I spent the night on a mooring ball in Prevost Harbor, Stuart Island, and arrived early enough to visit the island for a few hours. So I took the dinghy to shore and spent time hiking the island and seeing a couple of the highlights.
Stuart Island only has a handful of residents, and a one-room schoolhouse is the only public building on the island. One of the highlights of the day’s hike was coming across the “treasure chest.” It’s a few boxes full of shirts, hats, and postcards which visitors can buy. Nobody works at the store, it’s all based on the honor system. You take what you’d like, and each item has a note included with the price and instructions on how to mail payment back when you return home. It is run by a family on the island that has an embroidery business. The island gets mail delivered by plane 3 times a week, and because of this, they are able to ship their products out and make a living this way. So cool to see this operated as an honor system and that it has been this way for years.
I ended my first day on Susia wandering the island a bit and chatting with others folks who were there for the night. I was invited to several campfires and got some great advice about my route from others who had been there before. I’ve been so impressed with how friendly and willing to share other boaters are!
Day two turned out to be more exciting than I had expected in several ways. The plan was for 14 miles of sailing to Stuart Island along the Canadian border (a portion of which has several big currents that meet). I did my final weather check (which looked OK) and headed out.
I wasn’t 10 minutes out of the harbor when I heard a mayday call from another boat about two miles away. They had hit a drifting log and the boat was taking on water with 5 people and a dog on board. I had my first experience talking with the Coast Guard on the radio getting their coordinates so I could go to them (check that off the to-do list!). I was about 15 minutes away, but fortunately, someone else was closer and arrived before I did. Based on what I heard on the radio, the boat sank completely in under 5 minutes but everyone (including the dog) on the boat was OK. Over the course of the day, I heard 4 other mayday calls for boats that were either sinking or needed help in some way (hint: this is foreshadowing, turns out that the weather report WAS NOT very accurate this day…).
My next hour was beautiful, and the highlight was when a pod of dolphins showed up and swam along with me for about half an hour. Such a cool experience!
It was about the time that the dolphins swam away that I entered the area where currents were merging and the wind also increased significantly (and pretty suddenly, and much more than the forecast showed). I’ll just say that the combination of wind and waves that came on so quickly created some “challenging” conditions for me. I had far too much sail up, and trying to reduce sails in waves and wind had me spending the next 30 minutes wondering if I’d bitten off more than I should have. When I’m up on deck I wear a harness that attaches me to the boat in case a wave comes over the bow and tries to knock me overboard, but it turns out that was very little comfort. 🙂 Based on what I heard on the radio I was not the only person that did not expect these winds, and in the end it all worked out and the whole thing was another learning experience.
The wind cleared out as quickly as it arrived, and after things settled down the rest of the day was “smooth sailing” and beautiful. And Stuart Island was a great stop! I’ll post something else about it later, but it’s a can’t miss if you are ever in the area!
For years I’ve been interested in the idea of sailing, so last year about this time I decided it was time to get this out of my system one way or another. I’d never been on a sailboat, and only ever been on little recreational boats a couple of times in my life. So I took a couple sailing classes down on the river to figure out how to put a sail up and what all the different ropes do, and then bought a sailboat with the idea that I would try it out and if it wasn’t for me, put it right back on Facebook Marketplace and sell it.
Well, as it turns out, I loved it! And I’ve spent the last year learning everything I can about sailing, navigation, weather, and all the other things it takes to do this safely. Most of my sailing so far has been on the Columbia River. But this week I’m trying my hand at ocean sailing for the first time and headed up to the San Juan Islands for a week of single-handed sailing near the Canadian border. The plan is about 100 miles over 5 days.
Day one did not disappoint!!! I put in the water at Bellingham and sailed to Sucia Island. It’s a Washington State Marine Park, and only accessible by boat. Along the way I passed freighters, sea lions, and saw an incredible sunset!
No major mishaps, 20 miles of sailing, and I arrived in one piece. Success for day one!
The last stop was Venice for two days before heading home. Venice was flooding throughout our time here which was really interesting to see firsthand. We had great Italian food, went to St Mark’s Square and the waterfront, and generally just enjoyed just wandering through the maze of alleys of Venice.
We visited what is probably the most unique bookstore in the world (the more valuable books are stored in a gondola and bathtubs to keep them safe when the store floods), played in the water, and had LOTS OF GELATO!
One of the highlights had to be that we were able to get tickets for a classical music performance held in an 11th-century concert hall. It was mostly stringed instruments (violins mainly) and the acoustics were incredible!
