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It’s not every day you wake up to find a sailboat had drifted down past Alice during the night and is laying untethered between the rowing dock and the KatieG.

It turns out there was someone on it, and when I went and spoke to him he had quite the tale about just getting his boat out of impound and that someone must have untied his boat from the dock where he was squatting sometime during the night.  I’m just very grateful that the boat didn’t hit Alice or KatieG as it drifted by.

He said he was having trouble with his outboard motor and that he had his phone charging at a local cafe and just needed twenty minutes or so before he’d be on his way.  The guy then tied up to the rowing club dock which of course the rowers didn’t take too kindly to.

He decided to go swimming so hopped on the dock, stripped off to his underwear and jumped in the lake.  He swam across to Alice and climbed up onto our deck.  I told him he couldn’t be there and to swim back to the dock and put his clothes back on.  He was nice enough and did exactly that.

After a while the  Seattle Police Harbor Patrol showed up and a lengthy discussion ensued.  He must have explained that his outboard motor was having problems and at one point he requested and the police gave him a large hammer, which he proceeded to hit the motor with but to no avail.

After some more lengthy discussions the Harbor Patrol decided to move him on.

This resulted in even more drama when the tow rope became loose and the sailboat headed for Bob and Cathy’s houseboat.  The police managed to get it back under control and moved him out into the lake.

Sometime in this process the guy managed to get the outboard running so the police cut him loose and he headed towards the ship canal.  Of course he couldn’t signal the Fremont bridge to open, so the police did this for him.  While he was waiting he had difficulty controlling the boat so he tied up to the pilings close to the bridge.

 

After the bridge opened, the guy still seemed to be having some issues as he went under the bridge sideways, before seeming to get everything under control.

 

The last I saw of him, the guy was motoring down the canal waving to other boaters as he passed.  I sure hope he is safe and finds somewhere to tie up.  He certainly had a most interesting start to his day!

 

We have now closed on our new property in Hawaii.  I went over soon afterwards to make arrangements with the property management, and with contractors to make some repairs and improvements including refinishing the kitchen cabinets, repainting and installing air conditioning and a new hot tub.

I had a lot of help from Nick our new property manager and from Tai the interior designer and the work continues after I returned to Seattle.  Everything went quite smoothly with transferring the water and electricity accounts, having the cable and internet connected and arranging rubbish pickup.

I had a very pleasant experience and everyone I met and dealt with was very friendly and competent.  I was very busy during the week with the chores around the house, including throwing out many bags of rubbish that was left behind by the previous owner and making a dent in the garden weeds.

During the week I picked up new pool furniture which made a nice difference to the pool-side ambiance.

I also participated in a number of work calls, some of which were quite early in the morning given the time zone difference. But I was very happy to get out for a kayak twice which was a very pleasant way to start my day.

One aspect of living in Hawaii that we will truly enjoy are the sunsets.  Each night they just seemed to get prettier.

Once all the work is completed, we will be doing vacation rentals (the property is already booked from May 27 through June).  Then we figure in around 18 months we will move over to enjoy the property full time.  In the meantime, Grant and Luke will use the place for their honeymoon and we’ll have a family vacation over Christmas.

I’m really looking forward to it!

 

When you live in the self-proclaimed “center of the universe”, you never know quite what to expect.  This weekend was Easter weekend and also our wedding anniversary.  On Saturday, the weather cooperated and so we wandered around Fremont and made our way to Fremont Brewing for our our first beers in the outside beer garden for the season – nice!

 

 

As we made our way around Fremont, we discovered that the locals had dressed up many of the outdoor sculptures and such with bunny ears.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These were well done and later when we found someone had removed the ears from the clown statue, Alice went into fix-it mode.

 

And it wasn’t just the outdoor sculptures – when I went to the gym in the morning their window log was also sporting ears.

It certainly is a fun place to live.

 

This year we decided to head to Hawaii for Alice’s birthday.  It would be fun and give us a break from the winter weather in Seattle.  Unfortunately not long before we left Alice’s sister passed away and then Alice had the further misfortune of slipping on the grassy berm near the houseboat and breaking her arm.  Nevertheless we pushed on and left for some relaxation (Alice certainly deserved it) with a week on Hawaii’s Big Island.

I had reserved an oceanfront room in Kailua-Kona, which gave us a brilliant view and nice sea breezes with the only drawback being the outrigger paddlers making some noise at 6am every morning.  Oh well.

 

 

We decided while we were there to explore the island and to enjoy some different experiences.  The first such experience was Alice finding maitai cocktails.

 

Once started she was on a mission, which inevitably led to Don’s Beachcomber bar the home of the original maitai.  We made it there just in time to see a very pretty sunset.

 

 

Next up was a Hawaiian luau.  Alice was very impressed by the young male dancers and of course what made her even happier was the endless supply of – you guessed it – maitais.

 

We also decided as a special birthday treat to take a helicopter ride over the waterfalls and volcano.  This was truly spectacular and because I played the birthday card when making the booking, we were able to sit up front with Alice front and center next to the pilot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I managed to get out on a kayak for a paddle a couple of days and on my second outing I had a close encounter with a pod of dolphins which was a remarkable experience.

