Breakfast this morning was steak, scrambled eggs with green onions and fresh oregano, and leftover sweet potato hash. The kitchen might be small but its functional!
We headed into the spa at Poet’s Cove where for $25 each we can use the hot tub, steam cave, and dry infrared sauna, followed by long hot showers. We agreed that doing this after a few weeks on the boat was great as the long hot shower felt luxurious.
We got back to the boat and got ready to depart for Roche Harbor. Jim had left the crab line down on the off chance that we might pull up another crab this morning. But we discovered the line had wound itself around the mooring buoy during the night. Took Jim and Melissa a good 20 minutes of tugging to get it back aboard. We didn’t want to lose the shaft zinc we were using as a weight!
We made the hour long run to Roche Harbor during which it started to pour rain. We pulled up to the customs dock and Melissa and Jim donned their rain jackets to rig the boat for docking.
In theory, no one but the captain is allowed to step foot on land until we are all cleared by customs. Problem with that is – if Dave’s at the helm, how is he supposed to tie down the boat? So we do the usual “illegal” thing – Melissa and Jim hop off and quickly tie down the boat and immediately scramble back aboard before anyone gets yelled at.
Dave took the paperwork to the customs officials. The CPB officer then came back with him to verify that Melissa, Jim, and Margaret matched their passport photos. Sometimes they let us just sit on the deck and verify – but in the rain there was no way to see us. And they confiscated all our contraband – citrus, mangoes, and avocados. Despite them having been purchased in the US to begin with. Sigh.
We blew it because we talked about juicing all the citrus before crossing the US border and making one more batch of sangria. Dang it. We move the boat from the customs dock to our marina slip. We are happy to be out of the rain!
So ok, its pouring down rain and we need a hot drink to warm up right? So Melissa heats up some water and makes Market Spice tea (it has lots of cinnamon and orange spice) to which we add the apple pie moonshine we got at the farmer’s market in Ganges. It was perfect to warm us all up after we got settled at the dock. We dubbed it the “San Juan Warmer”.
Having lost our avocado and mango that messes up the dinner planning a bit because Melissa had planned shrimp with avocado and mango. After some debate, we decide to have dinner at Roche Harbor and made a reservation.
Meanwhile though we need a snack. So Jim starts cracking crab. Yeah, Tom Douglas said we should do this on deck at sunset. But the rain makes that problematic. Meanwhile, Melissa fixes up some more homemade smoked salmon toasts.
The end product – some gorgeous crab cakes. Jim coated them with the gluten free nut crumbs Melissa had brought along. Yumo!
We headed off to dinner at the restaurant. Everyone ordered the prime rib as its their specialty. Dave had a blue cheese salad that he said might have been the best he’s ever eaten. During dinner, Roche Harbor did their traditional colors tribute. The whole resort goes quiet while they lower the yacht club flag followed by the Washington State flag, the Canada flag, the UK flag, and finally a cannon blast with the US flag. All while the country anthems play. We had the perfect view from the restaurant. The resort is all lit up at night – including the little chapel where they host a lot of weddings. After dinner we watched National Treasure.
