We woke up early at Rosario this morning and I snapped the above shot from the back of the boat (outside, about 31 degrees Farenheit, brrrr). We had coffee and showered and headed up to the Mansion Restaurant for breakfast. We'd checked out the menu during our cocktail and snacks last night and it looked great. (The dinner menu also looked great, but our snacks last night ended up being dinner.)
One of the things on the sample menu was a Croque Madame, which I was really excited about (open-faced ham and gruyere sandwich, topped with sunny side up egg and creamy béchamel sauce, served with local mixed greens). However, today's menu did not have the Croque Madame on it (awwwww) so we both ordered the traditional Eggs Benedict and they were PERFECT. The eggs were perfect, the ham wasn't too thick, the Hollandaise was great and lemony…served with asparagus. Delicious.
The restaurant is on what used to be the porch (now enclosed) of the Moran Mansion and it's got a great view of Cascade Bay. That's "shadow Kevin" on the left.
After breakfast we headed back to Airship and took off toward Matia Island (the very long way, around the west side of Orcas). The weather was gorgeous, again. We are so lucky this November weekend to have such beautiful weather.
So, we're coming around the west side of Orcas, and I head down to the head, and all of a sudden Kevin yells "Whales!! Humpbacks!!" and so I bolt back up to the pilot house and holy crap! More humpbacks. Super cool! There were two in front of us and we eventually noticed a couple more behind us…
We put it in neutral and just hung out with the whales for about a half an hour. Incredible. (And this time I had my long lens with me!)
After thanking the whales for a fantastic show, we headed on our way to Matia Island. Here's another shot of the Garmin, using the Mariner's Eye view mode (our boat is in the center, toward the bottom of the screen). It's pretty neat! (The red is radar…stuff you want to avoid…but in rough water even waves show up as red.)
We got to Matia Island (Rolfe Cove) and found the two mooring buoys there as advertised, but the current was pretty bad in the cove. After we snagged a mooring buoy (the second time past it!), we decided it wasn't going to be a very chill night of sleep decided to head to our backup plan.
The next island over: Sucia Island. We are docked at Fossil Bay:
When we arrived, there was only one other boat moored here: a Grand Banks. Its owners had taken their dinghy and gone ashore, and they were returning right as we were docking. We had a nice conversation with them: they just bought their boat in September (same as us) and it is their first "big boat" (same as us). They are from Vancouver B.C., commuting South to use their boat, as we are commuting North to use ours. This was their first time at Sucia, and we told them some of the places we liked up here after exploring as much as we have since we bought our boat. (Tonight is night 30 on Airship!)
One more boat was coming into the bay as we headed back to the boat after filling out our registration, so three boats total in Fossil Bay tonight:
Sucia sunset:
Dinner: fresh halibut, rosemary fingerling potatoes, and sauteed spinach. Tomorrow morning I think Kevin's going to do some quadcopter flying/photography. Finally! 🙂
Here's today's route map (click to enlarge):
