After our lap with Doug and Amy, it was time for our other big plan for this fall trip. For the years we’ve been cruising out of Bellingham we’ve always looked around and talked about island properties, hoping we might be able to find an island cabin we could afford.
In August we spent a long weekend in Bellingham that was planned as a work weekend. And we did, in fact, get some good work done. We painted the cove stripe and the stripe on the pilothouse (projects we only dared do in high summer weather… painting + rain = no good), climbed the mast and inspected/tightened everything up there, and fitted the new Sunbrella dinghy cover that Brig sewed.
View from mast top (43 secs):
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But we also took time to look at real estate on Decatur Island and Eliza Island. Decatur had some promising properties (including one yurt on 2 waterfront acres on Reeds Bay) but had some disadvantages from our point of view:
- Would require moving our base of operations to Anacortes, specifically Skyline Marina… and we really like Bellingham (parking issues alone at Skyline were almost a non-starter, what a zoo!), and while there’s basically nothing you can’t get done in the larger city that is B’ham, Anacortes can sometimes seem like a cool small town overrun by tourists and we get that vibe at home enough.
- Decatur is a rather “normal” island in that there are cars, ATVs, power, water, phone etc, pretty standard stuff, didn’t quite feel as islandy as we were hoping for.
- Cost: we didn’t really find anything that jumped out at us that we could afford.
Having decided to look at Decatur in August, we though we might as well look on Eliza Island as well, since we talk about how cool it would be to be out there, well, every time we sail past it on the west edge of Belllingham Bay. So a day after looking on Decatur we looked at one cabin and 4-5 lots on Eliza. We had already pretty much decided that building on an out island was too much to undertake, but we were smitten with the cabin we looked at. Eliza itself has lots of positives in our mind:
- Continue to operate out of Bellingham, keep our slip in Squallicum.
- No vehicles except the caretaker’s pickup trucks… everyone else walks, rides bikes, or if they’re over 65 drives golf carts
- Truly “off grid”, no power, no phone, cell is dicey… although there is water island wide (from reverse osmosis desalination plant no less!).
After much gnashing of teeth and thrashing of spreadsheets, mid August we decided to sell our rental property in Hailey and buy the cabin we’d seen on Eliza Island. And so now we are truly embedded in the Pacific Northwest!
Lots to be finished / added to the cabin (many things never truly finished like wiring, sheet rocking, interior paint etc), including a full solar electrical system (current power is through one tiny solar panel or an outrageously loud, smoky diesel generator)… so we’ll have plenty to keep us busy every year in the off chance Boundary doesn’t offer us boat work that needs to be taken care of.
We did get to spend a few days at the cabin planning and organizing. Lots to go through, lots of plans to make, change, and remake. We did a quick (if there is such a thing) trip to Ikea in Renton, WA first so we at least had a bit of furniture to (assemble and) sit on while contemplating what we’d gotten ourselves into, but we think it will be a great place to spend time in years to come. And sure made for a VERY full Boundary on our first run over there.
Full boat heading to Eliza (2 mins 11 secs):
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And, as this is theoretically a sailing blog, will note that we left Boundary in 20 knots of wind overnight swinging on her Mantus 45# anchor and she didn’t budge a bit… but we’re also scouting locations for a mooring ball for the future so we can sleep well. It should also be noted this will also work excellently as a home base for further San Juan and Gulf Island excursions: 45 minutes by sailboat to hiking on Cypress Island, less than 3 hours to Sucia, and instead of coming back to Bellingham marina to wait in line for showers etc we can come back through Eliza and relax on our way back to the marina… not bad at all!
View from loading / unloading dock (22 secs):
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Excellent post Bass! Hard to believe we made so many cool life changes. So excited to have our place on Eliza and our sweet sailboat to get us there. Cannot wait to see how the new flooring looks. I get the “cabin thing” but looking down at the floor inside the cabin and seeing grass and pvc pipes was a bit un-nerving. Now on to our very own solar system! L43!