Landlubbers, For Now...

Part of our winterization program is to put stabilizer in the gasoline for Roe and then run it around for a bit.   That is what I was doing when I took this photo of the PMC dock with Blue Redd tied alongside.

And here I am running around in Roe.

After this it was just a day of various maintenance and winterization chores.

More interesting was dinner over at John & Teri's (and Meaghan & Ian too) home.   Great people, good friends, and solid conversations.

Not to mention great giant ahi steaks!

Back aboard Blue Redd the next morning, master woodworker, Tristan DeYoung of DeYoung Boatworks came aboard to review the long list of maintenance and projects that need to be completed over the next winter.  Here, Tristan and Karen are discussing fiddles for the dishes and glassware.

When we get bounded around out there, we don't want dishes and glassware flying about and breaking.

Someone asked about what kind of maintenance we do to the boat over the winter months.

Here, you can see a bit of diesel around an injector tube as it exits the pump; can't have that!

And here you can see the green bits in the raw water pump for the generator.   New seal time as we don't want water leaks, and especially no raw (sea) water leaks.

It is always so sad when the season comes to an end.   It's OK, we will be back again next season!

Next year, we are hoping that fuel prices, weather, sea conditions, and timing work out so we can go to Prince William Sound.   We have been told repeatedly that it is stunningly beautiful.  Sign us up!

You probably can't see the details in this picture well, but it depicts the sum total of our summer adventures aboard Blue Redd.

For those of you who are curious...

We departed Anacortes on Sunday May 17, 2026 and retuned on Sunday September 21, 2026.   That is 128 days underway with a few days on either side to prep and then de-prep (is that a word?).

We covered 2,745 nautical miles at an average speed of 6.39 knots consuming 1,126.37 gallons of diesel.   Running the Kabola diesel furnace (I hate to be cold, you know) for 3,192 hours consumed another 446.88 gallons of diesel (I may have to rethink this cold thing...).   Lastly add to that the occasional generator use for 152 hours consuming another 324.66 gallons yielded a total diesel consumption of 1,897.86 gallons.

Over the course of our summer adventure:

We (I) broke the outboard engine on Roe by ingesting saltwater into it.  We still don't know how that happened, but it was either an improperly sealed gas tank cap (which it was not properly closed) or I had a water contaminated fuel storage tank (not sure).   The result was an expensive new engine.

We also discovered that if we leave the swimstep shower valves open that there is enough leakage through the valve, that we get no hot water.   Cold showers are not fun (remember, I don't like cold).  So, not an expensive fix, just gotta remember to shut off the valves.

I had a mysterious water leak under the hot water tank for the boat.   I presumed it was the tank leaking, but it stopped.   Now I don't know what was leaking, so I can't fix it until it leaks next time.   Which will probably be in some incredibly inconvenient location right after my ice-cold shower...

Our ice-maker stopped working, but that was not a big deal.   We had procured enough glacial ice to last us for the remainder of our trip.   We actually threw out about 3 cubes of glacial ice at the end.   But I'll add that to the list of items to be repaired over the winter.

We also had a leak from the base of my Sionyx night-vision camera into the pilothouse dashboard.  Well, the Sionyx (1st generation) works soooo poorly, I don't use it.   So, I bagged it and taped it up.  This will get replaced with the newer version and I will hope for the best (a highly functional night vision camera that doesn't leak)!

Now on to the more interesting things (in no particular order)...

This is a photo of the PMC boat yard where they store and work on Blue Redd all winter.

The river otter family at the breakwater in Comox.

The black bear, and many brown bears we saw throughout the trip.

The unexpected and unwanted visit from the Canadian Coast Guard to verify fishing licenses near Bella Bella.

Bill & Nicki fishing fanatics and master bake chef.

Karen's first attempt at the SUP - and she's standing!!!

Finally, after 3 years of trying, we met up with Jack and Sarah in Ketchikan.

Taylor & Lizzy at the LeConte Glacier.

Mermaids in the pool at Baranof Warm springs.

Breaching and playing humpbacks in Peril strait.

Capain Lizzy at the helm with Taylor cracking-up in the background.

We saw humpbacks almost every day in Alaska.   This one was in Whale Passage in Northern Canada.

Denali.   What a fabulous side-trip.   We took a flight around Denali.

And landed on the Triple Crown Glacier and walked around on it.

The Talkeetna Tracker's team (Mark, Susan, Karen & Peter) for the scavenger hunt in Talkeetna.

The breaching juvenile humpback in the Kenai Fjords.

The "murdered" Tohatsu outboard events.   Here, we are hauling Roe to take her and the attached dead outboard to the shop.

Naming icebergs in Glacier Bay.  Susan named this one Alienberg.   We were cracking ourselves up.

Susan's first berg (unnamed) in Frederick Sound, just north of Petersburg.

Paul & Cheryl in Edmonds as we were getting ready to start our grand voyage.

Our first day out.   Here we are exiting Guemes Channel and getting ready to cross Rosario Strait.  The outbound leg is always exciting as it holds the promise of adventures to come.