One of our favorite little tugs, Quilceda, is out on the dry dock at Hansens Boat Yard just down the slough. There was a bunch of commotion out here around 7:00 this morning and next thing I knew they were pulling her out. I’m not sure if it was scheduled or not, but Hansen’s is definitely convenient!

Her sister ship, Fidalgo, was busy at work in the river today. She was pulling a huge barge up river when I last saw her. The Snohomish River bridge has been closed at least twice today; traffic has been quite snarly.

The weather has had a huge break ~ it’s warm and sunshine is peeking through! Hallelujah! I’ve been wandering about the docks in my bare feet, just because I can. It’s supposed to get into the 50’s today, but the current 46 degrees feels just wonderful to me.

Leave it to me to time it so that my “luxury hotel” (aka the folks’ house) will be undergoing major demolitions when I’m there. The most recent post from our reporter on the scene (aka Mom):

I think I told you that when we arrived back here in the fall, our sliding doors (east wall looking out on back yard) didn’t move well (in fact, the one in the bedroom wouldn’t shut at all). Even our unenlightened eyes could tell the beams supporting the upper windows seemed to bow out and everything looked like it was sagging. Our contractor assured us the place wouldn’t fall down between then and Christmas and he’d fix it after the new year. On January 2, he took out all the sheetrock and exposed the worst framing job in the history of house building. A 20′ header was supported on one end by 1/2″ of post. It was really ugly. Last Monday, all the windows and doors were removed from the east side of the house and reframing started on Thursday. One slider has been reframed and looks so solid that we think the end of the world would have to occur before it falls. Two more slider areas and the big picture window to go. Contractor hopes to have those done by Tuesday night with windows and doors being scheduled to go back in Wednesday and Thursday. We’ve had plastic over the openings for a week now and it’s been surprisingly warm but pretty ugly since we can’t see out. Fortunately, we’ve been so busy working on our consulting project we haven’t had time to notice. We have the rug pulled back and all furniture covered in plastic. We’ve been living in the kitchen, den and guest room (we had never slept in there before and were happy to find a comfortable bed – hope you enjoy it too). Anyway, this is to say that the place is a mess but by Friday, we’ll take the plastic off the furniture and can sit around and enjoy our new framing. We’ll move back into our bedroom and return the guest room to you after our company leaves Sunday morning. I’m sure the contractor won’t start sheet rocking until after you leave. So expect ugly, but VERY SAFE!

I’ll be sure to post photos for all of you to enjoy. Maybe Greg will share some photos of the five star hotel he’ll be staying in while he’s in New York at the same time. You can compare and see who got the better deal!

As of today, we can now add “kitchen sink” to the list of things that float by. This one got stuck under the boat, but was ably retrieved by the Captain. Now I wonder if the rest of whatever boat it came from will be floating by as well ~

An Inconvenient Truth

Wow. Just got done watching it and it was profound (I know I’m behind the curve on this one ~ everyone else saw it last summer. What can I say?). “A nature hike through the Book of Revelations?” Yeah. I’m ratifying the Kyoto Protocol on my own little boat anyway. Thinking a solar boat is a great idea in many ways. The BMW? Not so much.

I’ll be in California next week and we’re touring the wind farms down in the desert. I’ve always wanted to know more about how they work.

Greg has been volunteering for the past few months with the MIPD Marine Unit for patrol. He received an email from them today ~ apparently the cold weather claimed another victim, their only boat in service. The theory is that the intake lines froze, cracked, and the boat flooded. Unfortunately, very expensive equipment is now destroyed and it will take a while to get the Marine Patrol back in service. Ouch!