Always Onward Adventures

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The Most Awesome Bike Trip Ever!
Biking

The Most Awesome Bike Trip Ever!

Sara has gotten really into biking after she got a new bike from her Grandma for her birthday - so we took advantage of some great early May weather to go on some “adventure” bike trips. I don’t usually write about day trips, but Sara was so excited about these trips and we are working up to an overnight bike trip - so I thought they would be worth writing about. The first ride was just a little under 17 miles on a mostly gravel trail and the second was a little under 18 miles on mostly paved trail. Sara proclaimed after the first one - “This was the most Awesome Bike Trip Ever!!”.

  • Tom Woodard
Sail Week on the Puget Sound
On Boat

Sail Week on the Puget Sound

Sara had her Spring break last week and we decided to take a very low key sailing trip for the week. Our original plan was to sail up to the San Juan’s for the week, but the combination of inclement weather, small craft advisories during 2 of the 5 days, and other commitments had us put that plan on hold for the actual summer. Instead, we just bumped around the Puget Sound for the week. On the plus side, we had lots of wind and we able to sail for all of the trip (except for the few minutes for docking and undocking). It felt really good to be sailing given how little we did on the Alaska trip last summer.

  • Tom Woodard
Taos Ski Trip
skiing

Taos Ski Trip

Summary For Sara’s mid-winter break, we flew back to Taos to go skiing. For the last 4-5 years, we have only been back in Christmas or Thanksgiving so just having a solid base of snow was pretty awesome. We got 3 days of skiing in and one rest day. Sara again is progressing leaps and bounds - she is skiing double blacks like they are no big deal and she was starting to ski parallel on the greens/blues. I’m going to apologize in advance for being a bit of a show-off in this post - I’m very proud of Sara’s skiing and I know it comes through…

  • Tom Woodard
Dosewallips
VanTrip

Dosewallips

Sara and I go on our first camping trip since returning from our boat trip to Alaska. We go on several hikes - one of them over 6 miles - and find a new way into the Olympic National Park. 10/13/2023 Sara has been very excited to go van camping again - we haven’t been in over a year with the prep for and then going on our boat trip. This weekend was our weekend - Sara was off on Friday so decided to leave on Friday morning and come back Saturday evening. Our location of choice was Dosewallips State park and the Dosewallips river valley near Brinnon, Wa.

  • Tom Woodard
Glacier Bay or Bust

Glacier Bay or Bust

Earlier this year, we undertook a challenge - take our 34 foot Catalina sailboat “Onward” up the inside passage from Seattle to Glacier Bay and back with our 6 y/o daughter and our 9 y/o golden retriever - over the course of 4 months. We were also not able to leave until late June, which is significantly later than folks generally leave for a trip of that magnitude - especially when their boat has a cruising speed of just 5.5 knts. Both my wife and I had about 10 years of sailing experience each - but this was the first boat we had owned (we purchased Onward about 8 months before the trip) and the first time we had taken a trip of this magnitude - prior to this our longest trip had been just over a week. All that to say, this was a big trip for us and we had lots of stories to tell!

  • Tom Woodard
Home!
Inside Passage

Home!

We make our way through the San Juans, pass through Deception Pass into the Puget Sound, and then home! 9/18/2023 We had only a short move today - 11 nm from Henry island to Friday Harbor. We ended up getting in pretty early and found the place much less crowded than last time - only 3 boats vs 12 boats when we were heading north. Friday Harbor Amazingly, one of the first people we ran into was at Friday Harbor when we came through on the way North - a boat called Nisku. Apparently there was quite the stir when we mentioned our plans here 4 months ago and Nisku had been following this blog ever sense - with a particular interest in all of our mechanical challenges (and successes!). I had always assumed that the only people reading this blog were my family and maybe a few close friends - I’m going to have to watch what I write now… :)

  • Tom Woodard
Back in the USA!
Inside Passage

Back in the USA!

We pick our way through the Gulf Islands and back down into the USA! 9/14/2023 We departed right on time at 8:20a this morning and made quick work of the 7 nm trip to Dodds Narrows - faster than expected with a 2 knt current - and we ended up having to wait for about 20 min before we felt comfortable running through the narrows with the current (~30 min before slack). As we were waiting, we saw some sea lions playing in the middle of the rapids. Seeing sea lions right on either side of the rapids has become a common occurance for us, they must be using the current to catch fish. It was only a few more hours from there to Ovens island and we had a bright beautiful day to do it in - and for a short while some wind to sail!

  • Tom Woodard
Back to Civilization
Inside Passage

Back to Civilization

We head through the rapids, across the Straight of Georgia, and into the Gulf islands. From here on out, we are back in civilization - we have cell service & wifi most days and we will be staying in marinas/outstations most evenings. 9/8/2023 We had a very late start today - our window for crossing the rapids is at 1:10p so we are aiming to leave Shoal Bay at 11a. We spent most of the morning chatting with another boat who is from the area and they were heading to Dent island lodge. They gave us some good intel about being able to head through the rapids early on a high water slack - so ended up following them through the first set of rapids at about 12:15p. We waved goodbye as we headed through the next two sets of rapids and we saw some sea lions playing at slack water in the rapids - they were very fun to watch and very active.

  • Tom Woodard
Conquering Cape Caution
Inside Passage

Conquering Cape Caution

We complete the last major crossing of the trip - rounding Cape Caution - and then we travel back through the Broughtons to Shoal Bay - our last stop before the rapids and fully tuck in behind Vancouver island. 9/3/2023 Early start from Pruth Bay to avoid afternoon weather. It was sad to be leaving, but good to be getting on our way. We got great wind the moment we made it out of the Kwakshua channel - 15 knts of wind at a broad reach. We were going 7 knts as we approached Fury Cove, so we decided to keep going and make it to Millbrook Cove in Smith Sound - about 10 nm further. This will take some distance off of crossing tomorrow and make it possible (but unlikely) that we can make it all the way to Port Hardy in one day. It ended up getting a bit choppy for the last hour or so, but we continued to have the wind so we got out of it quickly.

  • Tom Woodard