February in Seattle: Winter is For REAL and the Hunt is Over

February started out with a 3-4" snow. We woke up to a snowy court yard in our condo building.

Some one got up early to shovel the sidewalks.

Seattle Center was turned into a winter wonderland.

This was the wet version of snow so it packs well and is heavy.

These two adults are straining under the weight of the snowman balls.

See: https://youtu.be/rgV8cr6pYBQ

Record Snow Pack along the entire West
Coast this winter.

The February storms come in a howling.

Our Eagle Harbor Marina gets a complete make over, soon there will be one more sailboat in this picture.

The Sea Trial Captain guides us to the boat yard. A windless day on San Francisco Bay, we had winds for a moment, as soon as we got the sails up we enjoyed all of about 5 minutes of light winds. 

Motoring down the channel to the boat yard.

The Google Catamaran that is the mothership to their submarine.

Hopefully the Survey goes well tomorrow and we will bring this 1998 Catalina 36 back to Seattle.

The seatrial started n Emeryville at the bottom of the map and ended at teh boat yard in Richmond.

This may be the largest boat yard we have ever seen.

Preparing to have her hauled out.

So far so Good

Kent Parker - we were lucky to find this excellant surveyor.

No play in the rudder!

William Randolph Hoisted.

This guy is in for two new engines. $$$$$$$$$$$$

Huge area just for the mast.

Taking a break between days at the boat yard. A visit to Berkeley Campus was interesting.

And Inspiring.

The huge courtyard area was full of very vibrant students and you could just feel the dynamic energy.

The Survey went well and the next day I got lucky to have another chance at a Seatrial with Captain Chuck on a windy San Francisco Bay for the trip back to the marina at Emeryville.

Full sails with 15-20. Nothing wrong with the way these Catalina 36's sail!

San Francisco and the Golden Gate in the distance.

Really wish we had time to sail out to the Golden Gate!

San Francisco

The Admiral went home the day before, I waited an extra  day just in case there were other things that needed to get done so I got a second sea trial out of it.It took two of these to get back to Seattle.

It's February so it must be Fort Worth Texas.

The day after I got back to Seattle we flew to Texas to help the Admirals dad organize his Hobby Shop. The goal was to get everything down from the second floor so he would not have to climb the stairs anymore. We gotter done in three days! Big Dave drove the fork lift while the Admiral and I loaded up the fork lift and then ran downstairs and unloaded. 

You know the world is changing when Ft. Worth Texas gets their first Whole Foods. 

I can tell you there is NO Other bar like this in any other Whole Foods.

Liv, our second oldest granddaughter shows off her designer science project. 

We were lucky, my sister made sure we got tickets to see my Brothers production of The Great Society.

I managed to get the time to see an old Sailor friend as his long time home near Canyon Lake Texas in the Hill Country.

This picture does not do justice to the beauty of the Texas Hill county.

Cooper's new ride. What else do you do when you retire from a long life of sailing?

On our last day in Austin we spent the midday at University of Texas, this is looking South through the Mall with the Texas Capital Building in the background.

Then turn 180 and the view North at the UT tower.

o

Bluebonnets in February? Never before....Texas has experienced the warmest February in recorded history. Humm wonder what summer will be like. Maybe a few Texans are going to consider that Climate Change is real?....Nahhhh!

A new mural on the drag showing the state from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to Oklahoma Border and out to Big Bend.

Jim Franklin lives forever in the heart of the Armadillo.

February in Seattle: Winter is For REAL and the Hunt is Over

February only has 28 days but we packed it in for sure. A cold snowy start gave us two days of Fun in the snow before it completely melted off. I found a vessel in Emeryville,CA that had the promise of being "The Boat". Since we would be traveling long distance we researched the vessel hard and probably became a bit of a pain to the broker and the owner with all of our questions. Going into a whole new community to shop boats has a new set of challenges. Just one visit to the San Francisco Bay area can easily add up to over $1000 so we wanted to make sure our time counted by doing as much preliminary work as possible to get the full history of the vessel. I pushed the schedule a bit by scheduling surveys immediately after we did our initial inspection. The vessel passed the two surveys but not without issues. We decided to continue on with the purchase after evaluating the expense of the necessary repairs to get the vessel up to our expectations. We managed to come to terms with the current owner and so we are now the proud new owners of this 1998 Catalina 36 Hull #1711. We already have a transporter scheduled to truck the boat to Tacoma the week of March 20th so our lives will continue to be full getting the vessel decommissioned and then re-commissioned with the necessary repairs when the boat arrives in Tacoma.  The two best days in s sailors life...........

The day after we returned from the Bay Area we flew to Texas to help the Admirals dad in Ft. Worth get some long needed clean up and organization done in his hobby shop, a small 3,000 square foot space. Fortunately his fork lift skills are as sharp as ever. The Admirals goal was to get all the stuff down from the second story so Big Dave would not have to climb the stairs anymore. We Gotter Done in three short days! We started early each morning and ended around 1:30 each afternoon due to the heat building up in the shop with those 80+ degree Feb. days.
 Back to Austin we got to catch up with the Austin family and enjoy some valuable time with our grand kids there. We enjoyed 9 days of sun in Texas with temps in the 80's, a interesting change from our record Seattle winter weather. February was an incredible success and all that in 28 days!

The book is finally complete with the final sentences coming from our experiences in the San Francisco Bay area. My daughter, the editor, is adding her final touches so if all the babies stay happy and healthy it should be on Amazon soon.