June 1-4, 2017: Hither, thither, and yon!

The evening train trip from Edmonds to Bellingham on Thursday, June 1, was relaxing and scenic, but our arrival was about 45 minutes late, so I found myself alone in the Bellingham station at 9:40 with no one around but a security guard and no way to find the phone number of a taxi because, while attempting to help me with a function on my smartphone, Walt had inadvertently disabled the device’s keyboard, and Google Search would not accept spoken commands. So I called Walt, on Braesail in the marina in Edmonds, and he located the number of a Bellingham taxi company. They had no taxis to send my way at that time, but did give me another lead, and THAT company was able to send  a small van that arrived at the deserted train station at about 10:15 pm. In twenty minutes I was at the marina where Sagres, our lovely 27-ft. sailboat, was docked, and Martin, who’d arrived earlier by bus from Vancouver, and I were soon on the boat, chatting over hot chocolate and discussing Friday’s journey; he was able to restore my smartphone’s keyboard functionality in short order–WHEW!

We slept on the boat and left shortly after 8 am on Friday, having done the clean-up necessary before leaving the marina permanently. We made it to the fuel dock without running out of diesel fuel and headed north for Point Roberts, on the US/Canada border, at 9 am under cloudy skies and with gusty winds reaching some 20 mph. Martin wanted to run the boat’s engine long and hard to make sure that recent repairs and adjustments  had been effective (success!), so we motored for eight hours, at first through foamy, agitated waves of about one to three feet in height that crested and then broke back upon themselves, and later over glassy seas under a beaming sun. Martin and I took turns being on watch as the autopilot guided us over the placid, azure water, reading, snacking, editing photos (Martin’s task), and napping.

By 5 pm we were in Point Roberts and soon had the boat tied up in a snug slip in the circular marina. Hans, our long-time friend and fellow Sagres owner, arrived from Vancouver by car at around 7:30 pm, and we enjoyed a tasty supper of pizza and salad in the cockpit under a colorful sky. After performing a number of maintenance and cleaning tasks that included the flushing and disinfecting of the water tanks and the washing of the galley’s shelves, Martin and I unrolled our sleeping bags in the V-berth (the bow cabin) while Hans squeezed his bag and himself into the long, tunnel-like quarter-berth in the stern, and all three of us enjoyed a cool, peaceful night.

At 8 am on Saturday morning, Martin and Hans set off for the Mosquito Creek Marina in north Vancouver (another 30 miles away), and I began driving Hans’ Jetta to Martin’s apartment in downtown Vancouver, arriving shortly after 9:30. I visited with Martin’s delightful housemate, Kaitlyn, and played with his two elderly felines before taking a pleasant walk around his Yaletown neighborhood with its many shops, sidewalk cafes, and well-known distillery. I was just awakening from a nap at about 5 pm when Martin called to tell me that Sagres and her crew were approaching the boat’s new home in the Mosquito Creek Marina. Kaitlyn and I were soon off  in Hans’ car, using Google Maps as our guide, but it directed us to a “Mosquito Creek” neighborhood, because Google knew the marina as “The Creek Marina and Boatyard,” and it therefore took us a little longer than expected to arrive at our destination. While walking to Sagres’ slip from the parking area, we all admired the “boat houses” that line the docks (image from boatshowatthecreek.ca).Once aboard the boat, we celebrated its safe passage with fancy cheeses, chips, and champagne, and after another clean-up, Hans drove us back to Martin’s apartment where he deposited his three companions before driving on to his nearby condo.

I spent Saturday night on Martin’s comfortable futon after taking a shower and  providing his cats with a purr-fectly happy evening, and rose a little after 5 am on Sunday (GROAN!). Martin drove me to the train station in a rented car so that I could board the 6:30 am Amtrak and he could go about his busy day. The ride through forests and farming country and right along the ocean shore was gorgeous–I especially enjoyed views of bald eagles, herons, gulls, an other sea birds feeding and performing all sorts of avian acrobatics as we approached the border at Blaine. At the Bellingham stop, I acquired an entertainingly chatty seatmate, and she and I had a wonderful time together talking about EVERYTHING until I left the train in Everett at 11 am (only one hour late). Walt was there to meet me, having brought Braesail solo from Edmonds to the Everett Marina on Friday, and having left it that afternoon “on the hard” (lifted out of the water) for repairs to her rudder and bow thruster. Off to the boat yard we then went to remove from Braesail the items that needed to be cleaned and stored in the condo prior to her relaunch during the week of June 11. The run-around weekend was ending!