Land of Aaahs Opening Day

We left Thursday to head off to Queen City Yacht Club for Opening Day of Boating Season. We planned to leave at 7:00am but when we got to the marina we were completely fogged in. We talked to Al and Sue who were planning to cruise with us and we agreed we should wait awhile and let the fog clear.  Eventually we thought it had lifted enough and would then burn off so we headed out. Unfortunately, the fog got thicker and we were cruising in weather we try to avoid. Al and Sue were right behind us and it was still hard to see them - if I could at all.

The one thing I don't like about going to Opening Day is going through the locks in Ballard. If you are sitting on the lawn and watching the boats go through it is a lot of fun. When you are on a boat and have to tie to the sides then adjust your lines as you are lifted up to lake level, it is not so much fun. We have been tied to the side and also rafted to other boats (which is much easier since you are just along for the ride) but since this is the first time through with Synnova we assumed we would be tied to the side because of her length. As it turned out, when we arrived we realized that our kayak racks probably stuck out further than our fenders. The lock attendant let us raft to another boat since we were not sure. The following pictures show us waiting to enter the locks, our entry and then as we exited into Lake Washington.

When we arrived at Queen City, rafted to the other boats and then took our dinghies to head on over to the log boom to see the other EYC members. The third picture shows our fleet boats at QCYC when we returned.

Saturday was officially Opening Day so we dressed for the parade and headed out on Brian and Kira McLauchlan's boat, Nelliott.  We had plenty of time to relax on their boat, eat lunch and then practice our saluting.

As we went by the log boom we were able to grab a couple of pictures before we staged for the return trip back. We watched as the decorated boats turned around at the end and then enjoyed seeing the Seattle Fire Boat bring up the end of the parade.

While we were staged waiting to return to QCYC we conducted a small memorial service to commemorate the one year anniversary of Dick Potter passing away. He had been a long term member of EYC and his son, Jeff, and Daughter, Susan Romei, are still members. They were on the boat so we all moved to the stern where Susan said some words to remember her dad and then Jeff through a bouquet of red roses out on the water. I concluded with a prayer.  It was a very moving service and it meant a lot to Jeff and Susan. I'm so glad we were there for it.

It was a fun weekend and we are looking forward to next year when we can be out on the log boom.

Tacoma Yacht Club's "Daffodil Paradise" Festival

This weekend was the Tacoma Yacht Club's annual Daffodil Marine Festival. Their theme this year was Daffodil Paradise. It is a full weekend with boats packed into the marine basin, costumes, decorated boats, and a lot of fun!

We left Everett on Thursday morning and cruised to Des Moines where we met up a total of 9 boats. We enjoyed a good (but very slow) dinner at Red Robin. Even though the poor waiter was totally overwhelmed by serving 18 of us plus other tables all by himself (after one week on the job) we had a wonderful time visiting with everyone.

The next morning, we headed to the Tacoma Yacht Club planning our arrival for 11:00am. Mt. Rainier was beautiful, we passed by the Pt. Robinson lighthouse, and then were treated to a great show by a pod of orcas. The last picture shows the splash of an orca that jumped way up out of the water but I was too slow to grab the camera. It was amazing to see and I was so sorry to not get a picture. That's the problem with trying to photograph the whales. They pop up unexpectedly at different places so it is difficult to be ready when they give a performance. They were still so much fun to see, though. We normally have seen gray whales when we search them out but to see orcas when we are just traveling through was a real treat!

We pulled in to the Tacoma Yacht club basin and waited our turn to be escorted to our slip. They move most of the tenants out of their boat houses and slips so that other boats coming for the festival can get in. They docked 180 boats for this weekend. You can see how crowded it was coming in. We ended up with ten of us rafted side-by-side and then three others perpendicular to us. One would become our decorated boat and one was the fleet boat that would be in the parade on Sunday.

One of the first activities that TYC held was a hula show and competition. After the very nice hula demonstration, all the commodores were brought up front and had to perform a hula dance. Based on how well they did, that is the order that their yacht club members could enter the building the next day for the trivia contest. Al did a great job and placed us somewhere in the middle for entrance. The room was packed as all the yacht clubs cheered on their commodore.

