Mischief Managed: A New Hope

 We're baaaaack! 

After a 5-year hiatus, we are tackling the seas again! But this time, we have a few changes. 

Change #1: New boat. It's big, it's blue, it's also called Mischief Managed because Justin registered it with the Coast Guard before I could convince him to name it something different. 

Change #2: New coast. We bought this boat even though it was in Washington State and decided to sell everything in Buffalo and move out west. Instead of the Erie Canal and Intercoastal Waterway, we'll be exploring Puget Sound and the Inside Passage between Seattle and Alaska.

Change #3: New crew members. Abigail joined our crew in 2021, Morgan in 2022. Now that they're 3 and 4 and done with diapers, we're ready to head out to sea again!

Change #4: New pants. This is much less exciting. 

For the last five years, Justin has been working hard to turn this boat into a full-time home for us. We've been in Port Orchard, Washington, sometimes renting a house on land, sometimes living on the boat, while Justin worked his magic. Our previous boats, while we lived on them for months at a time, were never permanent homes. This time, the boat is it. If this thing sinks, I literally will own no dry things.  

Yes, this is the view from the hot tub. No, you don't get a picture of me in my bathing suit.

Justin did a lot of work. He tore out the entire interior and made it shiny and clean. This is what the living room looked like three years ago:

And this is what it looks like today: 

Sorry, no baby in this video. Also, she's enormous now. 

Anyway, we made changes to the outside of the boat too. When we got it, it was a gross shade of seagull-poo white. 

Snail for scale

Of course, we had to paint it the same navy blue as our last two boats. How else would we know which boat is ours? 

I know it looks black in this picture. Just believe me, okay? It's blue. 

We've been content in Port Orchard, but it's about time to start using this boat as more than the only affordable way to live with two bathrooms and three bedrooms on the West coast. It's time for the boat to move. 

And move it did. (On a lateral plane. It did not sink or fly.) 

On June 11, we pushed off from the dock and started our journey North. 

The first part of this journey had a very specific goal: get the boat on land. I know that sounds kind of ridiculous. After all, isn't the whole point of boating to keep the boat from going on land? Normally, yes, but there were a few things the boat needed that couldn't be done in the water. Justin had to drill a few holes in the bottom for the thrusters, and he had to give the bottom a new coat of paint. 

I missed my calling as a cartographer.

Our first stop was a peaceful anchorage on Bainbridge Island called Manzanita Bay. We didn't get off the boat, but after a year of being tied up across from the absurdly brightly lit and noisy Bremerton Navy Base, it was nice to be somewhere peaceful and quiet. 

Next, we set off for Kingston. This was the first of many cute coastal towns I hope to visit this year. With lots of shops, a beach for the kids, and delicious restaurants that give me plenty of excuses not to cook, Kingston was a great town to explore. Now, Justin and I set off on these boating trips for a reason: people are annoying. Especially large crowds of people. And even more especially large crowds of sweaty people. We're looking forward to long, quiet beaches, islands inhabited primarily by trees and squirrels, and open, empty ocean. 

So when we took our tender (Little Boat) to land and discovered it was Pirate festival weekend in Kingston, I was less than thrilled. 

In the end, it turned out fine. We got to listen to sea shanties, check out cool pirate costumes, the kids each got a gold dubloon, and I only lost Morgan in the crowd for a few minutes. The kids even got to do a craft where they made their own pirate ships out of toothpicks, foam noodles and paper. 

When the other children make boats, my children make porcupines. 

We survived the crowds and played hard on the beach.

And treated ourselves to some ice cream!

That night in Kingston was safe, but every few hours a big wake would hit us from container ships going through Puget Sound to Seattle. The boat would suddenly rock and roll unexpectedly. That isn't a huge deal most of the time, but can be surprising in the middle of the night. Especially when you're three years old and fall out of your bunk. (She's fine.)

Port Ludlow, in comparison, had water as smooth as glass. There were no wakes of any kind, very few people and even fewer pirates. And of course, a beach to play on. 

Now, a well-known rule of boating is you can decide where you want to be or when you want to be, but you can't decide both. Justin and I, in our hubris, decided to flaunt that rule. We scheduled our haul-out in Port Townsend for Wednesday at 10:00 AM. So that meant we had to be in Port Townsend Harbor by Tuesday night. 

Getting there was fine. There was some wind and waves, but waves that would have thrown Dumbledore for a loop didn't stand a chance against the drastically heavier Mischief Managed. The kids were still able to play on the side decks.

 At that point, we had two weather apps. One we'd used in past trips and a new one. Our old app said there would be some wind that evening, but it shouldn't get more than 15 knots or so. We anchored in the harbor, I gave the youngest crew members a bath and we put them to bed.

And the wind picked up. 

We could hear it whistling through the mountains, and it slammed into our boat at all the wrong angles. The old app still showed a paltry 10 knot wind with 15 knot gusts. The new app showed 20 knot winds and 50 knot gusts. We will not be using the old app anymore. 

I had no choice but to take my dramamine and ride out the weather. The cats were miserable, too scared to make it to the litter boxes and concerned that their home was rocking back and forth like a pendulum. Well, I'm not sure the cats know what a pendulum is, but you get the point. We weren't in danger, but we were definitely uncomfortable.

At this point, you might say, "Haven't you guys had years of experience boating? Haven't you done something to deal with rough weather?" The answer to that question is a very heavy, expensive "YES." 

Not long after we bought this boat five years ago, Justin discovered from the bowels of the internet a great deal on an enormous piece of equipment called a "gyro." A gyro is a giant, washing-machine-size metal ball that spins extremely fast and through the magic of science, keeps a boat relatively still in rough water. 

Justin abandoned his poor, pregnant wife on the other side of the country to go get this thing.

Justin used every ounce of his strength and cunning to bring this hunk of metal from California to Washington, and then hoist it up into the boat. 

The power of SCIENCE. And maybe some math. And brute force. 

Fast forward back to Tuesday evening, with unpleasant, unexpected winds thrashing us back and forth in Port Townsend Harbor. This would be a perfect time to turn on that gyro, right? 

Wrong. While Justin exerted enormous amounts of time, energy, and money getting this thing on-board, he never finished installing it. We couldn't turn the thing on. So in the engine room, we officially have a giant gyro-shaped paperweight. And I have another thing I get to nag Justin about. 

The next morning, the wind died down and disappeared like it had never been. We were able to make our 10:00 AM haul-out appointment, but with a lot more anxiety and queasy stomachs than was strictly necessary. 

And thus ends our first week on the boat! Tune in next week for the haul-out and fun times in Port Townsend. 

Tl;dr: After five years of construction, our boat is finally ready to begin the trip North to Alaska.