June 17, 2005: Elliott Bay to Gig Harbor via Blake Island
Temp: 63 degrees
Wind: No Friggin Wind
Conditions: Partly Sunny
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Rough day getting off the dock would be the understatement of the year. The two of us headed down to the boat around 2:00PM and loaded the dogs and food onboard. As we were going through our normal pre-departure rituals, I realized we were missing the GPS, now Jeff likes to tell me about how real men do not use GPS, and to that end, I guess I am not a real man. So I jumped in the car and headed back to the house and grabbed the GPS, and then back to the boat. No big deal, it is now 2:30, and we are ready to head out. We start the engine, and the blower makes that funny noise. If you have ever boated, it sounds like jet engine. I can most adequately describe it as when you are a child and you put any object you can find into a running fan. The sounds of paper being shredded as you place them into the fan blades is how our blower has started to sound. The good news it keeps on ticking, and with a temperature in the high 60’s with pure sun, we need to get moving. As we cast our lines, the inevitable happens. Cae was pushing Moonlight away from the dock, feeling relaxed for the first time all week. Apparently blower was in its final throes. Now, experienced boaters would start by asking a simple question, “have you been blowing the blowers fuse recently” and my answer is of course “well not that many, maybe three or four”. The net of this is THE BLOWER IS DEAD and Cae is seeing sun for the first time since she left Seattle last September and moved for a semester back to South Carolina and we are STUCK ON THE DOCK. So I pull out my handy binoculars, look up the marine service guys at the end of the dock and ask him his take. He is happy to help and can come out later in the week, but he is pretty sure the blower has blown her last and will now need to be replaced. Now I love my fiancé, and she is very patient with the other women in my life, however she and this other lady Moonlight have an agreement, Moonlight gets lots of money, constant attention and occasionally Cooper blesses her cockpit with a warm pile of … well you can guess, however Cae has one simple rule, when it is sunny, we go boating period! So I realize I am in a tight spot, I need to get out for the weekend, but we have a gas engine and they tend to be prone to explosions if not vented. That does tend to put a damper on the weekend’s festivities. This leaves one option, off to West Marine and time to by a blower. Well the good news to this long winded saga is, we got back to the boat with the new blower, Cae opened a beer, sat down with her book and said, “this will be interesting as I crawled upside down and ass up into the port locker to install the new blower. (BTW – the new blower is quiet, so quite we really did not think it was on lol)

We departed the dock at 5:00PM, and headed Southwest to Blake Island. After two attempts to anchor, we got a solid hold and slept the night away.

June 18, 2005

We were up at 6:00AM with the seagulls and Alabama wanting to say good morning. She gets this way, so it is best to say “hi” and then go back to sleep. Cae brought home some new individual French press cup combination from Starbucks and we had a great cup of coffee. We departed for Gig Harbor at 11:00AM and arrived at 2:30. Cae brought us into the center of the channel, the breeze was out of the West at about 5 -7 and the tide was pulling us West resulting in a swirling motion. Cae took the helm and at one point the boat was going sideways. We however landed with NO issue, and Cae officially docked the boat for the second time! YEAH! Next step is Elliott Bay.