Bon Voyage, notres amis

May 15, 2009

At 1245 the big marine diesel clattered into life and 2 minutes later the LIBERTE was free of her mooring lines and in the channel heading out of Eagle Harbor. Four hours and 12 minutes later we arrived at the port of Langley, Washington, the impossibly cute little tourist village, 35 nautical miles to the northwest. No sailing today, all by main engine, as we want to put some miles beneath our keel as fast as possible. For the first two hours we had help from the ebb tide to the tune of 1/2 knot and for the last two hours we were hurt by the ebb tide also by 1/2 knot. During the course of this voyage and this blog we'll explain the vagaries of tides and currents in the Northwest and you'll come to understand how on a straight line course the tide can alternatively help and hurt our progress. But that explanation is for later.

Now who is this "we"?

We are man (born 1945) and woman (born 1956). We are husband and wife - 30 years and counting. We are parents of two daughters - Madeline, Assistant Professor and research librarian at the University of Nevada, Reno and Lindsey, recently returned home from 6 months low budget traveling in South East Asia - with dread locks and eyebrow rings - rasta woman! They are in fact sisters.

Family picture, Lindsey pre-dreads


We are lawyer and homemaker. We are Argentine farmers and food sales persons. We are fisheries scientists and marine zoologists. We cook, we eat and we drink. Or most recent fun hobby is building complicated houses in remote locations 7000 miles away from Bainbridge Island. One of us is a gardener and one is a garden enjoyer.

We are sailors and observers.

Now, we are bloggers*.

We are Carl and Jude

The Liberte leaving the dock in Eagle Harbor

*with the help of the librarian one and the rasta one, who hope we will learn to do things like linking text on our own soon