The next morning we had to head over to Friday Harbor because the McGanns would be meeting us there that evening. It was a beautiful, calm day and we had an uneventful and quick trip.
Once we arrived at Friday Harbor and settled into our spot on the outside of Dock D, we met a couple on the 55′ trawler next to us. In the course of conversation we found out that he had retired (quit?) 2 hours earlier. He was pretty excited. We then headed into town to rent bikes. We had found Meat Machine Bike Rentals online and rented a couple of e-bikes for the day.
Our first stop was to be the Pelindaba Lavender Farm.
We were a little too late in the season to get the full effect the blooming lavender, but there was no shortage of lavender products in the store. Cookies, lemonade, bug spray, mask spray, brownies, and on and on and on. Everything with lavender in it. We bought a bunch of stuff and hopped back on the bikes.
Next stop was the Lime Kiln Light House.
From the lighthouse, we returned to the Meat Machine shop and returned the bikes and walked back to the boat. Not long after getting back, the McGanns arrived.
It was a beautiful evening and we enjoyed happy hour on the flybridge.
We had made dinner reservations for that night at Vinny’s, a great Italian restaurant on the hill above the marina. In a sign of the times, the restaurant is clearly short-staffed. Our waiter came by and took our order then came back with our drinks and then, in about 20 minutes, came back with dessert menus. He had completely forgotten that we had not yet gotten our entrees. We had a good laugh before finally enjoying our dinner.
Getting back to the guy who had just retired…24 years ago, almost to the day, Mel and I were sailing around the San Juan Islands for our honeymoon. We had made a ‘just married’ sign and hung it off the transom. One day, in a remote anchorage, a guy came by in his dinghy from a nearby boat and gave us a bottle of wine to congratulate us. Well, we had finally found an opportunity to pay that forward, so we picked up a bottle of champagne and gave it to our neighbors.