The weather was just right – high 70s to low 80s and life certainly was good.

We also took at look at the Puuhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park.  This was very impressive.

 

 

Across the bay from this site is the memorial to Captain James Cook who was killed on this spot after some misunderstandings and trouble between him and his crew and the local King and his people.

 

 

 

While there we took a look at some properties and were impressed with what we found.  Since then we made an offer on a waterfront property which was accepted so it seems we’ll be spending much time in Hawaii – aloha!

So all in it was a great vacation and we came back with a dress for Alice, a t-shirt for me, some rum cakes for friends and a new house!

It definitely was time to leave Seattle for several days to warm up, enjoy some sunshine and have a complete change of scenery.  As neither Kate and Adam nor Grant and Luke would be around for the holidays, Alice and I decided (after a small debate) to head to Florida.

Alice decided she absolutely needed to visit the new and improved Harry Potter World within Universal Studios and I figured a few days on the beach would be a great way to enjoy some warmth and sunshine.

So off we went and stayed at a Universal property – Loews Portofino. It was a nice property, a little more our pace than some others that more family and youth oriented and the bonus was the short boat ride to the theme parks and of course the early admission and the Express ride benefits.

We certainly had fun and took advantage of the early admission to ride the most popular rides a couple of times in quick succession.  You can tell the newer technology incorporated into each generation of the rides and even though “Harry and the Forbidden Journey” remains a favorite, some of the features in the newer “Harry and the Escape from Gringotts” were even more impressive.

A new addition that is very cool is the Hogwarts train that connects the two theme parks.  The ride itself is complete with a story line and animation that is different in each direction.

Also new from our last visit is Diagon Alley and Alice made sure we visited every store and spent time admiring the goods.  We also bought some gifts for Kaitlin and Adam as well as Alice’s surrogate grandchildren.

At night there is a light show on the Hogwarts castle which is very impressive and results in a large crowd – when we were there thy had to limit the number of people coming into that area of the park.

In addition to the theme parks we spent time around the pool enjoying the sunshine and in the evening explored the bars and restaurants of City Walk.  Christmas dinner was a very nice affair in Bice restaurant at the Portofino.

From Universal we drove over to New Smyrna Beach but took a detour on the way to visit St Augustine (a very cool and older town with a lot of history) as well as Daytona Beach.

The condo had a beautiful outlook over the beach so we could enjoy the sound of waves (in Seattle waves means an idiot who doesn’t know or care about no-wake zones on the lake) as well as beautiful sunrises.

Unfortunately the weather turned a little chilly which was a bummer as neither Alice nor I had brought a coat for colder weather.  Nevertheless we enjoyed ourselves and found a great French bakery as well as some nice coffee shops and bars which made up for the weather.

We were aware that Florida is into critters like “Gators” but weren’t aware that we’d run into dinosaurs.  This one chased Alice down in the condo carpark, asking if she knew the location of Jurassic Park.

We explored the Canaveral state park and on our last day made the trip to Cocoa Beach which really is the quintessential beach town.  The sun was shining, the surfers were out, we had a great lunch.

We flew back and even Seattle had some sunshine on New Year’s Eve.  Previously in a very unusual occurrence, Seattle had a white Christmas as shown in the photo by one of our neighbors.  It seems we certainly made the right decision to escape to Florida.

Fremont celebrates the holidays in some unique ways.  The first real event is “Festivus” which includes a gathering in the square, airing of grievances, various competitions of strength, a chicken dance and finally the lighting of the statue of Lenin.

 

 

As usual, Alice was very engaged and even won a prize for the best grievance for her description of how annoyed she is by the plethora of ride-sharing bikes and how they are left very haphazardly in the most inconvenient locations.

Fremont also hosts the Christmas Boat Parade in the ship canal.  This year was the largest fleet we’ve seen – 50 to 60 well decorated boats of all sizes along with a few paddle boarders and a couple of kayaks all with decorative lighting.

 

 

 

 

There was a number of ways that the boats expressed holiday wishes.

Pirate ships, plenty of Santa Clauses, some polar bears, reindeer, and an abominable snow man all made appearances.  But Alice I thought the boat below had the most different aspects of holiday covered – it had it all going on!

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving has come around again and Kaitlin and Adam came to spend the week with us.  It’s always great to spend time with them and even better this time as we managed to get away for a couple of days to Rosario resort on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands.

Of course the first event was picking them up at the airport as Alice had to live up to her reputation and an outlandish outfit or accessory to greet them.  She kept to the Thanksgiving theme with turkey headgear and a very large turkey balloon.

They spent a few days with us on ‘Alice” the houseboat, with Adam working remotely and Kaitlin visiting friends and even managing to get lunch at the Aussie pub in Ballard.

