We arrived in Port Townsend yesterday afternoon and headed for what's becoming our usual slip at the Point Hudson Marina, then met up with several friends who were camping here for the weekend: Dave and Ann Zimmerman of Advodna (and their two daughters, Wynne-3, and Mae-9 months), and Kathy Harderson, who is here with a group of gals called The Tin Can Gypsies…all with their super cute vintage trailers.
Dave and Ann had us over for an early dinner at their Airstream. We hadn't seen them since last March when we stopped for a visit at their farmlet in Petaluma, CA, and it was really good to catch up! (Plus, they have a new family member since then!) They're on their way to Vancouver Island and then north to Alaska in their Airstream. We'll miss them in Juneau by 10 days or so, dangit!
This is Mae and Dave on the beach before dinner last night. Would you get a load of those dimples!?!?
Anyway, after a delicious dinner, we stopped in at the vintage trailer camp and met up with Kathy's group and ended up walking down to the boat to give a quick tour. (I think we had 13 people on Airship at once!) We had to disturb this cute little guy to get to the boat. Sorry buddy!
Sunset from the dock:
After the tour of Airship, we went up to the Tin Can Gypsy camp and hung out around the Costco campfire for the rest of the night with the vintage trailer gals and another cool couple camped here in an Airstream.
A little later, we noticed a couple of guys walking past and checking out the vintage trailers, so we invited them to join the party. Meet our new friends Dwayne and Octavio from Poulsbo, WA.
I took a few photos, but most of them were blurry, because…dark…campfire…wine….whatever. This is the one that wasn't blurry.
We had a few more random party-joiners as the evening went on…it was a fun night with a lot of great folks! I wish I'd have taken more photos of the trailers, but trust me, they were all fabulous. Here are a few details from the inside of Kathy's little Shasta that I took earlier though:
This is the chandelier inside her bar cabinet:
Photos can't possibly show you how amazing this little trailer is. It's a perfect work of art and we just LOVED it.
At dinner with the Zimmermans earlier, we'd made a plan to take Dave and Wynne for a little cruise this morning, and last night before we left the campfire I told anyone else who wanted to come to show up at 9:30 this morning. This morning, Kevin said "How many people did you invite to come with us last night?" and I said "All of 'em!" :)
Turns out we only had two other takers, Dwayne and Octavio, so it was a beautiful cruise for 6 today!
Wynne, looking for whales:
Our route from this morning:
We saw only one seal, but the weather could not have been better and everyone seemed to really enjoy getting the view of town and the Olympic Mountain backdrop from the water. We may walk into town in a bit, and then meet up with Dave and Ann for dinner again tonight.
Here's yesterday's route from Anacortes to Port Townsend (about 30 nautical miles):
This is great information. We are in the first phase of looking for a tug. We also like the Nordic and American brands. It was interesting to read how you are thinking of a bigger boat. We are in a similar place. Do we buy a smaller boat that might be easier to handle and learn on? Or do we buy one that fills our desire for that second state room?
Love your blog!
Thanks Nancy! The Nordic 34 is such a great boat…and I think had we known how much we were going to LOVE boating, we might have gone with the larger one first. (I think since we began the whole thing by looking at Rangers, we kinda thought we WERE doing the second boat first…but no.) Also, we like taking people with us more than we thought we would, so that second stateroom would be REALLY convenient. We don’t really care much about the second head, but I can see where it would be nice to have.
Welcome to ‘2 foot ‘itis. It never goes away…
Actually, I think for us it does go away! We started with a 22′ Airstream and moved up to a 27′ Airstream, and that size is perfect. We don’t want anything larger because it would limit where we could go. Similar with the boat, so we really want to pick the biggest small boat that’s good for living aboard but also not so limiting as to where we can go. I think we can do it! 🙂
We looked long and hard at the NT42 and came close to offering on one. But we wanted the very smallest boat that met our minimum requirements (like you), which included a second stateroom (also like you). Although the 42 had bigger spaces, we had no need for a second head, and we felt the sightlines and openness of the 37/39 was preferable. However, on the other side, you are spending a lot of time on the boat, so bigger may be better. Hard to decide!
It IS hard to decide! We’ll just keep looking and learning. We definitely like the sightlines and openness of the 37/39/40 too…and don’t really need another head either (but can see how it would be nice to have sometimes…. In the end, it’ll probably just come down to how the boat feels when we’re in it. 🙂
Oh my god!!!!!