The sailing adventures of SV Meriwether and her crew
Ever since our visit to English Camp in the van – a part of the San Juan Island National Historic Park – I have wanted to return in our boat. I can’t explain why, but I did. Heck, I wasn’t even sure the cove outside of English Camp could even accommodate Meriwether’s draft (it did), but I wanted to anchor...
It was a 15 mile travel day, with no wind to speak of… once again. We knew all week that there would be no wind for the weekend, when we could travel. Unless we wanted to stay on Patos Island another week – with no guarantee of wind the following seven days either – we were going to be motoring...
Patos Island is only a few miles away from our last stop. Barely enough time to raise the sails. Not that we had any wind anyway, so the decision was already made for us to motor over. At least the alternator will charge our house battery during the two hours (we cruised it, nice and slow). We even took the...
Approaching Halloween in the San Juan Islands means solitude and open waters. During the work week we spent at Sucia (now our third time visiting this island) we did see a couple other boats anchor in Echo Bay, about a kilometer away. No boats joined us in Ewing Cove with it’s mooring balls placed in a narrow body of water...
Returning from the BVI trip took more than 36 hours of ferries, taxis, planes, and airports. We were already exhausted from the week at play, but after the travel back we were just zombies. I knew I would need multiple days to recover, mentally and physically, but life would put me right back to work once we arrived back in...
One of the wonderful things about a vacation (something I hadn’t had in a loooooong time) is the perspective it brings when you come back home. I came back with a lot of affirmation about the choices we’ve made—on our boat, on our current cruising grounds.
During the week long grind of life in the BVIs there were some happenings that stood out as highlights. I know. I know. The whole trip was one big highlight, but within that bigger picture there are a few memories that will stand out and I wanted to share those with greater detail.
My days in the BVIs were generally spent waking before the sunrise to start the every important infusion of caffeine while sitting in the boat’s cockpit enjoying the view, and a little peace and quiet. Others would wake, rise, and join me over the course of the next hour or so. Even Kerri would rise at a reasonable hour, but...
Even those fortunate enough to live a nomadic life, like us, need a vacation from the daily grind. An extreme change of scenery and days without the normal work schedule to refresh the soul from time to time – right? When a plan to charter a boat in the BVIs for a week was plopped in our lap we went...
Before leaving Bellingham at the end of May – literally, the day before – we finally got our solar install finished on Meriwether. It took so long as we waited to have a frame built for the panels to be mounted on to. It was something that I was originally going to do myself, but once I started dropping a...
