Forth and Back

Traveling is stressful for most people, but I have decided that traveling while you are already traveling is the most stressful thing of all.

Traveling while traveling? What gibberish is this, you ask? What I mean are the side trips we keep taking away from the main trip that we are on, a swing up through British Columbia. Various things have pulled us back twice in the last month from that trip to Washington state again, and the logistics of those small trips have been difficult and costly.

I'm also not sure stressful is the right word. I have enjoyed both of these trips back, despite the cost and complications. But I end up dreading each leg of them, and what is at the other end. I didn't want to leave Vancouver to come down here in Seattle; now that I am here in Seattle, I don't want to go back to Vancouver. It's not new or exciting; it just seems like work at this point, a lot of work on a voyage that we're not well prepared for. Leaving the boat in a marina while we have been gone has provided a certain peace of mind (particularly during the small windstorm Vancouver experienced today) but the combination of that and our stretch at anchor in between means that we are all used up on time in Vancouver. As soon as we get back, we have to head out, crossing the Strait of Georgia in iffy conditions without provisioning or preparing. That's not really a great idea as we verge into the fall storms, but all my energy and budget have gone into these other trips, so I have a feeling of dread about the whole thing now.

I had been looking forward to this last month of our trip, after many of the crowds have evaporated from the popular cruising spots, and with a little bit of cool, breezy weather mixed in with the relentless hot and clear summer we have otherwise had, but now it just seems pointless and undesirable to go back and go through with it all. We'll still stick with our plan, of course, working down through the Gulf Islands and into the San Juans slowly as we make our way to Seattle again to tie up at Shilshole for the winter... there's neither any point in rushing back. But if there were some way to hit the fast forward button and be done with it all this afternoon, I think I would.