On a boat!

As I mentioned previously this weekend I was invited for a day trip on a boat by Anne, my boss. She'd arranged to go out on a friend of a friend's boat for lunch somewhere in the Puget Sound, the 'seaward' side of Seattle and very kindly took me along. Anne's parents are in town so they were coming with us too, and we met up with the large group of friends (there were about 13 of us on the boat) and headed down to the marina. The vessel was a beautiful 42ft sailboat, after a brief spell under motor power to get us out of the harbour it was time to hoist the spinnaker.

Glen, the boat's owner and captain, put me to work as an able bodied (read youthful) seaman assisting his son, Ben, with this task. It was a fairly simple job but you did have to be careful to keep a firm hold of something solid so that the huge sail wouldn't pull you overboard.

 We were soon speeding across the sound, making a respectable 8 knots with the help of the tail wind. The cool breeze out in the sea was a welcome change from the stifling heat onshore. Our destination was a sheltered cover on the island of Bainbridge. As we came into the bay, Ben and I wrestled down the spinnaker and dropped the anchor (sadly motorised, so no pirates of the carribean-esque moments)

Marcus, the 'lynchpin' friend of the group, owns a local bar/restaurant in Queen Anne on the mainland and he and his wife had laid on a fine picnic, including Scottish salmon, and Brie & Apple sandwiches and quite wonderful deviled eggs (a new experience for me). A cheeky cerveza rounded it off nice. Now I had been attempting not to drink for the entire eight weeks I'm here but I felt it was too good an opportunity to pass up: I wasn't exactly going to get busted on a boat in the middle of the sea!
 Eventually the food, conversations and sunbathing had to come to an end, come two o'clock we set off back across the sound to Seattle. The wind had swung round a little so instead of the spinnaker, this time we were under the power of the main sail and genoa jib.

I rode back on the foredeck with Ben (above in the green t-shirt) and Bob (Anne's parent, white t-shirt). Bob is a very interesting man, 88 years old and spent much of his working life writing for the San Fransisco Chronicle amassing 10,000 bylines, but he also studied at Havard and fought in the war as a Japanese interpreter and airman in the US air force. Not pictured above is John,  loud attorney, who amongst other things encouraged me to take a year out "You'll never regret it" and to listen to some Grateful Dead (I'll look into them...).

It was a great way to travel, though I did take a bit of a soaking when we crashed through the wake of a ferry! I managed to leave my camera in Anne's car so I apologise if the photos aren't all that great I had to make do with my phone.

There were great views across the Sound to the Olympic Mountains to the west and Seattle to the east. Sadly all good things seem to come to an end so we slipped back into the marina again under the power of the motor and said our goodbyes. All in all a truly splendid day out. Now to find myself a sailboat on ebay...