August 2: Roche Harbor to Forrest Island

This morning was a lazy morning. We woke up (me later than others) and had some breakfast and, as my mom says, “puttered” around a bit before we took the tender into Roche Harbor, where we promptly lost Pam and my mom in a clothing store. Bud grabbed a newspaper and found a table to read it at and my dad and I started wandering around town. When I was walking around I came upon some thimbleberries on the side of the road that happened to be ripe, so I went ahead and ate ‘em. Nothing better than free food. After walking around for about half an hour I went back and sat down with Bud and my dad to wait for the shoppers. Once the shoppers were finished we grabbed some local ice cream and then headed back to the boat.

Thimbleberries

Once we got back to the boat we waited to hear from Auntie Bev and Auntie Shirley to see where they were. It turned out there was a big fog bank in Seattle so the floatplane they were planning on taking to Roche Harbor was indefinitely delayed. They ended up taking a ferry to Anacortes and then another one to Port Sidney in Canada, where we would pick them up. After we found this out we pulled anchor and headed up to Port Sidney where we had to clear customs.

Roche Harbor

When Auntie Shirley and Auntie Bev arrived and cleared customs we left Port Sidney and motored over to the Sievers’ island, Forrest Island, which was about ten minutes away. Once we docked and greeted everyone we headed to the house and got things ready for dinner. Jim grilled a few (12) chickens and boiled some corn and JuLee had bought several salads.

After dinner Jim Sievers and Bud started a big bonfire for everyone and my dad dazzled everyone with his dishwashing skills. Everyone sat around the fire talking and having dessert and playing with dogs. As the night wound down Bud suggested that Matt get some fireworks he had on the boat. It has to be said that these were some Mexican fire works and had a short fuse to say the least. Jim and Bruce Erickson rooted bud and Matt on and the first bottle rocket went off without a hitch. Bolstered by the success of the first explosive they decided to set off a second rocket, which ended up being a little more than they anticipated. As the rocket launched and arced over the water another part of the firework went off on the ground and sent little white streaks into the surrounding crowd sitting around the bonfire. It was entertaining to say the least and it provided a great finale to the evening in my opinion.