The sailing adventures of SV Meriwether and her crew
For our second sailing season we wanted to sail North through the inside passage to Alaska, but COVID-19 would throw a wrench in our plans. We spent four months tied to a dock, but that allowed us to get a ton upgrades and repairs completed before we started the season at the beginning of June. We sailed to the South Sound, exploring as much as we could before being hauled out at the end of the summer for a bottom paint. A few more months of sailing ensued before we pulled into Port Townsend to spend our first winter on the boat.
Kerri and I have returned to Meriwether after three months in the van visiting with our land-based nomadic friends in the South West. The land-vacation didn’t come easy, with a horrific month long breakdown that trapped us in Las Vegas (of all places). Eventually we escaped and got to all the visiting of friends, which was great. However, by the...
This year we were quite pleased to get back to the boat by the beginning of March. Mostly, we just wanted to get to work on all the projects we had compiled during the 2019 sailing season so we could begin our 2020 season as early as possible. The weather has been laying pretty nicely so far. Sure it has...
The next few years of our life is not going to be conducive to Moose’s happiness. With long days of motoring up the inside passage to Alaska, and then leaving the boat up there during the winters while we escape to other countries, Moose would have had to suffer through multiple flights and long periods of dog-sitting with random people....
This year we have planned to make the trip North via the Inside Passage to Ketchikan or Petersburg Alaska. The route will bring us up into Canada for our first International border crossing before weaving our way through the coastal islands of British Columbia. It is more than 700 miles of sailing before the end of our year, even without any...
We got back to Meriwether a month ago, just as people started taking this whole virus thing seriously. Since Kerri and I already live on the fringe of society, distancing ourselves from society is not much of a burden on us. We have been practicing social distancing for some time now, virus or not. Combine that with the fact that...
With the Canadian border closed to all non-essential traffic, the stress to leave Bellingham by our arbitrarily-set-by-us-date has been released. Although there has been no rush to complete the slew of projects, they do keep getting accomplished at a good pace. I even took a few days – alright, a full week – off major projects to give my back...
We decided to get out of the marina for a few days. Mostly to get rid of the stationary-itch that has been plaguing us the past few weeks, but also just to get further away from civilization for a spell. We knew we were returning within a week, so the journey was not far – just a return trip to...
Yea, we are still stuck in Bellingham due to lock-downs at both the state and international levels. We could have sailed off, but with all the marinas and parks closed anyway, there was no where to go. That’s okay though, we have been using our isolation time wisely. First thing I did was to just take a week off of...
With another couple weeks sitting in the marina, completing even more tasks from our never ending todo list, Kerri and I were anxious to get back out and away from the marina. However, with an impending family issue coming up that would require me to fly out to Colorado for a few weeks, we knew the boat would return to...
Content with some peace and quite (factoring out the nearby train tracks) we anchored in Chuckanut Bay for nine days – two weekends and a work week. We had started at the North end of the bay where the majority of anchoring boats seem to go. By the end of the first weekend, we were the only boat left anchored...
