Return Home to Port Ludlow, Washington 09.24.2013

After a pleasant morning in Friday Harbor it was time to travel home to Port Ludlow, Washington.

 

We left the dock and headed south in San Juan Channel, thru Cattle Pass, crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca entering Admiralty Inlet off of Port Townsend.  Rounding Point Wilson we headed south down the west side of Marrowstone Island and into Port Ludlow returning home to our slip in the Port Ludlow Marina after being gone 128 days.

                

Our friend Michael was there at the dock waiting for us when we arrived!  How nice to see him.  Michael & Jane (you may remember that Jane saw us off the dock when we left Port Ludlow back in May!) brought our car down to the marina so that we would have transportation home. 

               

 

Because the car was left in the garage unused for so long our battery was dead.  It was time to get a new battery before we left but we thought we could take care of it when we returned.  As luck would have it the Interstate Battery salesman was just pulling into the marina parking lot with his truck to drop off supplies so we were able to get a brand new battery on the spot!  How luck is that!

It is nice to be back at the house – but full of the normal chores after traveling. 

                

Lots & lots of mail!  I went to the post office to pick up our business mail and all total we have 5 boxes of mail!  This is just one of them!

         

      

It’s surprising how many things we had on the boat for this trip!  Even though we planned and spent three years getting the boat ready – we brought along many replacement items like extra pumps, belts, filters, extra anchor, etc…  We weren’t sure if we would be able to get replacements and if we were how much would these things cost?!?  Thank goodness, with all of Bruce’s planning we really didn’t need to brake out these supplies!

Since I was unsure if we would be able to find grocery supplies easily while up in Alaska, I brought a lot of can goods that I do not ordinarily have on the boat like canned vegetables, as well as, freeze dried fruits, powered foods like milk, cheese, eggs, butter, hamburger, etc...  I always keep canned soups, stewed tomatoes, chili, stews and such in case we run into wet rainy weather.  It is really easy to just throw on a can of soup on top of the diesel stove and let it simmer awhile.

Our niece Lindsey is a rep for Shelf Reliance selling Thrive Foods – which is emergency food kits and food storage supplies.  So we brought a bunch of pantry size cans that are all double sealed of daily items we could eat if we could not get these supplies in the local stores.  Lindsey makes AMAZING meals from these products so I was fairly confident I could do it if needed!    

Since we have been home we have made several trips taking all these items off the boat and getting it ready for the winter. 

It will take a little while to gather our thoughts about our truly amazing journey to Alaska this summer. 

In the meantime let me share some statistics with you regarding our trip:

 

STATS:

 Left Port Ludlow for Alaska:        05.19.2013                          

Returned to Port Ludlow:             09.24.2013                          

Total miles traveled:                       3,000+ miles                                 

Total engine hours:                         430.9 hours

Pictures taken:                                  5,300+

It took us 21 days to reach Alaska; we spent 62 days in Alaska; & our journey lasted 128 days total!!!

 It was a wonderful trip and an event we will never forget.  Thank you all for following and your comments along the way.  We hope you enjoyed what we were able to share as much as we enjoyed making it available to you.

It’s nice to be home.