Oh wow, when the sunshine returns it makes everything warm and nice. We just finished a circumnavigation of Shaw Island. We hung out on the hook (anchor for you lubbers) in Shoal Bay in Lopez Island overnight the night of August 5th. The skies were clear as crystal, and at 10:00 pm the stars were blazing with no city lights to dilute them. Sailing was wonderful on the 4th and 5th. Conditions varied from light and baffling to a strong and steady wind right on the nose with a difficult flood tide to battle. What was really neat, was after several tacks we were able to get into Friday Harbor without motoring.

After we tied up in the marina we were able to watch the tall ship, The Lady Washington, come into the harbor and tie up. I will include a photo at our website for you to see. This is a reproduction ship that hails from Grays Harbor.

Judy’s sister, Sonja Hall, arrived on the Washington State Ferry later in the afternoon of August 6th. She spent a three days with us as we visited around the San Jaun’s. The winds failed us for those three days. We were able to sneak around the fog on Friday morning and send Sonja off on the ferry from Shaw Island. We waited until the fog burned off and then made a beeline for Friday Harbor. We made it just in time to meet friends, Adriane and Dave Shilling at the ferry and they spent the next three days with us. This time the winds definitely did not fail us. We even got the “brown stripe” wet a couple of times. Twice we prudently reefed the mainsail to reduce the power of the wind. With Sonja we visited Provost Harbor on Stewart Island, With Dave and Adrienne we visited Reid harbor, also on Stewart Island. These two bays are on opposite sides of the same island and separated by a narrow neck of land. This is a Washington State Park and both bays are just dandy for anchoring. The Martha Washington was anchored in Provost Harbor as we visited Reid Harbor, and best of all we were able to get some nice action photos of her the next day when we hiked the 2.5 miles to Turn Point Light with Adrienne and Dave. She worked her way out of Provost harbor, rounded Turn Point and headed down Haro Strait while we eagerly followed along the bluffs at Turn Point and Lover’s Leap. Nope, no leaping lovers while we were there!

As I write this we are snug in Rosario Resort on Orcas Island. Today is Judy’s birthday, and yes she is celebrating her 29th birthday again. I guess we celebrated in big style. We just sealed a deal to purchase a motor home from some people in Bend. They are taking delivery of a new motor home in October. We will complete our cruise of the islands in mid September. By then we hope to have all of the finances worked out by phone and FAX and should be able to drive over to Bend and pick up our new home. We looked at this same motor home in June just before the church camp-out, but decided we could find a better deal elsewhere. The better deal came looking for us when the owners signed up for their new coach.