On Saturday, we gathered together on NeaSea LaRae and Ke' Aloha to decorate them for tomorrow's boat parade.  Bob ordered 3000 daffodils and we had the decorations the club made with Denise Coleman's creativity and direction. NeaSea LaRae became our "decorated boat" and Ke' Aloha was the fleet boat that the bridge officers lined up on throughout the parade. Since the theme was Daffodil Paradise, we decided on a play of words and came up with a casino "pair-a-dice" theme.

I ordered 8 pizzas for everyone to enjoy after the decorating was done and then we headed up to the clubhouse for the Trivia Contest. Everyone lined up with their costumes on so our group had casino dealer vests and ties with caps that had two springs with large dice on them. The costumes were great and our fearless commodore, Al, had a special vest that said "Daffodil Pair-a-dice Casino". We did not do very well in the Trivia Contest but we did have a lot of fun. It is tradition that each club give "bribes" to the judges so we gave each judge a green plastic box decorated to look like a dice. We filled it with Tacoma chocolates. The last picture shows the judges in their costumes and being presented with EYC's bribe.

Sunday morning was the flag ceremony where each commodore is in their dress uniform and their flag is lowered then raised in acknowledgement of their club. They were escorted in by a bagpiper and the national anthem was sung. The Sea Scouts were present to assist as well as many dignitaries from the City of Tacoma, the Daffodil princess court, military personnel and first responders.

In the afternoon was the boat parade and although the rain came we had a wonderful time with the other bridge officers. We were the last boat (except for the Sea Scouts) to go through the parade so with the bad weather there were not a lot of people out to watch the parade. It was still fun and there were some people waving to us at restaurants, from their own boats, or along the street. One couple were sitting in lawn chairs with rain gear and umbrellas and I was impressed they had waited to the end of the parade. We were shouting out to them thanking them for being there and they laughed and said "The only reason we are still here is because our son is a Sea Scout on the boat behind you!"  It was pretty funny and I can't say I blame them. The weather was pretty bad at times. The last two pictures are from the  Tacoma Yacht Club Facebook page and show our decorated boat and the Flagship boat.

It was a great weekend and we cruised away with two awards for our club. The first was the Commodore's Award for our overall participation with the number of boats that joined in, level of enthusiasm and parade entries. The Flagship won first place for the bridge officers following protocol in the way we presented ourselves, saluted the judges, flew the signal flags, etc. in the parade. The best recognition of all was the comment by one of the dinghy operators who led us in to the marina. He said our club was the best boat handlers he had seen that weekend! That says a lot about the seamanship abilities of our club members.

Following the boat parade we headed back as far as Bell Harbor in Seattle and then left early in the morning to return to the Everett Marina on Monday morning.

EYC Whale Watching Expedition

Bob and I are so used to going out to look for whales we kind of assumed that anyone in the Edmonds Yacht Club probably does the same.  What we discovered this past month is that some friends who have their boat at other marinas don't get the opportunity to go out for just a few hours to look for whales. Or, they might have their boat at Everett but have never done it and aren't sure where to go.

We invited Al & Sue, Larry & Cheryl and Dave & Lynn Cheeney to go with us so we could introduce them to the fun of whale watching. We had so much fun! Everyone brought their own lunch and we had plenty of time to visit. One thing we discovered that was different than when we take non-boating friends is that they are used to the scenery and spent more time visiting in the cabin than our other guests normally do. Once we got to where the whales were they all had a great time taking pictures and watching for them to surface.  We had one come up close to the boat as we were leaving.

We had a lot of fun hosting everyone. It was kind of funny to have four "captains" on the boat but it certainly made my job easier as we left and returned to the dock. The captains all knew what to do to help and what to leave for the "real" captain!

Whale Watching With Friends

We found a free Saturday to do some whale watching so we called several couples to join us. It ended up being just Janice & Mike and Sharon & Al. However.....we waited for Sharon and Al to get here and they called a couple of times trying to find where we were at the north marina. As it turned out, they thought we were at the Edmonds marina! We felt so bad  but we were running out of time to get going because we had plans for this evening.

We had a great time with Mike and Janice, though, and got a great show from the whales. We always go to the area where the whale tour boats go and we had just as good a view as the paying guests did. We took a lot of pictures and even got some great shots of their flukes.  It is so hard to stop and head back in because about the time we would think about it, we would see more whales.  It was a lot of fun and we had a wonderful time. We brought our own lunches but Janice treated us to a lemon icebox pie. It was so good!