Blog Update August 4, 2011
Hello from Sekiu, WA which is a small town mostly inhabited by visiting sport fishermen and located on the Straits of Juan de Fuca near the farthest Northwest point of the USA. On our arrival, Monday, it was warm and sunny, which is a fairly unusual occurrence here.

Although we have had 2 more sunny days since then. We established ourselves in the campground on the bluff overlooking Olson’s Marina, and are waiting for the rest of the RoVing Rods to arrive, probably next Monday. There are always plenty of chores we can do of a housekeeping nature while we are “alone”. On one of our first walks around here, we went down by the boat ramp where there are three rock formations called the “Three Sisters”. Here is a picture of Elaine with the carved eagle near there, and the Sisters are behind her.

We will be here for the month of August because of the fishing, and also the only reasonably priced option when you stay here is to pay the monthly rate. Also, we are planning to stay in the area until early Sept. when we will be leaving our RV at the Elks Lodge in Port Townsend, while we drive the car to Vancouver, BC and take a 2 week Alaska cruise on the Radiance of the Seas. That will be between Sept. 2 and the 16th. Some of our cruise friends from other voyages will be along and it should be great because we haven’t been to Alaska since 1995.
When we last posted to this blog, we had contacted Laurie & Odel, from our Boomer group, and were planning to meet them over on Whidbey Island where they were staying in an RV place in Oak Harbor. Saturday we walked on the ferry between Port Townsend and Coupeville. It runs fairly often and is probably the biggest bargain in WA because the Senior rate meant we paid $5.50 for both of us to go over and back! Here is a picture of Elaine with Laurie and Odel when they met us at Coupville and the ferry is in the background.

From there we went to the Farmer’s Market in Coupeville. It wasn’t a big market but there were some interesting produce stands, in that they had unusual stuff. Here is a picture of some of the big cabbages they were selling, one of which isa Dutch cabbage, kind of flattened and has thinner leaves than a regular cabbage.

Right next to it were these cauliflowers of varying colors:

We hadn’t seen Mick & Ann Meilike since January in Quartzsite, so we were delighted when they drove over to join all of us for lunch. Laurie & Odel had previously eaten at a restaurant called Kim’s which is scenically out on a dock and located right over the water, and which had delicious mussels.

The cove here, called Penn Cove, is famous for mussels and you can even buy them in 5 pound bags in Costco. They had a very nice menu and we all ate lots of good seafood. Then we got another patron to take a picture of our whole group:

Coupeville is an old town with lots of history and the small shops along main street are cute.

We walked around a bit and also stopped for an ice cream cone. Thank goodness Elaine and I shared one because they were huge, but Ann, who loves ice cream enjoyed every bite of her own, as you can see in this picture.

It is a mystery how she stays so trim! After more walking along the cliffs, enjoying the gorgeous sunny day we were having, Mick & Ann left and we four went over to Fort Casey, an old military installation on the bluffs near the ferry terminal. There were lots of cement bunkers sunk into the ground so that they could not be seen from approaching ships until the huge guns were raised. Here is a picture of Elaine and Odel on the bunker with one of the guns behind them.

Later, when we were on the ferry, we marveled over how well hidden this entire installation was. Overall it was a great day with good friends, made even better by sunny weather and delicious food.
One other day we drove to Port Hadlock and had a delightful happy hour with David Brown and Ann Howells.

We met them years ago at Boomerville in Quartzsite, and stayed with them for a week when we were in South Africa in early 2008, because they always go there during our winter and rent a house there in the winelands near Capetown. When you are with David and Ann, you always have delicious appetizers served with interesting and good wines. They park their RV on a lot overlooking the water in Port Hadlock and we were lucky enough to be invited to have our Happy Hour in the yard of their “landlords” Gail & Joss, and on another brilliantly sunny day.

Gail & Joss built their own house and it is perfect for this site and full of many unique features in wood and glass because Joss does woodworking and Gail does stained glass. After we adjourned to the RV, we had good travel talk with David & Ann. These are four delightful and talented people!
While we were still staying at the SKP park in Chimicum, we enjoyed social situations with members of the RoVing Rods, and also Flo Palumbo and Colette Eisele. Flo is Chuck’s twin sister, but we had previously met Flo & Co at a women’s community and they are also friends with many of the women couples in the community near Port Townsend. They invited us to go with them to a public concert of the Port Townsend Summer Band at a local park. Here is Elaine sitting with Co & Flo at the concert.

Some of their friends were members of the band. Here is the band crammed into a very small bandstand:

Then they took us to the party put on by some of their friends, Gail & Jan, out in the Cape George Colony, which is a very beautiful and pricey residential community overlooking Discovery Bay.

We met lots of very nice women who all live in the Port Townsend area, at least in the summer. They made us feel very welcome and also sorry that we probably won’t be back here for a while to enjoy their company again.
The next day we drove out here to Sekiu. It is only about 90 miles from Port Townsend but it took us all day to get here because we made so many stops. Sequim was our longest stop because there is a Costco and WalMart there and we wanted to stock up on things before coming out to this fairly remote area. We used to stay in Sequim on the property of Elaine’s cousin, Sheila, who owned the Juan de Fuca Cottages. This was the most upscale lodging choice on Marine Drive, overlooking the Dungeness Spit, and on a clear day you can see Victoria, over on Vancouver Island. Sheila sold it a few years ago and we hadn’t been back, so we drove out to look at it again. The new owners have developed the 5 acres behind the cottages which Sheila was using as a pasture, and the place still looks great. It gave us feelings of nostalgia to see it.
The main reason the RoVing Rods come here is to catch salmon, and they are currently running. Today our neighbor caught a very nice sized King salmon, and nearly everyone is catching a few silvers and limiting out with humpies (pinks). Some people look their noses down on pinks but we find that if you brine them, smoke them and can them, they are very good. And since they seem to be plentiful, we are hoping to catch quite a few once the guys get here with the fishing boats. So hopefully, the next post you see will have lots of pictures of us catching and preparing salmon!!!