Halloween Afloat

Guy stood watch between Capaz and Tosca

He even sometimes danced and sang when his motion sensor was working

October 24-26, 2008

We kicked off our Halloween season with a family Halloween event (or “non-event” – as we prefer to think of it) at Port Madison on Bainbridge Island. There was pumpkin carving, a haunted house, trick-or-treating from boat to boat, a fantastic potluck and just general good company. We had two pirates again this year. The boys put in some time helping to set-up the haunted house and building stuff with legos (of course).

Our two "2-year" pumpkins all carved and decorating the boat

We had two huge “2-year” pumpkins. By the way, a “2-year” pumpkin is the biggest pumpkin that you can find on the farm that Grandma Ellie buys for you just in case you don’t celebrate Halloween wherever you will be this time next year. The plan is to be in San Diego or maybe even a little farther south (Mexico). The first of which is still in the US, so my guess is that they celebrate Halloween and the second, Mexico, has a very similar huge holiday celebrated on the first of November called “Dia de los Muertos” – or Day of the Dead! I think we will have it covered!!

Back to this weekend. We arrived Friday afternoon and in time for the cocktail hour pu pu’s. The new barbeque set-up works just great – tried it out with some chicken for dinner. The Tolands and their shipmates, Chris and Skip joined us for night caps after the kids went to bed. Laurian was very slow out of the starting gates Saturday morning. The new oven is performing well giving us fresh baked muffins for breakfast. Austin was so sure he did not like blueberry muffins until he was told to eat half of one, then he immediately ordered up MORE! I wonder if this is related to the number of times that he was read “Green Eggs and Ham” when he was smaller.

Family Pumpkin Carving

Many, many pumpkins were carved on the fishing dock. I think this is first time in memory that our fishing poles have not come out at Port Madison. We carved several pumpkins including the 2-year pumpkins and the ones that we had “tried” to grow in our garden. With the weird weather we had this year, our pumpkins didn’t pollinate or ripen very well so we had two out of the three orange ones rot on us and the other three that matured were green with just a little orange starting. We carved up all the pumpkins that were not mushy!

As it darkened, the anticipation heightened for both the run(s) through the haunted house and trick-or-treating. The potluck food was varied and all yummy, though the kids hoovered it down, so that they could get on with the next thing. I manned the boat while Brad accompanied the boys through the haunted house. Austin decided last year, that the haunted house was not his thing. This year, after helping put it together, he went through it twice. Afterwards, it was down to the dock with all the kids in the costumes which become mostly covered when they don their life jackets!

Thanks to Olinda for taking some pictures since we forgot our camera!!!!

It was a full day, so everyone was to bed pretty early. We all got a good night’s sleep because brunch wasn’t until 10am. Another fantastic spread appeared and was promptly devoured. All in all, the weekend was a smashing success. We had a full house, I mean, dock with many of the families who participate in Potlatch.

We lounged about most of Sunday, though the boys did take a break from the legos and take down the decorations that were left after I took a bunch down at 5am when the wind piped up. Around 3:00 we headed back to Shilshole on the engine as we have already taken the genoa off the furler in preparation for the boat going into the yard. What a shame too! Today was sunny (and cold) with a nice northerly, perfect for a nice sail on Capaz home. Oh well, I am sure there will be many more chances in our future.

Even though it was pretty windy, Brad wanted to try backing the boat into our slip. Thank Posiden that we reside on a wonderful dock with awesome neighbors. A big thanks to Douglas and Barry who made our first back-in of boat a success on this first try. (Brad and I were prepared for several attempts if need be.) The kids are looking forward to trick-or-treating down our dock on Halloween with a couple of other boat kids from a boat that is called "Ghost"! More on that next week (I will remember the camera!!!)