Gig Harbor

Capaz at Anchor in Gig Harbor
August 30 - September 1

So, you have been out in the ocean on a sailboat for 7 days and you are about to fly home and see your family who you miss and your husband says, “Do you want to go out on the boat this weekend?” If you are me, you say, “Sure.” That’s how it is with us. I get off the plane from Oakland, get dinner, stop by the boat to see what we need and drop off my gear. We all got a good night’s sleep at the house and then, packed up and headed off to Gig Harbor. The weather is iffy – a little shower coming down Colvos Passage on the west side of Vashon Island. When we arrived, not only did we see s/v Mentor, but also that the SYC outstation has been full-up of powerboats for the last two days. What were we thinking? Oh, did I mention that Bryce drove most of the way from Seattle while Brad did whatever it was he was doing with a soldering iron and the windlass motor? Also, Austin and I pumped up all of our fenders!!! I am happy to report that after dropping the anchor with a non-functional windlass, we have repositioned ourselves using the now-working windlass. Nothing like the prospect of raising a big, heavy anchor and 120 feet of also big, heavy chain by hand to motivate one into fixing something. Not only that folks, but we also ate our dinner of hotdogs cooked on our now-functional barbecue!!! We are really making great strides here. The boys built “the color fleet” which are a series of lego ships where each one is built using a certain color of lego pieces. The evening was capped off with a glass (or 2) of wine with Cindy and Dick aboard their friends, Jim and Ann’s powerboat.

The color-coded lego fleet

Sunday was kind of a mixed weather day. Partly cloudy with a shower here and there, but when the sun was out it was nice and warm. There was even one lightening strike mid-afternoon as a particularly dark cloud went over. I went on a bike ride in search of the grocery store to find something to go with the coffee that Lydia was going to pick up at Starbucks and bring out to the boat. Plans changed though as Lydia had hurt her back and getting in and out of the dinghy didn’t sound like much fun. So, we had coffee on land and she unsuccessfully chauffeured me around on a domestic errand. We ended up back at her house where we enjoyed lunch. Back at the boat, Brad worked on lots of little jobs and the huge task of emptying the “garage” which is a cavernous storage locker in the stern of the boat. We needed to get to bottom of it, so that we could figure out what there was, if we wanted to keep that same stuff back and just generally organized it. The boys watched “Jimangi” and later went to the beach at the SYC outstation where they built a rock and seaweed island which they tried to keep above the level of the incoming tide. Bryce and I also played a game of Scrabble in which we used every last tile!!1 Back at the boat, we had dinner and I taught Bryce to play Solitaire and then we played Double-Solitaire.

Sunday morning comics

Austin partway up the mast

Monday’s weather capped off a truly mediocre summer. It wasn’t really warm or sunny but we did have wind most of the way home and sailed from Gig Harbor to West Point up Colvos Passage. With the option of the autopilot back on the table, it was a leisurely trip back to Seattle. We even flew the spinnaker for a couple of hours. Before we used the windlass (that part is very exciting) to raise the anchor, Bryce and Austin had their maiden voyages up the mast in the bosuns chair. Bryce made it all the way to the top on his second hoist and took some pictures. Austin wasn’t so sure about the whole thing, but smiled for a picture. We were also boarded by one of the Gig Harbor water officers. Luckily, he is an old friend of Brad’s and was just saying hi. On the way home, we spotted Ann and Jim who we shared drinks with on Saturday night by their bright green kayaks on the bow and were hailed by Wendy Hinman on Vallela. As we got stuff together on the boat to off-load and head back to the house, Austin asked what was going on. I told him that we were getting ready to go home to which he replied that the boat really felt like “home”!

Looking down at Mom and Dad
Looking South ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Views of Gig Harbor from the top of Capaz's mast ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Looking West

ALL "AERIAL" SHOTS COURTESY OF BRYCE BAKER