Home For The Summer

Well here we are back in the big city for the summer. When we were in Alaska last summer in the cold and rain we were getting emails from our friends in the Sea of Cortez where it was 96 – degrees, water temp and humidity. I didn’t think after 45 years north of 48 degrees latitude that I’d be acclimated well enough in one season to enjoy that. We started exploring options early into our winter cruise and remembered that our friends Steve & Elsie would be cruising Alaska in their sailboat and looking for a house sitter in Seattle for the summer. This became a perfect opportunity for us to avoid the heat and put some money in the bank.

marquesas

So we left the Gold Coast in March and headed for La Paz to put Yohelah away for the summer. Enroute we got email from Spectra (the watermaker company Rob does sales and service for) that there was a customer in the Marquesas needing a technician to fly down and repair his watermaker. Long story short – Rob was flown to French Polynesia for 2 days and earned a nice bonus for working on a beautiful Swan 56 owned by a very wealthy European. He’s gotten a little taste of things to come after we make the big “puddle jump” and is ready to headsouth. There are some pretty pictures of that trip in the photo gallery.

His brother came down for a week and we got a little preview of how beautiful the Sea of Cortez is with a seven day cruise north of La Paz. We hung out with some friends we’d met earlier in the season, and met some new ones we hope to see again next year. But soon enough it was time to get the boat ready for hurricane season. That means stripping everything off the outside (sails, halyards, covers, etc) that will be wind blown or UV damaged during hurricane season and the hot summer. It also meant putting some new finish on some exterior teak, waxing and polishing the topsides, and stowing everything below. Rob also stayed after I came home and installed our autopilot (yippee) and took the refrigerator apart (boohoo). He needs to do some rework on the installation of the fridge, which we’ll do when we get back next winter.

For now we’re in a beautiful house on Sunset Hill in Ballard. I’m contracting at Real Networks building Oracle databases and Rob’s closing in on another contract position doing Project Management. When we wrap up our contract commitments we’ll head back to La Paz and rescue Yohelah from the dock. Hopefully it’ll be early enough in the winter to head north and see the Sea of Cortez. Then it’s south through Central American and into Ecuador. Luckily we have friends here in Seattle with boats to help us get our sailing time in this summer. And T2 and I are going to Alaska to see my good friend Debby and ride horses at her guide camp in the Alaska Range. I’ll post some pix of that when we get back in late August.

costabaja

Today Yohelah is baking in the La Paz heat and we’re ejoying a beautiful summer in Seattle……