EYC Casual Cruise to Port Townsend

We had a great time this weekend in Port Townsend with the Edmonds Yacht Club. We had only been to Port Townsend one other time and that happened to be when we were looking at Nordic Tugs to buy. We loved the little marina at Point Hudson and commented at that time that we would like to spend some time there looking around the town. We cruised over on Friday with another boat and kept it at 1400 rpms. Normally, this would have been about 7 knots for us but the current was in our favor that day and we cruised at 12 knots. We made great time and arrived much earlier than anticipated. Our cruising partners, Cheryl and Tom, also got some great pictures of our boat so we will now have one that can be hung in the yacht club with the other members' boats.

After docking, we had lunch with some other EYC people who had arrived early. We can now highly recommend Sirens as a great place to eat.  Their website says they are "A pub of distinction"  and I would say this is a very accurate description of a fun place on the waterfront with fantastic food.

Because this was a casual cruise there were no organized activities so we spent a lot of time wandering around town, visiting the farmers market, geocaching, and walking our dog. We did share dinner together on Saturday night with a potluck and, as always, had a great time getting to know people better.

We departed Port Townsend around noon on Sunday and as we rounded the point going 1400 rpms we found ourselves cruising at 3 knots! What a difference from Friday. Fortunately, things improved and we had a smooth ride back to Everett.

PaNNTOA Bremerton Cruise

The Pacific Northwest Nordic Tug Owners Association (PaNNTOA) held their annual rendezvous in Bremerton, WA this past weekend. We decided it was time to see how good of a boater our golden retriever, Barkley, is so we took him with us for the weekend.  I'm pleased to say he was even better than we had hoped for! He settled right into the cruising life and especially enjoyed the attention he got from other boaters as well as the many walks that he took us on!

We had a wonderful time at the Rendezvous with nearly 40 other Nordic Tugs. The entire weekend was well-planned and the food was fantastic! The weekend's schedule included several very good seminars that were well attended. They included information about cruising up into Canadian waters, couples cruising, Coast Guard procedures and safety, etc. While there we had a Coast Guard Auxiliary safety inspection done on our boat and passed with flying colors.

We also enjoyed a great slide show by photographer Neil Rabinowitz whose work has graced the cover of 2500 boating magazines and whose library contains more than 4 million stock photos! As you can imagine he had some beautiful shots of boats ranging from small classics up to some incredible mega-yachts.

Getting together with other owners was a real treat. It was so much fun to see what great ideas others have added to their boats to make things work easier and to facilitate storage and guests.  Of course, touring each others boat is always a delight and everyone was so gracious. The boats were a huge hit with other marina guests, also, and many people wandered the docks asking questions and admiring the line-up of Nordic Tugs.

We left our first Rendezvous with much more knowledge and many new friends!

EYC Bremerton Cruise

Over Memorial Day weekend (May 27-30) we joined the Edmonds Yacht Club in Bremerton for the annual Harbor Days Festival. There were 42 boats in attendance and we had a wonderful time. The cruise had a pirate theme so Bob hung our flag as soon as we arrived in the marina. We won 3rd place and won a free night's moorage in Bremerton for a return visit!

The weekend was full of making new friends, touring each other's boats, and just relaxing. One of the highlights was having dinner on the USS Turner Joy destroyer. We toured the boat and had a great barbecue dinner catered by Famous Dave's.

One of the highlights was the christening of Stargazer. Because we are new at the cruising business and being yacht club members, we did not know that we would be christening our boat at our first cruise. We were one of 5 and it was a lot of fun. Since the first mate on the boat before us accidentally dropped the champagne while trying to break the bottle, I was a little nervous that I would do the same. It went smoothly and Stargazer is now officially named!

Fortunately the weather held for us and even though it was not warm weather, it was very comfortable. We were even treated to a beautiful rainbow that we were able to capture.

We had a great weekend and are looking forward to our next EYC cruise. More friends to make and places to go!  How fun!