WhimSea's Log

Posted by Karen A. Brown

Memorial weekend 2015 we departed on our new adventure at Washburn Marina.

We arrived on Friday evening at Knife River after dropping a car off in Washburn. We were just in time to stop at one of our favorite restaurants in Knife, The Lighthouse, for a fish dinner, martini and a goodbye wish to our good friends who run the restaurant. It was nice to have a chance to say goodbye for now.

We headed to the marina and got a chance to visit with some good friends in the club house before boarding the boat and getting it ready for the night.

Saturday dawned sunny and bright. What a beautiful day. While we lamented our inability to sail (since the boat was in disarray), it did give us the proper motivation to get everything stowed and all of our projects complete in time for the planned departure on Sunday morning. It was a long day, but we pressed on and were actually able to finish in enough time to get out on the lake for a couple of hours, to raise the sails and make sure all was ship shape for our crossing.

We returned to the dock and the boys gathered Charlie and tied him to our stern while I finished the stowing effort. In addition to getting all the work done, we even got a chance to visit with some good friends and get in last hugs before we were to leave.

Saturday evening found us at dinner at the 'Castle', another staple while we are in the marina with our very good friends Dave and Debi from Rain or Shine. Dinner was bittersweet with the knowledge we were leaving hanging over me the whole time. It was hard not to think that our evenings out with them would be limited in the future. It was even harder not to remember the many times we enjoyed telling stories over a good meal.

Sunday morning found us ready to go and yet finding reasons to stay and chat up Dave & Debi. I had a very hard time saying goodbye and had to remind myself repeatedly that the move to the new marina would be opening up new adventures for us.

The trip across the lake was very uneventful with no wind whatsoever we were able to make a very direct trip across arriving in the new marina by 8:45 Sunday evening. Though we had planned to spend the night in the islands, the weather report predicted rain and wind with gusts up to 20 knots and we would much rather enter a new marina in a calm then 20 knots.

We are now looking forward to the next chapter in our sailing adventures. Washburn will open new areas of the lake to us and afford us more opportunity to explore the islands themselves.

As always, more to come!