Monday, August 2nd, 0555
Stovetop Expresso, the black hole that sucked up the nonfat milk without discoloring; warming my hands and starting my heart. The Galley lights attracted or disturbed a King Fisher whose cicada like call woke me as I prepped for the coffee; stark contrast to the cranes and drydocks of the Washington Ship Canal of Lake Union. We are tied to my friend Bob Wold’s boat, just inside the Ballard Locks in Seattle. It’s foggy, surreal like and there are a half a dozen ravens gauking around.
I guess that this is day three, Saturday was such a buzz with all the loading of the boat. We didn’t leave Shelton until almost 5pm and fought the tide to Gig Harbor for four hours. We anchored a little after 2100 and slept fast and well. We left Gig Harbor yesterday a little after 2pm, after breakfast and lunch with Dan Evangalista and Anneta on the Dawson. After breakfast, Becky and I went to a church service and then Dan took us to lunch at the Tides Inn. After we cleared Gig Harbor I gave the wheel to Becky and she steered until we got to the locks. I cleared and stowed the things that I had stuffed into the aft cabin. We had to wait for about an hour and two lock exchanges before we were able to get into the lock. That was a little stressful, with all the jockeying for position and 15 boats close together, being pushed around by the current. We got through and had my friends Micheal and Agneta and there children Christian and Megan awaiting us at Bobs dock. They have just returned from Sweden, where Agneta was representing the USCG at the International Maritime College in Stockholm.
She is now a Commander and they have been in Seattle two weeks and haven’t gotten their furniture yet. We went out and cruised lake Washington, had dinner and view downtown Seattle. Today we hang in Seattle and have dinner on the boat with my partner Dan Callan. Tomorrow we head north. Todays agenda is to get more Ram onto my Computer, the navigation program is bogging it down.