down button, and… Nothing…

You have to anchor around here, so without that option, we were adrift.

We cut power and decided to see if there was anything we could do to fix it.

None of the normal stuff worked. We worked as the wind and tide carried us away.

I called my dad, maybe he could help. We tried everything we could think of. I was sweaty and frazzled from being upside down in cramped dark spots with a flashlight trying to troubleshoot electrical wiring.

No dice.

The shore got further and further away.

I called the marine service center. They had their main guy and their electrician walking me through everything. Fuses, connections, controllers, power on, off, engine revved, engine off.

Drifting away.

They couldn’t figure it out.

In a last ditch effort my dad suggested opening up a front panel I didn’t even know existed. I was hoping to find a blown fuse. But nope, all the fuses were good.

And right before I was about to close it up and walk away two little tiny ends of an exposed black wire caught my eye.

I twisted them together and yelled to Lindsey to try again.

Baam! Like magic it worked.

Once we finally calmed down from the anchor incident, and successfully anchored, we headed into town.

We had an awesome chocolate muffin and an almond filled seasonal fruit topped cookie thing.

Then Jackson ran around town until he passed out in the grass.

Afterwards we had dinner (burgers).

And Jackson licked his shadow for desert.

We went back to the boat and Lucky was super excited (as always) to see Jackson. He almost always climbs the ladder and jumps up against the glass to greet him.

The next morning (this morning) we went into town for breakfast and got some baked goods goodness and coffee (I got a mocha) at an incredible little shop there.

 

We also needed ice for the freezer, and some odds and ends. I thought there was a gas station in town to refill our dinghy gas tank reserve, but there wasn’t. The closest one was about a mile away.

I almost decided to skip the gas, but last minute thought it’d be fun for Jackson and me to go on a run. (I haven’t gone on a run in a long time.)

So I told Lindsey we’d be back in about 25 minutes, and we took off running. At first it felt great. Then about 200 yards in I was like,

“Wow! Why do people run again? This sucks!”

I pushed through and got a little second wind, and we were off running along the water. It was fun, although very hilly, and hot. I was super sweaty.

The guy at the gas station that I paid looked at me dumbfounded when I said, “OK, time to run back to Eastsound.” He was like, “What?! Run? Why?” Then he gave Jackson a little red vine licorice stick thing and we were off.

We loaded up with groceries when I came back and walked back to the dinghy. Once on the sailboat, we pulled up anchor and now we’re headed to Sucia island for a few days.

Sucia is awesome. (BTW They recently found a T-Rex bone on the island, the only dinosaur remains ever found in Washington state.)

Until next time!