After the successful end of the skiing season, we decided that we don’t own enough real estate yet and we up and moved to Bainbridge island. We have been ruminating on this idea for a while now, but Angela found the right place and we made the move. This post is not about our new house, or moving, or any of that boring stuff. Instead, we went sailing for memorial day weekend and had a fun little adventure - and that’s what I’m going to write about.
2025-05-23
Sara got home from school at 2:40p on Friday and we packed up the car and headed off to the boat. Thankfully, Angela is an amazing provisioner and went to the grocery store earlier in the day to pickup a weekends worth of food. We drove down to the boat and stowed everything away before we pulled away from the dock around 4p - just in time for a beautiful sail up to Port Madison.
A pod of dolphins came out to see us as we rounded wing point. These pictures are always so hard to take with a phone - I really need to remember to bring my DSLR on these trips…
We got into Port Madison at around 6p - there is a new pizza oven there and they were having an inaugural pizza party at 5p, but apparently there wasn’t enough dough and there wasn’t any left by the time we got there. Our expert provisioner was prepared and we had hot dogs instead - which is sort of a staple for memorial day weekend.
Sara played on the playground for a few hours, then boardgames and bed. We tried out a new mattress topper (which we salvaged from the condo when we upgraded from the full to queen bed). We cut it to size and I think it turned out really nice - and more importantly, Angela slept great the whole weekend which is saying something given she is 7 months pregnant.
2025-05-24
The next morning we cooked some breakfast sandwiches and I tried to recruit the family for a walk to Raquel’s bread stand. It’s a long walk (50 min each way) but the bread is amazing and I think it’s very worth it. All were in, so we set off. Our first landmark was the infamous frog, about a half mile from Port Madison. The frog (and ladybug) had recently been repainted and they were looking pretty good!
After another half mile, Angela was done. We stopped by the famously large free little library (2 stories with an annex, mother-in-law and a basement), did some light perusing, and then Sara and I continued on while Angela headed back. 2 miles later, we were there. They had some great options and we picked up a loaf of roasted garlic and olive in addition to the classic sourdough.
We took a little rest and then started back. We made it to the elementary school (about a mile) and we had to take a stopover for a bread snack and a little playground time.
Soon though, we were off again. Not a bad little morning hike…
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We got back around noon and we pushed off for the quick sail over to Poulsbo. It was a pretty quick trip, and we got to sail most of the way. Once we arrived, we took a walk into town - Poulsbo did a great job of connecting the marinas with the town, expanding the sidewalk to accommodate more pedestrians.
We ended up doing a couple of walks into town to do some window shopping and then back again after dinner for ice cream. Poulsbo has an Island cool, just like Bainbridge, so Angela was able to fulfill her continuing mission to explore all of the Island Cool flavors available.
2025-05-25
I awoke the following morning to some seal racket - they are noisy little guys! There were close to 30 seals on the breaks near the marina - and they were have a grand old time. Sara was very excited and Oakley didn’t know what to think.
We took a walk into town and then on to the park. They were going to have live music in the park, but they were still setting up (unfortunately, the “live music” quickly turned into a protest which was a lot less fun for us).
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There was a small playground (most of the structures were made for much smaller children than Sara) that we stopped over at for a little while. The view from the playground was amazing, even if the playground itself was a little bit less exciting than the one near the marina.
We headed back to the boat for lunch and then on to Sips - which was this really cool idea where you get a card and you can pour your own beer/wine/soda based on these touchscreen taps. It was actually pretty reasonably priced too - about $6 for a 16 oz beer. We ended up hanging out here for a while with some other SYC parents (Sarah and Jordan) chatting about boating trips of past and ideas we had for future travel.
There was a salmon dinner in the evening, which was both delicious and plentiful. I think I ate three pieces of salmon and Sara more impressively at two. Salad, pie, and other sides went along with it. We even got a whole salmon to take back to the boat for freezing at the end of the night
We considered, but ended up abstaining from another trip into town for ice cream this evening. Instead, we spent some time on the playground with another family to get the wiggles out before we headed back to the boat for bed.
2025-05-26
The next morning was Donuts! We had donuts delivered by Sluys bakery (storefront below) which are famous in Poulsbo for being delicious. There is usually a line around the block, so the delivery was great as well.
After breakfast, we loaded up on the boat for the trip back to Winslow. It was pretty breezy as we were leaving the marina and it started to build as we came around the corner to Agate pass. It was in our favor for the first part of the morning so we got some good sailing in all the way through Agate pass - unfortunately it became a pretty strong headwind as we turned south towards Eagle Harbor. 22 knts againts us!
It was sunny though and despite a little bit of chop, it was a nice motoring back. Sara even got a nap in.
We sailed beside a few folks that we had just met from the club and got some fun pictures of them before we parted ways into Eagle harbor.
And that’s about it! We got back to the marina around 1p and were soaking in the hot tub by 2p. Our first overnight sail of the season was a resounding success!