Our nephew Trace and his girlfriend Megan visited us from Utah and wanted to go on a short boat trip. One of our favorite locations for a short trip in the Puget Sound area is Poulsbo, a town of Norwegian heritage. They have a couple of nice marinas and a huge bay, Liberty Bay, in which to anchor. The town is very walkable and they have a lot of shops, good restaurants, and an excellent bakery. Their fuel prices are among the lowest around and I needed to get fuel, so Poulsbo was a perfect fit! It is located about 20 miles west of Seattle, behind Bainbridge Island, on the Kitsap Peninsula. We took the north route around Bainbridge on the way, under the Agate Pass bridge, and the south route through Rich Passage on the way home.
There are several wildfires burning in the PNW and the air is very smokey. The winds blew ash from the fires all over the Seattle area for the last couple of days. The boat was filthy from all of the ash and I had to hose it off before we left. Thankfully it washed off easily.
When we arrived at Poulsbo, there was another boat at the small fuel dock so we tied up to the marina and waited for them to finish. I pumped 350 gallons of diesel then we anchored out in Liberty Bay for the evening.
There are always many seals in Liberty Bay and around the marinas. We kayaked over to one of the marinas and watched the seals for awhile. A young one came up to my kayak, nudged me with his nose, then stuck his head up on the kayak like he was going to jump up on it. I backed away at that point since he surely would have tipped me over had he tried to jump up on the kayak. I’ve never had a seal that close before! Unfortunately I didn’t have my phone to take a picture, so I went to the boat to get it, then returned and waited for the seal to come back. Of course he didn’t. But we enjoyed watching them hang out on the logs.
We enjoyed a glass of wine on the flybridge and admired the serenity of the area, even though it was smokey. A little later we dinghied to town and had a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant, then walked across the street for ice cream.
After a quiet night at anchor, we made blueberry pancakes for breakfast then went back to town for a walk. They have a couple of nice parks connected by a boardwalk along the water, and a good place for a picture too.
We returned to the boat and headed back to Seattle in the early afternoon, taking the route around the south end of Bainbridge Island. Another fun adventure on the water!
Fiddler 