The sailing adventures of SV Meriwether and her crew
Port Gamble has become one of our favorite anchorages south of the Juan DeFuca Straight. Not only is it well protected, it goes completely unused by anyone else. The shores are littered with clams and oysters that Kerri likes to eat, and there is a fantastic trail system just a short dinghy ride away where she does her fungus hunting...
Well, our 2021 sailing season has officially begun. We slipped out of the marina at 1 PM on Sunday waiving to our neighbors who stared in disbelief that we were leaving them behind. I felt no guilt in it. Kerri and I planned to make a 20 mile sail to one of our favorites spots to drop anchor – Port...
With only hours remaining in the month of March it had arrived, and before we could even think about how beautiful it is we were in the act of bending on our new mainsail to Meriwether (yep, that’s the sailor phrase for installing a sail) who offered no complaints about the fancy new dress. It was an exciting moment, not...
March is our final month tied to the dock here in Port Townsend. We leave the first weekend of April, likely not going all that far, but it will be wonderful to be back at anchor after four months of fenders rubbing against the hull 24/7. Not that we have been slouches during this time. With the shore power we...
There I was in the marina’s dumpster area, taking the trash out of course – I don’t just hang out there without reason – when a soft spoken woman asks me about the key code for the gate to access the trash receptacles. Now, normally I would simply offer the requestor the advice to talk to the proper person to...
Our second month of winter live aboard has come and passed. By now I am fully reminded just how mundane stationary life is. It is easy to forget when out traveling, on the road or sea, but not today. We have fallen into routine, the worst nightmare of any nomad. At least it is here in Port Townsend, where neither...
Our stationary life is not one exciting enough to bother writing about much. I’m not going to pretend that we did anything exciting or adventurous during the month of December. Quite the opposite actually, Work fills most our day and some light inter-boat socializing during the evenings in which the wind isn’t blowing at 40+ knots – which isn’t often....
If you can believe it, we started our winter moorage three weeks ago. Three weeks of us having all the luxuries of being tied to a dock. The stationary life was welcomed after the final month on the cold and windy waters of the Puget Sound. With electricity comes the warmth of hot water and an electric heater to chase...
Well, we successfully sailed another season without sinking or being attacked by killer whales, as much as my mother feared it might happen. Although COVID19 utterly destroyed our plans to sail north into BC and Alaska, we still got a lot of sailing in and saw many new places. Though we never planned to sail the South Puget Sound, we...
Before the end of the work week we had already ditched the log infested waters of the Swinomish Channel in La Conner. It was clear that by the end of the upcoming weekend, we were going to be in Port Townsend for the winter. There was just no avoiding all the major wind events happening at this time of the...
