Back in the US of A

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Some general blog housekeeping because it's important to Carol, since she took the pictures. The first picture is me, of course, with my guaranteed, boat proof, not tippable, non skiddable, tea mug. It really works and has never failed to stay upright even in the most trying conditions. On the water, I fortify my tea with a dollop of honey, for quick energy.

We expected cool weather and have not been disappointed in that. We brought a lot of polar fleece clothing that doesn't absorb water, so it retains body heat. Being a certifiable, undeniable cold cold weather weenie, surprisingly, I have been quite comfortable. The only exception has been my feet and hands when wet, which they have been a lot, since there is no protection from the rain. What's been surprising is how much the temperature drops when the sun goes behind a cloud.

Carol solved a problem today. There is a small general store at this marina specializing in t-shirts, sundry drinks and fishing tackle. Somewhere in there she found a boat hook. Go figure. She purchased the entire inventory: one each. Maybe we will moor when in the San Juans.

We have eaten out a bit and Carol has done some grocery shopping, all in Loonies, of course. It's disconcerting to see the prices in Canadian dollars; they seem so high. It takes a moment to think through the conversion process. One Canadian dollar is about $0.78 US, roughly a 4:3 ratio. Maybe not exactly a deal, but OK.

If I ever decide that I want to be a financial mogul, I am going to roll up and consolidate all the shower stalls at all the marinas in the Pacific Northwest. There is no such thing as a free shower out here; $2 for 2 minutes, a deal was $1 for 3 minutes. And the first minute is wasted waiting for the hot water to circulate to he shower head. US, Canada, it doesn't matter. Cleanliness may be next to Godliness, but only if you are willing to pay the price. Last night, at Montague Harbour the showers were not only not free, they were cold water only. So, Carol convinced me to do something that I only did a few times on our boat: take a shower using boat water in the head. This violates every genetic imperative of boating, water conservation being the prime directive. The only times I did that on our boat was when we were in the middle of a three or four day offshore transit and I needed something to revive me, knowing we were going into a port where we could get more water. We got water today, we'll get water tomorrow and it felt really good to get clean. This boat even has a plexiglass shower door that folds into three sections. Very fancy.

Quick update. Last night we did have a gin & tonic at the pub but it was a hurried affair. We arrived at 1550; the pub closed at 1600. Customs people get exercised about unopened bottles of spirits. These have various taxes imposed and they seem to fear resale without the government collecting its few dollars. Having an unopened bottle of scotch on board last night, I had to open it to get through customs. I had long known that good scotch goes well with good dark chocolate. I recently discovered that it also goes well with Vanilla Wafer cookies. Sounds like an oxymoron, but they go down well together.

We have mostly overcast weather with little sunshine during the day. Finally, in Montague Harbour there was something like a sunset.

The trip to Roche Harbor was quiet, As we got closer to the US we could see this mountains to port; hard to tell if they are in The US or Canada. Probably doesn't matter too much; they are majestic regardless.

As we passed Saturna Island, we could say that we had arrived home. If you look very closely you can see the dotted line that is the international border between the two countries.

There was one interesting thing along the way. As we were in Boundary Passage I saw a whale, too far away to photograph, and too quick anyway. It was probably an orca. I could see a large dark body surfacing and what looked like the dorsal fin, which is distinctive to those whales. It surfaced about three times and then was gone. We probably did better than all the all of the dozen, or so, whale watching boats that were scurrying about trying to find something to watch.

Clearing customs was very pro forma, maybe five minutes. We moored and we were done. Bad weather on Wednesday kept in port. Off tomorrow, we hope,