HARVEY HOCHSTETTER DROVE his 22-foot C-Dory Sleepy C down to meet us, from Sequim, on the first day of our trip, Friday—and escorted us all the way back up to Mystery Bay, on Marrowstone Island. We hung out there on the state park dock before Sam and I headed over to Port Townsend, where we…

  We’ll be leaving Kenmore Harbor in about a half-hour, bound today for Point Hudson Marina, in Port Townsend. Today’s Puget Sound marine forecast calls for “variable wind to 10 knots, becoming south in the afternoon. Wind waves 1 ft or less. Patchy fog in the morning.” Yesterday afternoon, we launched Osprey at North Lake…

THE C-BRATS WEBSITE, an amazing resource for people interested in these cool little boats, inspired me to renovate my V-berth, to create more storage space for our Alaska trip. Read about this project.

DAVE ORTLAND AND I TOOK OSPREY out this weekend for a shakedown cruise, in preparation for next week’s departure. After stopping by the Eddyline factory in Burlington, where we picked up a pair of new Skylark kayaks, we launched at Anacortes’ Cap Sante Marina. From there, we motored about 20 nautical miles, at 5 knots, to…

OSPREY’S PACKING LIST HAS GROWN, a lot, since my last post, a month ago. My buddy Paul looked at the earlier list, and wrote: “The ToDo list reveals you to be every bit the gearhead I remember, but of course boat ownership does little to discourage that tendency I’ll bet. Anyway, it’s really cool.” I…

THE INSIDE PASSAGE (from Wikipedia) “is a coastal route for ships and boats along a network of passages which weave through the islands on the Pacific NW coast of North America. The route extends from southeastern Alaska, in the United States, through western British Columbia, in Canada, to northwestern Washington state, in the United States. “Ships using the route can avoid some…

WITH OUR TRIP SCHEDULED TO START IN TWO MONTHS, we’re busy with last-minute work on the Osprey. The bottom has been coated with anti-fouling paint. Roof rails, which will hold a pair of 12-foot Eddyline Skylark kayaks, have been reseated (bolt holes sealed with butyl tape), and a new Wallas stove installed. Week after next,…

“FROM THE BOTTOM (from the Glacier Bay National Park website) of the deepest glacial fjord to the summit of its highest peak, Glacier Bay encompasses some of our continent’s most amazing scenery and wildness. It is a land reborn, a world returning to life, a living lesson in resilience. If ever we needed a place to…

WE’RE LEAVING FROM KENMORE, on the north end of fresh water Lake Washington, bright and early on the morning of May 31, in Osprey, a 22-foot C-Dory Cruiser. Osprey’s skipper Andy Ryan will be joined by four old friends (one at a time, each for about two weeks) on the 3,000-mile journey from Kenmore to…