Bellingham

Sailboat on Bellingham Bay.

Edison was wonderful and we so enjoyed visiting our friends, but we had to move on to the exciting unknown portion of our adventure. Following Chuckanut Drive, we made our way north to Bellingham. We stopped along the highway and took photos, then made our way to Boulevard Park where we took a break and walked along Bellingham Bay.

Boulevard Park with the marina in the background.

Our friends Holly and Ryan were on the road and sent us a txt explaining that they were being slowed down by road construction. They asked us if we could do the remainder of the shopping for them and sent us a list. We drove to Fred Meyer and gathered their food items along with the provisions we needed to pick up. We packed the cooler and filled the truck with diesel and then headed down to Bellingham Port.

When we arrived at San Juan Sailing, we found out that we could not get on our boat until 6:30 PM. This information along with a lack of prior communication provided Linda and I a bit of anxiety boarding because we did not have a clue what the process for getting on the sailboat would be. I walked to a local chandlery and picked up fishing and crabbing licenses for the next week. Finally, Linda inquired in the main office and a gentleman explained some of the processes we needed to follow for our charter. Following his chat, we attended a safety meeting and by that time Holly, Ryan and the family arrived.
We all went down to our boat, Tivoli, and started poking around. The boat was a beauty, a Jeanneau 409 and she was 40 feet in length. It had been suggested that we look over the boat before we moved anything to the dock and as we did this an employee of San Juan Sailing came by and tried to explain the systems we needed to be familiar with for our week on the boat. She was very nice but did not know Tivoli's systems at all and her demonstrations were not very helpful. In fact, she ended up turning off the refrigerator instead of leaving it on, which I believe caused a bit of a problem that surfaced further on into our trip.

Tivoli at the San Juan Sailing dock. 

The move in began and we brought in cart after cart of food and baggage to store in our floating home. For the next few hours, it was a flurry of activity. Once we got settled in a bit we walked to the main office and grabbed a hot dog and drink, provided by the staff.

Exhausted we finally got the beds made and went to sleep. We were a bit apprehensive but too tired to let it affect us.

Our first look around Tivoli.