This past weekend marked our last sailing class in our strive to become certified to charter a sailboat. Again, Mark, Philipp, Bryan and I were crew together on another 46.5′ foot sailboat. This time we opted for the preboard option, sleeping on the sailboat, this one named Espirit de Mer, the night before the class so that we can get some more sleep and be up, packed and ready on board at the 9am class start time. Mark rode up with Bryan and I, getting there around 9:30pm where we joined Philipp and Sara (who was just staying the night on board). We had some brewskis, listened to music and called it a night at midnight.
Saturday morning we had sunny skies and warm weather. We got egg sandwiches and coffees at the marina’s coffee shop. We met out instructor, Chris, stocked our sailboat with our provisions, and got ready to set sail. This class was much more relaxing, we had less to learn about sailing and more to learn about safety and navigation. We set sail for our destination for the day of Cypress Island in the San Juans. We had strong winds and were moving fairly steadily at 6 knots which put as to our destination early. We doodled around the islands for awhile, had lunch of Trader Joe wraps and salads, and around 5pm we pulled up to our mooring ball for the night. We made dinner of BBQ chicken, quinoa, and green beans (same as last time) and then all piled into the dingy to ride to the island.
Our instructor led us on a 1.5 mile hiking trail to the top of Eagle Crest to catch the sunset at 8:30 pm. It was gorgeous. We could see so many islands, Mt Baker under the moonlight, and the Olympics in the sunset. It was a beautiful place. As soon as the sun set we set back for the dingy and the boat, got back to the boat, uncorked the bottle of wine that we brought and chatted and listened to music until about 11pm when we went to bed.
Sunday morning was another beautifully sunny day. We first made breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and yogurt with fresh berries and granola. After breakfast we laid out our course for the day and then took our written course. We all passed with scores in the 90s. After the test we messed around in the dingy and then got ready to set back out for Bellingham.
We had decent winds and caught the sight of seals and several porpoises. We had more TJ wraps and salads and snacks along the way. We pulled into Bellingham marina, took down the sails, and fueled up, pumped out and then docked our boat. We cleaned up the boat, inside and outside and got back to the Jeep just before 5pm. We were exhausted from the sun and wind and the easy 1.5 hour drive back to Seattle made me super sleepy.
But we headed to Luis and Carina’s for Game of Thrones night, ordering Chicago deep dish pizza from Patxi’s Pizza in Ballard for everyone’s dinner. This could be some of the best Chicago deep dish that I have had! Along with salads we ordered, a fruit salad, and brownie sundaes that our friend’s made we were set for the night. We didn’t get home until 10:20pm and immediately showered and zonked out.
Chelsea
Evolving in the Emerald City 