Evolution

Our nomadic lifestyle continues, but we have made the transition from aquatic to terrestrial.  Evolving to land-based gypsies turned out to be a lot more work than we planned.  When we got back to Seattle, we parked the boat at Elliot Bay Marina, mostly because they had really cheap rates compared to the other marinas in the area.  We were staying with our friends Dave and Judith, and they live in Maple Valley which is east and a bit south of Seattle and therefore not really convenient to any of the marinas. Not only did they allow us to stay with them for what turned out to be an extended stay, but they also said we could store some of our things in their shed for the winter until we returned.
Our plan was to take everything off the boat, clean the inside of the boat thoroughly, sort through our belongings and pare down, store what we didn't need, and transfer food and clothing to the camper van for our road trip.  Truckload after truckload of crap came off the boat, the basement in Maple Valley filled to overflowing, and it seemed there was no end to the amount of "necessities" we had accumulated after this many years of living on the boat.  We don't really have any deadlines for our trip but our projected leave-by date came and went and we were getting nowhere.  Somehow we had forgotten to factor in the care of a one-year-old, and it turned out to be one person working while the other watched Madeline.  Once the boat was pretty much empty, cleaning became a bit of a half-assed affair, but eventually we called it done, winterized the systems, tarped the boat and walked away.  Friends of ours who had stored their boat in Alaska over the previous winter complained of tasting the water tank antifreeze well after they had flushed and refilled their tanks in the spring, so Dave and Judith came to the rescue again and donated a Costco sized bottle of vodka that was left at their house after a dinner party and we winterized the tanks with it.  Sorting our worldly belongings became overly tedious after while and we resorted to throwing the last armloads in boxes to deal with when we return.

Meanwhile we were spending evenings and the occasional rest day in Maple Valley, and Madeline was really enjoying herself.  Dave and Judith have several cats, one of which took a liking to Madeline and they spent a bunch of time playing and interacting.
Dave introduced Madeline to the bongos, and after several days of practicing she got to graduate to a full drum set.  Turns out she not only enjoys making lots of noise (no surprise there) but she has a good sense of rhythm and again enjoyed herself quite a bit.
While Madeline expanded her horizons the adults enjoyed some good social interaction as well.  We shared many dinners, watched movies in the evening after Madeline was asleep, and generally just caught up after our several years in Alaska.  I fear I may be to blame for introducing Dave and Judith to a "good" gin and tonic long ago, so I thought it only fitting to end our stay with them enjoying an evening of gin tasting including several choices from local Washington distilleries.

Still here

Our regular readers (all three of you) might be wondering what happened to us.  We were cruising along in the boat, having birthday parties and playing with dolphins, and then the posts stop.  Well, wonder no longer, we are in Seattle.  Our trip through lower British Columbia went by in a flash, and here we are.  When last I posted, we were in Johnstone Strait playing with the dolphins.  From there we started seeing more and more boats, and having an aversion to crowds we decided to high-tail it south as quickly as possible.  We hit a couple of our favorite spots in Desolation Sound, then a couple hops to get us to Nanaimo.  Showers, groceries, some ice cream, a trip to the library, and we were off to the Gulf Islands.  Got to meet up and have dinner with an ex-customer-now-friend that had been out playing on his boat all summer, and met some new friends as well.  The crowds continued to build and clearing customs was a zoo but easy enough.  Our day from the San Juans to Port Townsend was probably one of the worst days we have spent on the water: contrary current up to 4 knots, pea soup fog with eighth mile visibility, and a cranky one year old made it a trip to forget.  We spent a couple days in Port Townsend recovering, with liberal doses of pizza and ice cream, and then made our way down to Seattle.  The boat is currently tied up in Elliot Bay while we strip as much stuff as we can off her and prep her for winter.  Next week we will move the boat to Everett where she will get hauled out and stored on land for the winter.  As the boat empties, our new camper van seems to fill, and I'm sure we will end up carrying around much more crap than any one family could need for a couple months on the road.  I'm hoping to keep up the blog while we are on the road, and may get one more post in of prep work before we leave.  If you were worried that we had fallen into a life of normalcy, fear not, the stupidity continues in one form or another and I'll continue to write about it as I have time.

Unexpected Visitors

We don't get too much drop-in company while traveling on the boat.  It's hard enough just figuring out where we are day to day, but trying to get to anywhere on the B.C. coast is no easy feat, and coordinating our movements with someone else is usually too much trouble.  It's a good example of the difficulty of hitting a moving target.

Luckily there are certain visitors that have no trouble finding us or keeping up with our travel.  On this particular occasion the timing, weather, and locations all fell together to provide us with one of the most impressive visits we have had to date.
The show was spectacular, our new friends hung around for miles, and everyone went away happy and content (we did anyway, not ever sure how company feels after a visit).

More Birthday Pictures

We changed our plans and headed for Blind Channel Marina for a birthday party.  Because we were not expected, we had to make our own party, but there just happened to be a couple of kids around more than willing to help eat cake.
We also wanted to get phone access to be able to call the grand parents since they were not able to join us.
It was nice to get off the boat and stretch our legs, so we went for a walk on one of the forest trails at the marina, then had cake with new friends.

Afterwards Madeline got to play with her new toys, so overall it was a good day.

Happy First Birthday Madeline

Because we are still in transit we are keeping her first birthday pretty low-key, but we still have to do something.  While we were in Port McNeill we picked up a couple of new toys for her, and we'll make her a cake as well. 

She also got her first ice cream cone, so things aren't all bad.  Once we get back to Seattle we will try to get together with friends for a little party, it's not like she will know it's a week or two late.

Water

Traveling by boat you can't help but think of water.  Traveling by boat in the northwest you get the added aspect of water from above as well as beneath the boat.
Our summer travel in Alaska was exceptionally dry, but our passing into Canada seems to have changed our luck, not necessarily for the better.   The rain finally came, and it wasn't messing around, dumping day after day to make up for our earlier dry spell.  It's not much fun to stand outside driving a boat in a downpour, but the rain is good for two things.

The first is that the rivers and streams start running again, and that gives the salmon a chance to get upstream to spawn.  The second benefit is that waterfalls start showing up everywhere.  A lot of the land surrounding the waterways we travel climbs straight up from sea level to several thousand feet, perfect terrain for spectacular waterfalls.

The inner channels of northern British Columbia are great waterfall country, so I thought I would take an afternoon and shoot some pictures of the various falls we passed as we headed south.  Enjoy.

Entertainment

How do you keep a baby entertained month after month on a small boat?  We have no idea.  But we keep trying new things and Madeline doesn't seem to be suffering.
We made sure to have a pile of toys aboard when we left Sitka, and we've made a point to look around at each of the communities we stop for replacements and additions.
We also brought along her bouncy seat, which takes a bit of thinking to figure out how to rig it so she isn't slamming into things while she bounces, but as long as we don't try to use it while underway it has worked out well so far.
Now that she is standing and "cruising" we can chase her around the table legs and let her chase us for fun and exercise.
She also loves books.  We read to her in the morning, before her naps, before bed at night, and other random times through out the day.  We only have about a dozen books for her so by this point we can "read" many of them without having to look at them, but she doesn't seem to mind and we try to add new ones when we find them.
I'm not sure what we are going to do when we transition from boat travel to camper travel and she doesn't have the luxury of being able to play and move around while we are driving, but we'll figure out something.