Alaska Trip Day 4

5/19/11

Bellingham

Miles motored:  40

Miles sailed:  0

This morning started off a little rough…I needed to pee at 4:30, so I got up as quietly as I could.  Remember, this is a small boat with no separate cabins.  Lars woke up and was mad.  So I nursed him and put him back to bed and he started screaming, which is very unusual.  Patting his back didn’t work, so I dragged him to our bed in hopes that Odin wouldn’t wake up.  He wouldn’t go to sleep for about 30 minutes so I took him back to his bed and then Odin woke up…so I nursed them both and put them back to bed.  They did fall asleep, but by this point we’d all been awake for an hour.  The usual 7am wake up came pretty early.

When we woke up for good it was another glorious sunny day and we got a move on right away, Tor weighed anchor and pointed us towards Deception Pass to hit slack water at 11:11, but the tide was working with us and we made great time, so instead of waiting to go through Deception pass at slack water, we took a shortcut and went through the Swinomish Channel.  Taking the shortcut meant that we could get to Bellingham with just another couple of hours of motoring.

Odin and Lars playing while underway

I piloted us to Bellingham bay and Tor fed the boys lunch and got them down for a nap.  Something that is great about us trading off kid and boat duty is that I will get much more experience in running the boat.  We are trying hard not to default to the stereotypical pink/ blue tasks and I think it will make our experiences much better.  Tor can’t nurse the boys, and I’m a long way from feeling comfortable to attempt docking the boat, but all other things are shared.  Hopefully by the end of this trip I will be comfortable docking the boat…though I may still default to Tor on that one J.  Tor will always have to default to me on the nursing J.

We arrived in Bellingham and pulled up at the guest moorage.  It was so warm that I put on sandals and we put the boys in the carriers…and sun hats and took a walk.  It always feels good to stretch your legs after being on the boat for several days.

Getting ready to hit the town in Bellingham

Karla, Jared, Einar and Soren brought us dinner from Casa Que Pasa (an old college favorite!) and we had a lovely picnic on the grass at the marina by our boat.  It was so nice to see the Ogle clan and nom on the delicious burritos.  Lars and Odin had beans and rice and tortilla and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Picnic Dinner, yum!

After we got the boys to bed Tor and I sat in the cockpit and had a beer (nice and cold courtesy of Karla…she is hospitality embodied!).  I hit the Spot device and thought it sent the update but it turns out it didn’t, we weren’t actually in Oak Harbor for 3 days!  We also had a good long talk about the trip and our expectations and feelings about it.  We had spent so much time preparing the physical aspects of the trip…making changes to the boat, packing and figuring out how to deal with things for the boys like laundry and childproofing that we didn’t spend any time thinking about the actual trip.  The thing is that it is INCREDIBLY difficult to do this sort of trip with a toddler, let alone two toddlers!  We are trying to keep a normal routine for Odin and Lars, and that makes it easier on them, but it adds some real complication to actually travelling this way.  Tides and currents need are very real, and dictate when you can travel.  We’re trying to travel in a way that the boys can get their naps and nighttime sleep, so we don’t want to do things like deploy the anchor after we’ve put them down to bed because it’s super loud and would wake them up in a very startling way.  So getting the minimum 25 miles in per day may be impossible, not to mention we may not be able to travel because of a storm, or if we just want to hang out and have a down day.  We pushed it and had two 40 plus mile days and it worked out well enough, but we didn’t have any fun, or much family togetherness time since Tor and I were taking shifts doing the two very distinct jobs for this trip, taking care of the boys and running the boat.  The parent below is essentially a single parent and it sucks!  So, now that Tor and I have discussed it all and understand what is going on, we are just going to put the goal of Glacier Bay on the back burner and put having fun on the front burner.  Once we figure out how to travel this way enjoyably we will be able to think about final destinations, until then the goal is enjoyment!