And then it was time to head home. We left at about 3am and took a water bus to the airport for the long trek home.
Over two weeks we visited six countries, sweated through ridiculous heat as well as rainy downpours, splashed around in a magical river, explored medieval towns, and rode donkeys up the rim of a volcanic crater. (Oh, and found the biggest tub of Nutella ever, Kenzie would be upset if I left that out…). We stumbled upon places we never expected to see and along the way I think we all found places that we want to go back and visit again. And most of all shared some special memories with great friends. Thank you, Laura, Kailynn, and Derick for such a great adventure!
It was finally time to pack up and head off the ship for Venice. But before we Venice, we planned a tour of the Postojna Caves in Slovenia. It was only about an hour away and didn’t disappoint. The caves were massive. To tour them you start with an underground railroad into the cavern. Then a long walk for several kilometers through the caves. The pictures were not great since it was so dark, but it was unlike anything I’d ever seen.
In addition to the underground caves, we also visited a nearby castle that had been constructed into the cave system. So unique!
After our tour, it was off to Venice. A couple of hour train ride into the heart of Venice and then a water taxi to our Airbnb. Everyone was wiped out from a long day so we just took it easy and brought some pizza back for dinner.
Our original itinerary had us stopping in Venice, Italy for a night. But the ship had a change of plans and instead ended up doing an overnight in Trieste. Since we planned to visit Venice at the end of the trip, it actually turned out to be a great opportunty to be spontanious and do something unexpected. We got up in the morning, rented a car, and drove to Slovania and Austria! It was a long day, but probably the highlight of the trip for me.
Slovania was not someplace that was on my travel list, but it turned out to be one of the nicests places I’ve ever visited. Friendly people, incredible scenery, and a teriffic and unexpected adventure!
We started with driving to the capital (Ljubljana, which I am still having a hard time pronouncing but it sounds beautiful when someone who speaks the language says it). Then we visited a castle overlooking Lake Bled. After that was a drive through the mountains and into Austria (along the way finding an incredible river for the kids to play in).
None of this was part of the plan for the trip, but it turned out to be the highlight for me. Some of my favorite memories traveling over the years are times like this when you take off with no plan or expectation, and just see where the road takes you. This day it took us to 3 countries and places I’ll never forget!
In Split we rented a car and ventured out to a national park and see the waterfalls. It took about an hour to get there and the drive was pretty easy. Then we walked around and saw some amazing scenery. We’d hoped to swim at the base of the falls, but they recently banned that, so we weren’t able to. Still, the pictures and views were incredible! These pictures don’t do it justice.
Hvar was a day to relax. Our friends had family here that they wanted to visit, so they arranged a private speedboat to take them to a nearby island to visit for the day.
Kenzie and I decided it would be a good day to take a quick look around town and then head back to the ship to catch up doing a lot of nothing.
We saw something while wandering the harbor that cracked us both up. All of these ports have been full of mega yachts. This is definitely the place for them. The million dollar boats are moored along the port walkways. The billion dollar yachts are too big to come into port, so they anchor in the bay and shuttle the owners in with smaller tenders. As we walked along the water one of these billionaire boat tenders pulled up with their very fancy passengers…THE DOGS! Just the dogs. 5 crew members, 2 to handle the boat and one assigned to each dog to attend to its every need.
We got to talking with the crew members (who were very nice) and they said they bring the dogs ashore several times a day for potty breaks and walks. Well, all but the English Bulldog who they said was very lazy. He likes coming out for the ride but prefers to lounge on the boat and take in the view while the others walk. So his attendant just hangs out on the tender with him.
Kotor is a small medieval town at the end of a beautiful fjord. The walled city is not nearly as large as Dubrovnic, but something about this place is really special. Sitting in the ship in the bay and looking at the old city from the water is just beautiful.
We went into town and decided to take a bus along the coast just so see a little more of Montenegro before walking around the old hisyoric city. When we got back, we walked around the historic center, did some shopping, and had lunch. There are lots of cats, and they seem well taken care of by the locals. Kenzie loved that part!
Wow, what a place! The medieval walled city was amazing! We started by walking along the top of the old city walls which gave us some incredible views. Game of Thrones was filmed here apparently (I have not seen the show yet, but I’ll have to watch it) and there were lots of references here. After spending a few hours taking in the town we hit the beach. And along the way Kenzie found some artwork that she really liked. She ended up buying several paintings (with her own money) that she is really excited about. Hopefully, they will be something she can look back on years from now and remind her of this place.
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