Week One Eh?

The trip has begun! We departed August 31^st and our new lives are beginning to take shape. I don’t plan on always blogging about each and every day, but for starters it seems appropriate because each day something amazing and new has happened!

Day 1. 8/31/2016

My mom, dad, and friend Sam Demco boarded Epic and left around 07:45. At 08:11 we saw my childhood home disappear from around the south end of Mercer Island. It is sad knowing that house is no longer a place I can call home. If times ever got terrible that was a place I could turn to, but not anymore. It probably isn’t a big deal, but it’s just interesting. Given the fact that I have a relationship with the prospective buyers, I’ll likely be back, but by the time I come back I may not even recognize a lot of it. There are so many memories that I hope to hold onto, but memories tend to fade. It was an amazing house to grow up in and I’m so grateful, and now it’s time to move on.

Back to the boat…

We motored through Lake Washington and got under all the bridges and through the locks in great time! Our family friends Phoebe, Dave, and Sean watched us pass under the Ballard Bridge then watched us navigate the locks. Once we were through the locks, we stopped at Shilshole Bay Marina to get our water maker serviced and running, and to drop off my buddy Sam. The water maker servicing took forever, but we were able to make it to Kingston by sunset, and ended up getting rocked all night by ferry wakes.

Day 2. 9/1/2016

We woke up at 6:30 and pulled up the anchor to get a quick start as tides were in our favor. We also had a nice southerly breeze flushing us up into Lopez Island. We weren’t expecting to make it that far, but the conditions were near perfect. It was a very long day of sailing though, so once we got into Mackeye Harbor I went to sleep.

Day 3. 9/2/2016

Today we visited with our family friends David and Lynn and they were kind enough to let us use their showers at their house on Lopez! The shower felt great, but was slightly ruined due to me thinking about how I won’t get another shower that nice again for a long time. After my parents and I were all showered, we took David and Lynn out on a day sail across the Strait of Juan de Fuca and back. We had a comfortable breeze that kept us moving and we popped a bottle of champagne for Epic’s christening. It was a great day because David stayed at the helm for most the sail and we only sailed for about 4-5 hours which felt so much shorter than the last few days. The relative break was nice.

Day 4. 9/3/2016

Whales! Today we headed north into Haro Strait and saw so many Orca whales! I didn’t even know that many existed in Puget Sound. They were everywhere! I spotted the first one just by a little blow spout. Then we got closer and they were pretty close to the boat. After the first sighting we continued seeing them for hours, and there were whale watching boats all over the place. It was incredible and I’ve certainly never seen anything like it before.

Once we stopped seeing orcas we got caught up in an unfavorable tide and weak winds. We sat in Haro strait for hours, until finally picking up some wind and a tide change to push us up into Stuart Island. Once we arrived I went for a kayak trip around the perimeter of the harbor.

Day 5.

We left Stuart Island early and sat around in little wind and weird tides all day. Luckily, we found ourselves in the midst of a ton of orcas again! They lasted about 30 minutes to an hour until they all wrapped around Stuart Island toward Roche Harbor. Eventually we started up the engines and made our way into Bedwell Harbor on South Pender Island in Canada! We checked through customs then anchored next to an impressive cliff face. Bedwell Harbor was super swanky and there was live music going on and many nice boats tucked into the small cove.

Day 6.

We left Bedwell early in the morning and set off towards Vancouver, but we weren’t planning on making it all the way. Once into the channel we got great winds ranging from 10-20 knots and we wrapped up into the Straits of Georgia and absolutely flew downwind all the way to Vancouver. The waves were bigger than Epic has encountered thus far, and she handled the conditions well. Once into Vancouver we anchored in False Creek right in the middle of downtown! It’s a scene like no other I’ve ever imagined.

Day 7.

Rest day! We plan to stay here in Vancouver for 2 or 3 full days before departing. This morning we walked to the community center and took showers (for free!). Since then we’ve been tooling around in our dinghy finding all the dinghy docks and amenities that we can take advantage of like the pumpout dock, waste disposal, etc. Vancouver also has tons of wifi so I’m having an easier time staying connected here. Soon we’ll be eating some take out from a restaurant and enjoy all the people watching. We’re certainly going to go through a shortage of people watching in the near future…

First thoughts.

I thought I’d feel super grungy all the time, but when you’re contained to just the boat you don’t get dirty so fast. Plus, our ability to shower on the boat is actually pretty nice.

Laundry will always be a struggle. It isn’t too difficult getting the amount of water needed, but the drying of the clothes needs calm and sunny conditions. We got lucky with our first load, but I already know that we may have some stretches with very little sunshine or too much wind to lay out clothes on the trampoline.

I don’t have nearly as much free time as I expected. I thought this blog would be a breeze but I’m struggling to find time to get it written. When you’re sailing and living on the boat you’re either at the helm or cooking or cleaning or just enjoying the scenery. I’ve only read about 30 pages since leaving home.

I’m sure I have more to talk about. I’ll try doing a better job of written thoughts down when they come to me. Enjoy the pictures and videos!