 

Then it was off to Anacortes for the ferry ride to Orcas Island.  It’s always a very relaxing way to travel and our goal is to ride every ferry route in the Pacific Northwest.  Rosario resort is a wonderful old place with an interesting history and is very well maintained.  Mr Moran who built the property after being a successful shipbuilder in Seattle also donated 5,000 acres for the Moran Statge Park.

Kaitlin heard there was a nice waterfall – Cascade Falls so she decided we needed to go on a hike to it.  So on Thanksgiving morning, she and I braved the wet weather and headed off around Cascade Lake and ended at the falls.

 

 

It certainly was very pretty and although we looked like drowned rats, we enjoyed the six mile hike.

 

That afternoon, Alice and I took a drive to the top of Mt Constitution which has a tower on the top that provides fantastic 360 degree views.

 

 

 

 

 

As our neighbors, Mike and Patti, and their family and friends were also at Rosario, we all got together before dinner for a champagne toast.

 

After a truly wonderful Thanksgiving dinner buffet, we all managed to stumble back to our rooms.

 

 

The next day was the return back to Seattle on the ferry before we all resume our busy working lives.  It was a great time together and we certainly enjoyed the break and are so thankful that Adam and Kaitlin decided to spend time with us.

This week was Halloween and of course Alice was super excited.  The birthday of the Fremont Troll who lives under the Aurora Bridge is celebrated on Halloween in a special event called “Trolloween”.

 

 

Typically this involves quite a crowd of costumed revelers gathering at the Troll on the evening of Halloween to see an amateur play (yay!), maybe hear some political speeches (boo!) and as legend has it, if you make enough noise the Troll may very well wake up.

The play is followed by a parade to downtown Fremont and dancing in the streets – suitably monitored by the local police.  We joined in the celebrations with our neighbors Mike and Patti and had a grand time, which was made more fun by haveing some cocktails at the Irish Pub and the Barrel Thief.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also this week we had to attend another concert by Johnny Clegg, the South African musician, on his “Final Journey” world tour.  Alice is a big fan and earlier in the month we had taken a red-eye flight to Boston and watched his first North American show there before I then flew on to Europe for business.

This was a great show, and it was very encourage to see Johnny who was in remission from pancreatic cancer performing for two hours solid with a lot of energetic dancing including some aggressive Zulu dancing.

The following day we attended a small gathering where Johnny was interviewed and gave a very good insight into his life and how he operated with a mixed-race band during South Africa’s apartheid years.

The unfortunate aspect of the Boston adventure was that they were not very organized with their merchandise and Alice was unable to buy a t-shirt.  Not to be denied, Alice discovered they had added a Seattle concert to their tour and so she bought tickets to their concert which happened to be the evening following Halloween.

It was another great concert, but the intensive touring was taking a toll as Johnny’s voice was a little harsh and he was not quite as energetic.  They also took an intermission which they didn’t in Boston.  This was the second last concert of the tour, so hopefully Johnny and the band can get some rest and feel much better.

All in, it was quite a busy week for us socially!

We’re at the end of October and we expect it to be rainy, grey and gloomy.  Fortunately the last few days have been truly exceptional for this time of year.  We can feel the grey days of late Autumn and Winter approaching fast as the days are getting quite short and the weather has turned chilly.

We took advantage of the nice weather to take the KatieG out for a run.  The leaves are changing and beginning to drop and it was very pretty going through the ship canal.

 

After a nice tour around Lake Union, it was time to fill up with fuel, empty the water tanks and put the heaters on KatieG in preparation for the cold weather to come.

Halloween is in a couple of days time and of course Alice had me decorate the boat with the usual lights, skeletons and other creepy stuff.

Even the pirate skeleton seems to be waving goodbye to the nice weather. Hopefully we have still have a few sunny days left!

Alice and I decided that since we are still waiting to commence building our new houseboat, we’d look into buying a smaller houseboat to use as a rental property – see previous post: https://waynemorrisoz.com/index.php/2016/06/17/the-new-houseboat-adventure-begins/

After searching online and spending some time with our friends, Kevin and Linda from Special Agent Realty, we ended up purchasing a houseboat on the other side of the lake from where ‘Alice’ is docked.  It’s well made and has lots of nice looking wood on the inside.  Mike, who will build our new houseboat, gave it his seal of approval, and of course we had it hauled out of the water with a full inspection by a registered surveyor who also approved.

There were a few items to take care of following the survey, some of which were fixed by the previous owners and some that Alice and I undertook once the sale closed.

It’s quite cozy with one bedroom and a study or two bedrooms, and has a bathroom, kitchen and living room all on one level.  The views are quite nice and from the top deck there is a good view of the city.

 

 

 

We wanted to have meaningful name for the new houseboat so after much deliberation, we decided on HMAS Womboat and Alice had a plaque made.

 

 

Then it was time to rename the houseboat.

With much aplomb and an amount of champagne we commissioned the previous name and nameplate to the depths of Lake Union with a suitable pledge to the “great ruler of the seas”.

And then, of course accompanied by more champagne, we completed the renaming ceremony and attached the new nameplate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s now ready to rent so hopefully we’ll find the right renter in short order!