Wednesday August 31, 2011

The Bimini is on!!! I LOVE it. Day by day... piece by piece... the boat IS coming together. Although it has truly been a struggle :-( at times. When we ordered the new canvas top for the back deck, because of the SIZE we had to get a Bimini made for a Pontoon boat ... aka Party Barge. Little did we know that the rails on a Pontoon boat are Square tube rails while our boat has Round tube rails....... Hmmmmm... Thankfully... my hubby was able to make square pegs fit into round holes and it looks AWESOME! Thanks Baby...  :-)  I even decided to take on sewing the canvas covers for the front windows. After finding the perfect material and thread I spent days cutting and planning.... Unfortunately my sewing machine had other ideas and decided it did NOT want to sew through the heave canvas... So today I am going to hit up one of my neighbors here at the marina who has a heavy duty machine. Maybe if I offer cookies???  We have fun plans for Labor Day. The Yacht Club is cruising out for a Hobo weekend. Meeting up Friday at noon here in Bremerton, then its off for a weekend of One Oar Dingy races, Dingy parades and even a  Derelict Fashion Show.... Mimosa, BBQ, Games and Prizes.. sounds like so much fun!!!! I gotta get those front curtains done! LOL. AND I have to hit up Goodwill today so I can get started on my Hobo costume for the fashion show.... You KNOW I'm gonna walk down THAT runway... LOL

Tuesday August 30, 2011

It has been a few weeks since I sat down and wrote anything in the Blog so I figured I'd better get on it. LOL A case of just being to lazy.... Although I can spend HOURS on Facebook..... ?????? The last two weeks the weather has been AWESOME! The mornings are cool and clear, it heats up to the upper 70's low 80's during the day, and then cools down again in the evening. I have been spending my days with my Kindle (e-reader), lounging on the back deck and reading books. I have gone through about 12 books in the last 8 days. LOL. Very relaxing.. except for the invasion of ducks and geese... I HAVE created a monster with my feeding of the Georges and Franks... (They float right outside my door.. ALL day long... STALKERS) I hear them NOW!!!! Freaky

The picture above is the Lady Washington. She was used in several of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Very Cool. The Lady and her sister ship were in Brownsville doing mock battles. Ben and I got to go aboard and take a tour. It was very cool.

We have been taking out the Dingy and exploring the surrounding local area. It's fun to just jump in the little boat and head out. Even Zoe seems to like it! I build her a bed with some blankets in the bow and she is as happy as a clam. Silly ol' girl. I do need to get her a doggie life vest...  weenies do NOT swim well. LOL

Monday August 15, 2011

What a WONDERFUL weekend! Our first ever overnight guests aboard the Blue Oasis. Don, Chas and the girls came to spend the weekend with us and what fun we had. I didn't realise how homesick I was until I saw the faces of my Granddaughters. LOL
Saturday we took the boat out in the Sound. Don and Ben  were trying to catch a BIG one while the girls spent the day searching for Dolphins and Whales... We all struck out, no fish of ANY kind... we did see a minke whale and lots of seals, but we had a GREAT day. It was so much fun to spend the day with the kids, to see things anew through their eyes. McKenzi saw Whales EVERYWHERE. So funny. They were having a BLAST. We took the boat by

the Navy yard to look at the big ships, that was COOL. At one point we were just drifting so the boys could fish when a BIG ship came by us and the waves caused our boat to rock WILDLY from side to side. OMG! I thought the freezer on the Fly Bridge was gonna slide off the boat and crash into the sound. I was yelling for someone to grab the freezer, Don had jumped up to try to grab Chas and keep her and her chair from going over the deck, all the beverages on the table went flying overboard. BaHaHa. What a RIDE! We all survived, even Zoe. It was VERY exciting there for a few minutes, The boys never did catch anything so when we finally got back into the dock the boys decided to take the dingy out into the inlet for more fishing. That caused Chas and I a bit of concern.... 2 men in a boat sort of thing.

I think they got more beer bagged than fish. BUT, they did not tip over the dingy and they did return unharmed. All in all it was a GREAT day. We ended the day with a nice dinner on the boat, all that sunshine and fresh air had us all yawning and ready for bed Saturday night.
 Sunday morning was a low tide and Ash and Kenzi had a mission..... They had been catching Jelly Fish by the HUNDREDS... but they wanted a Star Fish to take home.... so with low tide they set out to find the perfect specimen. After crawling along the pier to get to the bank and a few close calls... Kenzi almost fell in at least 10 times.... LOL. But they did finally find the PERFECT one. After a serious battle they finally prevailed and declared victory. The hapless Star Fish ended up in a Wal-Mart bag and headed back to Idaho. I hope Chas does not forget that there is a smelly start fish in her trunk... Ha... With lots of Hugs and tears (mostly on my part) they headed safely back to Idaho.... I miss them so much already.



Saturday August 6, 2011

A week has passed since we moved from Bainbridge Island to Bremerton. And what an adventure it has been! Our new marina sits in the Port Washington Narrows.
The Port Washington Narrows is a tidal strait located in Bremerton, Washington. It is through this 3 mile channel which Dyes Inlet drains into Sinclair Inlet and into Puget Sound. Tidal currents attain velocities in excess of 4 knots at times. Because of these tidal currents we had to move the boat into the new marina during 'slack' tide... high or low. So around noon last Saturday, low tide, we decided to pull out of Bainbridge and head for Bremerton.... we made it about 500 yards from the Eagle Harbor marina ... when IT happened... We ran aground! I was on the back deck and SUDDENLY, the boat came to a complete STOP. HOLY COW....  SO there we sat.. boat was to heavy for us to even TRY to push off the sand bar. The water got down to about a foot deep, so I jumped in a took a scrub brush to the hull and managed to scrub the algae from the hull. LOL When life gives you lemons..... We waited about 3 or 4 hours for the tide to start coming back in to 'float' us from our perch.... All in all it was an interesting day. We DID finally make it to Port Washington in Bremerton around 7 at night.

Our new home is a VERY small marina. About 30 boats, 4 or 5 live-aboard. The marina has showers and washer/dryer. We will be here for 3 or 4 months then will move on to Port Orchard. I try to think of all this moving as an adventure... after all, who wants to live on a boat and stay in the same place????

I drove to Safeway by myself yesterday.... getting used to a new town. Heck I will know the whole peninsula soon! Todat Ben is going shotting with Nikki. Getting ready fro Bear season. I get an afternoon to myself... Think I will take a nice nap.