Google Searches

I'm always amused at some of the searches which bring new visitors to the blog. Today's gems included "katie jane live hot" - sorry, guys, I'm pretty sure my blog was NOT what you were after. Hope you had better luck on another site.

And then there was "Does Brock have worms?"

Really? Umm...No. Not as far as I know anyway. But thanks for asking. I think I'm most intrigued by the fact that we were the number one link on Google for that search.

Huh.

Happy Turkey Weekend To All

Had a lovely Thanksgiving evening out at the lake with the whole family, including my mom and grandma. We played spoons, ate pumpkin pie, and Nity & I went kayaking this morning. She likes to just go out to the middle of the lake and float, which coincidentally enough, I also love to do. So we just hung out there and had very Zen mom/daughter time on the water.

It was good to have some Zen onboard, because we then headed down to Westlake Center for the lighting of the Macy's Star. I had forgotten how much I dislike crowds...and pointlessly long extravaganza shows...and well, we had a good time anyway. Our friend Katy was singing with the Seattle Women's Chorus and they were great.

It's a decent start to another holiday season - not my favorite time of year, but one I generally manage to survive.

City Water

This week's Magic Brock Project gives us a teed connection with city water which creates all sorts of cool things...

• We have actual water pressure now. Showers are a whole new world with fantastic pressure.
• We're prolonging the life of KJ's water pump, as now it will be used when we're away from the dock and at anchor, but not for every day activities.
• When guests are onboard, they won't be rudely awakened by the water pump going off if somebody is up early trying to make coffee or shower. In the forward cabins, that's LOUD. You're welcome, NJ!
• As the freezing time of year approaches, we can always have our onboard tanks topped off. Then, when they shut off the water at the dock without notice, we'll be well-prepared to last a few weeks without having to find alternate water sources.

The potential downside? If there were to be a leak onboard, there is an unending supply of pressurized water & theoretically the boat could sink if the bilge pumps also failed & nobody noticed. Not so likely that all of those things would go wrong at once, but for best practice, we will make a habit of shutting off the water at the hose bib on the dock when we leave.

Well, Grainger is closed on the weekend, so that killed the project I had in mind for the day. We instead continued with further cleaning of the lazarette. Those big old 34" diameter, 33" props that were stored away don't do this boat any good at all anymore. We haven't found anyone we know who might need them (they're awfully specific), so tossed them up on Craigslist (after hauling them up through the deck hatch, which wasn't easy).

I can't imagine that we'll get someone who actually needs them for boating purposes, so we offered them up as yard art as well. If no one bites, we can at least scrap them at $1.30/lb. That seems a shame. Wonder if I could take a small bit and have it fashioned into some trinket (ring, tiny propeller pendant or earrings) as part of KJ history?

Large Locks Maintenance

The large locks are closed for maintenance for about 2 weeks. They're completely empty of water, so we took the kidlets down to check them out last night. Unfortunately, none of my photos turned out. It was impressive though, so if you're in the Seattle area looking for something to do today, that's not a bad outing. Lots of water being released as well - 5 spillways are open.


There were a couple of small coho in the fish ladder. Nity found the eggs interesting.


And now we're on to Project KJ Saturday - there's always some way we can be improving this thing!

October in the San Juans

It's been an awfully busy few weeks. We took my father to the San Juan Islands on Katherine Jane. He always wants to ride the ferries when he's here. Like, every single day. Again. And then the next day. It's been that way for 17 years, so Brock and I figured there couldn't be anything better than a private yacht of his own for days and days.


The theory seemed to have merit.


We got Miss Jo-Jo up at 3:00 am for the Orionid meteor showers. Well, actually, Brock got me up first, because it was crystal clear and calm and perfect outside. And then I had to explain to him about the proper way to wake people up in the middle of the night, which was not the way he did it at first (think: gentle). Dad was already up, of course. So I went to include the kids. SB was definitely uninterested in some freakin' star show, but NJ got up, somewhat begrudgingly. I tried all the gentle, encouraging techniques for getting her dressed warmly and up on deck.

We stepped outside and *poof* half the sky was covered in clouds and the visibility continued to deteriorate fast. NJ managed to get in some good sarcastic jibes about people who drag other people out of bed to look at cloudy nights, but even she managed to catch a glimpse of 5+ shooting stars. And we had hot cider. So it wasn't a total loss from her perspective.


We found Dad his own private island and left him on it for several hours when the closeness started to get to him (he lives on 16 acres next to a 4870 acre state park with nobody in it except him and my step-mom ~ his hermit instincts are sharply honed). Blind Island State Park was pretty much perfect for him. Three acres, all to himself.



We joined him eventually, bringing freshly baked scones with strawberry jam.



The dryer requires us to run the generator, so we decided to try an alternative and save some fuel. Heck, we were running the main engines anyway. Might as well use the heat for something good! It worked quite well & the clothes didn't even smell too badly of diesel. We volunteered Dad's clothes for the experiment. Thanks, Dad!


Onward to Jones Island, one of our very favorites. We climbed to the top of the island...


and climbed down to the base through the tide pools. It was a Forced Death March for Nity after she found the most perfect, best beach in the whole world and then we made her leave it. Sorry, Nit!


Sunrise as we left the islands was reportedly beautiful. I was, of course, asleep.


We came home a day early because of incoming stormy weather - no sense bucking 30-40 mph winds all the way up Admiralty Inlet. Within 15 minutes of arriving at the dock, we hit the road again, off to stay at Ocean Shores to watch the storm. It was blowing like crazy.


Finished it off with a drive the next day to Lake Quinault. We circled the lake & encountered a herd of 30 or so elk. And encountered some really big trees. My dad got to sit on a wet log in the woods.

So I think overall it was a very good visit.