Boat Haven

We are in the RV parking area of the Cap Sante Boat Haven at the Port of Anacortes (map), in Anacortes, Washington. I described this location when we stayed here two years ago, so I won't repeat it all, except to say that this time they are charging us the full $18 nightly rate and would not give us a Trawler Fest discount despite my pleadings. That's a lot of money for what amounts to a parking space, with no hookups, but it's extremely convenient, and I have to keep it in perspective by remembering we paid $50 per night for the same privilege at the Bahia Mar resort in Fort Lauderdale.

We also got a smoking deal on the show itself, since the coupon code I used when I bought the tickets (from an email for a two-day sale a couple weeks before the show) discounted our entire package by 50%, even though I think it was only supposed to discount the seminars by that much and not the meals. A glitch in their e-commerce system, no doubt, and I did offer to pay the other half of our meal package once we arrived, but they told us not to worry about it.

Between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, Infinity coach wrapped up the last of the projects on our "critical" list, as we did not want to be committed to returning there after the show. That being said, both the penthouse love seat and the brush guard were still out at their respective refinishers when we pulled out mid-day Tuesday, so if we do not return to Sumner we will need to figure out how to get those items back.

After getting settled in here at the marina Tuesday afternoon, we met up with our friends Curtis, Gill, Chris, and Alyse and wandered over to dinner at a nearby Japanese/Korean place, after a beer with the Passagemaker Magazine event team. After six years of attending about two Trawler Fest shows per year, we are well known to the staff and they often treat us as part of the family; when we finally get a boat and can no longer make so many shows, we are going to miss them.

Our broker Curtis actually has a boat in the show, and it happens to be one in which we are interested, so Wednesday morning we went to the docks at 8am to ride along as he moved it from one of the transient slips on the outskirts of the marina to its assigned birth at the show docks. Curtis has a 3,000-ton masters license, and moving this 100-ton yacht a few hundred feet around a marina is a slam-dunk for him, but it is an older boat which turned out to have a glitch in the controls, and before we even got out of the slip the starboard throttle went out completely.

No big deal, really, but the stern was rapidly swinging toward the 62' Nordhavn in the next slip, and with no finger pier between us, all hands ended up scrambling around the side deck to fend off while Curtis fiddled around in the engine room getting the throttle unstuck. We learned the value of a full walk-around deck during this episode, and after a few phone calls to the owner and his usual hired captain the throttle glitch was ironed out and we backed out into the fairway without further drama.

After getting secured alongside at the proper pier, we all piled into the car and drove across the island to look at yet another boat, and then returned to Cap Sante to look at our final brokerage boat, at a nearby dock but not actually part of the Trawler Fest show. Of the two remaining boats on our PNW list, one is actually right down the street on the hard at one of the yards here, but the owner refuses to let us look at it on the hard (leading us to wonder what he is hiding), and the other is a long way away and at the very bottom of our wish list anyway, so we've dropped it.

There are two or three other boats in the show which interest us, and we will have a closer look at them today. I previewed them yesterday, but I did so alone because Louise was out of commission. That's because she took a header in the middle of the night, bruising her knee and conking her neck on our beefy handrail, which likely kept her from heading right down the stairs. She'll be fine, but she was mighty sore yesterday, and still sore today.

Even so, we are having a great time here at the show, reconnecting with old friends and enjoying the evening festivities in addition to the educational programs. There are 74 boats in the show, so plenty to look at as we stroll the docks, and, as always, we are learning a great deal. Tonight we have a "speakeasy" themed cocktail party and dinner, and I've got myself a zoot suit and fedora to go along with Louise's 30's-era outfit -- perhaps we'll get a photo before the night's out.