Light – Page 13 – Sheila365

Saturday!

I spent the night at Noreen’s last night. This morning, she finished another glass window / work of art. This one is for her own house. She does beautiful work!

Then I toodled back over to mom’s. This afternoon, I introduced her to geo-caching, and she enjoyed it. We found 3 out of 4 “park and grab” caches that we searched for on the way to the Harbor Fest downtown. She stayed in the car and pointed me to where the GPS said to look, and then we opened up the cache’s together in the car.

Then we headed downtown to take in the Harbor Fest. This is a shot of the boardwalk downtown along the waterfront.

Then, later, I headed for the airport to pick up my sweetie, who is joining me here for the last week of the month. It was fitting that my favorite mountain was poking above every horizon on my drive to the airport tonight.

Playing through.

Fran and I enjoyed playing a round of golf this evening. Awesome!

This family of ducks wandered through one of the holes.

And we caught a glimpse of Mount Rainier looking back from the tee at 18.

It was a beautiful day for golf among the Christmas trees.

Good day.

Today was a pretty full day. The weather was supposed to be colder and drizzly, but it turned out to be another lovely day with blue skies. Keep ’em coming.

Mom and I went to the Armed Forces Day parade, one of the oldest and longest in the country.

I squeezed in a little geo-caching during the afternoon, and then headed over to Seattle to meet my sisters and spent a few hours on the waterfront. We ducked into this little corner o’heaven to watch the Sounders game (win!).

And then caught the ferry home. Pretty views from the stern.

Motoring around the Sound.

Fran and Art took me for a boat ride today after work. It was a treat, the weather was nice and the Sound was like glass. Its amazing how fast you can get from one place to another by boat in these parts.

This is a view of the Olympics from Dyes Inlet, The Brothers peak on the left.

And a view of the Seattle waterfront, from just off Blake Island, a ferry, hazy Cascades in the background, and the space needle far left.

Golden chain tree.

Aka Liburnum, this tree is dripping with chains of golden blossoms. This AM the sun rise seemed to be focused squarely on this one tree. Very pretty.

And Happy Mother’s Day!

Scenes from the forest.

I took a stroll through the woods on my first day back up here in the Pacific Northwest.

Unfurling ferns.

Mouldering mushrooms.

Mossy stump.

Baby pinecones.

Fly ’em if you got ’em.

Anchoring out tonight with Lori and Dave on Camelot, and Kurt and Kevin on Dancer.

Spaaaaaaah-ed.

Today was spa day!!! An annual indulgence with girlfriends for the last 15 years or so. I’ve been staring at this one on the calendar with anticipation for a while.
How can you not relax at a place like this? The Lake Austin Spa Resort is a beautiful retreat, if only for that one or two days a year.

And I couldn’t resist trying a panorama shot:

Afterwards I joined monte at the marina to anchor overnight in our favorite cove.

A good day!

Tulip hexaptych.

I may have mentioned that I love tulips. 🙂 And, I’m always amazed at how much they continue to grow after I put them in a vase. I brought home a bunch of gorgeous light pink ones on Saturday. Then I proceeded to take a snapshot for the next six days to capture their growth day to day. Kinda cool.

Blood red moon.

I woke up in the wee hours this morning to experience the lunar eclipse. One day I may have a camera worthy of capturing such a moment, but I managed to get a few ok shots with my reliable Canon PowerShot D10. These are 5 shots, shown in order, as the Earth’s shadow passed left to right across the surface of the Moon. 1-April3

April 8 – Our last night.

Tuesday, April 8.

This morning we dinghied over to shore to tour the shops and artists’ wares at Trellis Bay.

One of the bathyspheres that they cut away to make the fireballs for the full-moon parties.

We missed Full Moon by about a week this trip. Next trip we'll definitely have to book during a Full Moon! — We missed Full Moon by about a week this trip. Next trip we’ll definitely have to book during a Full Moon!

On the sail back to Fat Hog’s Bay today, Susanne was at the helm and Laura worked the lines by herself. They’ve both done really well with learning the ins and out of the boat, and they’re bonifide sailors now!

