Last Minute Errands in the “other” Seattle…
Wednesday morning, we woke early, managed some coffee, and decided it was time to get out of dodge, or “This One-Horse Town” as I sometimes say (or Bell Harbor as it’s actually called). So, we motored out of the marina, heading out of Elliott Bay and north back toward Shilshole. The short run around West Point was rife with sea life – harbor seals, harbor porpoises, salmon, and sea birds. We entered Shilshole’s breakwater just after the Army Corp’s of Engineers moved their barge outbound. We pumped out the holding tanks at the fuel dock and then nestled into our guest moorage slip.
We spent two nights at Shilshole, working on organizing the boat, buying some last-minute parts and running some last-minute errands. I used my new ReachNow membership to grab a BMW off the street to run some errands, visiting the house, picking up a few more tools for the boat out of our storage, going to the bank, etc. I stopped by Ballard Sails and coincidentally they had just got out new mainsail in which I got to see pulled out on the floor. After reviewing my trips and the final billing, I found that if you are making round trips with short stops and especially with multiple short stops, the ReachNow car is actually less expensive and more convenient than Uber or Lyft.
Devon’s parents spent most of Thursday finishing up the lifeline netting while the cousins visited the boat and all the kids played. I installed another 12v outlet in the vberth in addition to the USB ports that Miller and Miller had installed.
On Friday I ran a couple more errands, including buying a ScanStrut ROKK mount kit to securely hold a phone at the helm. I got back to the boat and eagerly installed the ScanStrut kit, and promptly broke the tightening lever the first time I used it while showing Devon how cool it was. Ugh. On the plus side, Sure Marine Service gave me some spare parts for the new heater for our Alaska trip just in case.
Alex from Ballard Sails came over in the morning and put up the mainsail which is beautiful. After that we untied and headed west to Liberty Bay for our kid-boat raft-up weekend. It was a quick run and after we dropped anchor in the bay the girls watched for Laissez Faire’s arrival.
