2025 Adventures on Blue Redd

My good friend, Mark at one of our favorite Thai places in Lynnwood.   It was good to catch-up. We started the day over breakfast with Vann & Christine, our good friends from Republic, WA.   But, alas, I forgot to take pictures! Then it was lunch in Edmonds with Paul & Cheryl, our former neighbors (we moved, they didn't).  These people are a hoot.  I'm glad we've remained friends.  And Paul gave me a hat!  Thank you!!! Astute reader, you will have to expand the photo to read what it says, because it isn't what you think... And, of course, I forgot to get a photo with them! We met Mike & Kathy of Raindancer, a Selene 60 Ocean trawler Classic.  They keep this boat like a museum piece.   It is absolutely gorgeous. Being the very small world that it is, it turned out that Mike & I both worked at Stemilt over in Wenatchee in the late 80s-90s.   We are sure we worked with each other, but neither of us could remem...

  Here is the actual chart of our route, in blue.   The yellow dots are places we stayed this year and a few from last year. This is another view of our route in a map with a bit less detail. And here is a map with just the Alaska portion of our voyage with our stops (stars are anchorages, dots are cities).

  All of these photos are recycled from this year's voyage, so, if they look familiar, now you know why... We left Anacortes, WA on June 5, 2025, and returned on August 27, 2025.  That's 85 days, if I can still do basic math. We covered 2,141 miles in total. 29 miles in US waters to get to Candian waters outside of Poet's Cove where we cleared into Canada. 542 miles in Canadian waters from Poet's Cove to the Alaskan border just north of Prince Rupert, BC. 778 Miles in Alaska from Ketchikan to Sitka and back. 763 miles in Canadian waters from Prince Rupert BC to Poet's Cove. And another 30 miles from the US border off of Sucia Island back to Anacortes. This took us approximately 333 running hours on the engine. During those hours, plus generator run time, and Kabola furnace time, we consumed approximately1,660 gallons of diesel for a total cost of $6,521.76 USD.   Average $/Gal of $3.93. Our average MPG was a miserable 1.23mpg, way down from last year (was 1.69mpg)....

Dawn from Echo Bay, Sucia Island, USA. We are heading back to Anacortes, where we started. This picture is looking south in Rosario Strait.   The island on the left is Sinclair Island.   Give the north side of this island a wide berth as it is a shallow rock-strewn reef that extends for 3/4 mile offshore.   It is well marked, but you can regularly find boats aground on its reef. Driving backing the boat down the airway to our slip in Cap Sante Marina, Anacortes. I wasn't sure how wide the fairway was and I didn't want to get stuck. I prefer to tie-up stern-to when we are loading/unloading the boat.   So, I backed her in. We have an aft driving station which makes this a fairly simple maneuver.  Easier than backing a car. This looks wide in the photo, but it didn't feel like it.  It was actually plenty wide, but Oh Well.   I guess I needed practice driving backwards. When we crossed our wake, we officially closed the loop and co...

The view from our dinner restaurant, Syren's in Poet's Cove last night...   Not bad as we dined on the patio with this spectacular view over the marina. In an uncanny display of lax standards, our Putin-approved police state of the USA has allowed us back in.   But enough about politics... Didn't the Beatles write a song about being back in the USSR?   Seems similar. It wasn't exactly "Breakfast at Tiffany's", but rather "Breakfast at Aurora" at Poet's Cove, Bedwell Harbour, S. Pender Island, BC.   This is the view from Aurora.   Nice! We jetted at a blistering 6 knots across Boundary Pass and into the USA, arriving at our anchoring spot for the evening.  Echo Bay, Sucia Island, WA. Karen is working on getting the anchor bridle setup while I'm driving (mostly drifting, at this point). Out for a dink ride this afternoon, between business meetings. The Sucia Islands are volcanic over what looks like limestone which gives the islands a...

  Today ended up being mostly a work day as I have a proposal I need to get out on Monday.   So, we did pretty much nothing outside of a nice hike and an evening dingy ride. We took off this afternoon for a hike around the Montague Harbour Marine Provincial Park. Obviously, it was about low tide, which exposed the bedrock and sedimentary layers of (limestone? shale?) It may look like tree bark, but it's the rock. A Great Blue Heron as versus the mediocre blue heron?  Or the not-quite-up-to-snuff blue heron?  That's a tough moniker to have to live with, being great all the time... I think it is a Great Blue Pterodactyl...  What do you think? Beautiful old oak tree with boughs to the water. Oysters everywhere.   This must have been a popular spot for the indigenous peoples.   I wonder if they wore pearls? Our intrepid author hard at work. A view back to the anchorage.  So many boats left today (Yea!). Back to the boat for dinner....