We got to the marina in time to finish up the closing paperwork on the charter. We’ll spend the night on the dock, since our flight leaves at 7:30 AM tomorrow. It’s a bittersweet day. Sad that it’s almost over. But ecstatic to use the showers at the marina!

We walked over to Red Rock for an amazing dinner. A perfect last supper for a fantastic trip. So many great memories and experiences. As always, I already can’t wait to come back.

April 7 – The Baths.

Monday, April 7.

This morning we are headed to Virgin Gorda to see the Baths – always an awesome sight no many how many times you’ve been before. The winds and waves were strong, but not too strong. We made it to the Baths with one tack.

When we arrived, the mooring field was already full, so we had to wait a bit for a ball to free up. One finally did, and when we tried to get the ball, we approached it from windward – a mistake in our haste to get the ball. We drifted too quickly after hooking the ball with the pole, so that we had to drop it and the pole in the water. I jumped in to retrieve the pole and we were able to hook it the second time, before the other circling boats did. Never a dull moment.

There was a yellow flag warning at the Baths, so the swim from the dinghy dock to the baths was a challenging one. Some of the sights from this trip to the Baths:

Looking out at the mooring field from the Baths.

We all enjoyed a cheeseburger in Paradise at Poorman’s Bar at the foot of the hill. For extra points, we all had to execute a dinghy flop one more time for the ride back to the boat. No pics of that, though. 🙂

After the Baths, we headed for Trellis Bay on Tortola to spend the night. We hit the Loose Mongoose for happy hour ashore (and a quick update on the Final Four and Championship game).

Sunset over Tortola - from Trellis Bay. — Sunset over Tortola – from Trellis Bay.

Then headed back to the boat for our last dinner aboard, and we played Rummikub until we couldn’t keep our eyes open. Noone made it ashore to watch the NCAA Championship game.

April 6 – Staying put.

Sunday, April 6.

After the marathon day we had yesterday, we’re taking it easy today. We all dinghied over to Cistern Point and snorkeled for quite a while.

Between Cistern Point and our boat, a turtle was hanging out. He was one cool dude – he didn’t mind that we floated close by to watch him for quite a while. These are the best pictures I’ve gotten of a turtle of all my Caribbean trips. I like how the colors get clearer and more vibrant as he gets closer to the surface.

Turtle dude surfacing - 1 — Turtle dude surfacing – 1

Turtle dude surfacing - 2 — Turtle dude surfacing – 2

Turtle dude surfacing - 3 — Turtle dude surfacing – 3

The guys are headed back to Jost again today. Tan-a-na’s crew leaves early tomorrow morning, so they are headed back to Tortola to spend the night at the marina. After lunch we shopped ashore and enjoyed people/boat watching all afternoon, before hitting happy hour again on Cooper.

For sunset, we dinghied out to the mouth of the bay, beyond the anchorage, to get an unobstructed view of the sun setting over Tortola.

Sunset behind Tortola - viewed from Cooper Island — Sunset behind Tortola – viewed from Cooper Island

April 5 – A long day.

Saturday, April 5.

We headed out early this morning, by 7:30AM. Winds are still 20+ knots. 3-5′ seas, very rough. Luckily the rain seems to have passed. We sailed it to Soper’s Hole, to go through BVI Customs & Immigration again. We picked up a few more provisions there, but quickly headed back out to make Cooper Island by sunset, and join up again with Maggie and Tan-a-na.

The BVI Spring Regatta is in full swing this week. We got a front-row seat of some of the races as we cruised across the channel to Cooper Island.

We pulled into Machioneel Bay at 4pm, at exactly the same time Maggie did. After a quick dip we all met up at the Cooper Island Beach Club for Happy Hour and dinner. It’s good to have the gang back together.

Cooper Island has the best sunsets…..

Share on:

Share on:

Share on:

Share on:

Share on:

Share on:

Share on:

Share on:

Share on:

Share on:

Share on:

Share on:

Share on:

Share on: