Shane circumnavigated his remaining islands around Sucia Island on the paddleboard. He has a goal of paddling all named rocks and Islands of the Puget Sound. There are over 300. He’s put a pretty good dent on that over the past couple of years. It definitely helps to be a swim platform away from the area you’d like to paddle! He was back before 9am.
During that time I was able to get a barre workout in. Without the inverter on, my connection to the outside world is not great out here (until later when we hiked). Thankfully, the barre service I subscribe to has short reels posted, so I got a few moves to work through in between making coffee and preparing breakfasts in the galley.
At 9am summer school started. The kids changed and started their formal math, grammar, and reading. We did our Pimsleur Spanish lesson over lunch too. I really need to figure out what I’m going to do about books onboard. When we were in Port Townsend we had so many books thanks to the library. I’m not a fan of having the kids on their screens to read books borrowed through the library. So do I buy them paperback books, look for a digital bulk buying service, or just go with audiobooks? They do really live audiobooks, and I know they will come in handy when we are underway and conditions aren’t great.
After lunch I attempted to do some laundry in my sink. A book I have suggested I could wash my laundry by hand, first using sea water and rinsing with freshwater to get it clean.
I tested this out with a few small towels and one large dish towel. All but the dish towel dried and smelled clean. The dish towel smelled clean, but was still damp. It could be because of saltwater remnants, or it could have been because it’s so humid, only slightly warm, and with a weaker sun. Either way, I had fun plunging the laundry around the rim of the sink to agitate it.
After laundry and cleaning up lunch dishes Shane took the boys, my mom, and I to shore for a hike. We took the Ewing Cove trail, the one we had not gone on last time we were here. Check out our last trip to Sucia.
Ewing Cove was beautiful, and the trail even more so! We were all so excited seeing what a variety of wild flowers and trees were sprinkled along our walking path. The drop offs were pretty significant at times. I’m grateful to be experiencing this now that the kids are older and not as worried about them being unaware of their surroundings. Thes boys were only semi unaware of what was going on – kidding.
Wyatt was busy telling Grammy stories and Kelly recited lines from funny videos and shows he had watched as we went along our way. The rock formations are just incredible all around the shores of the island. Climbing around them to get closer to the beach was a trip, seeing other small rocks stuck in the sediment and the wear and tear over centuries of weather and water reminded me of how crazy our planet can be.
It was time for dinner, so Shane taxied us back to the boats. I was making a quinoa bowl with avocado, kale, yams, and an almond butter sauce. I was able to blend up my sauce no problem with my food processor. I was given a tip from Wholesome Sailors on the food processor they use. It’s a Breville, the brand of juicer I used almost every other day for close to a decade with no issues. It has attachments for a variety of uses: whipping chickpea water into a froth (I did that by hand last winter), processing sauces and butters, blending smoothies, and making soups creamier. It took a few weeks to ship, and is a little pricey, but so far worth it.
My main issue is with cooking starches in the oven. I used to make fries from raw potatoes in the oven. My little oven, try as it might, can’t get them dry enough to cook the inside and make them crisp. This time I tried to steam the fries first to cook them, dry, and then roast with avocado oil and a generous amount of sea salt. Still mush. I’ll keep working on it.
While I cooked the boys paddled with Shane. Kelly was on the One SUP, Wyatt on the F-one, and Shane rowing the dinghy behind them.
After dinner we chatted with Grammy and Grampy and the boys watched a movie before bed.
Kelly and I were dessert for at least one mosquito during the night. We will have to figure out a solution for bugs pronto. The benefit was that we got to see the moon out over Orcas Island across the way.
We were all grateful for the day.