Adventures on Blue Redd

  Duende Libre live at Dimitrious Jazz Alley.   An unexpected delight as I was unaware of them.   The were on the billboard for Jazz Alley, we were in town, so we went.  Wonderful Jazz. In case you were unaware, I'm kind of nutty about a few things.   Boats, Wine, Food, People, Music, & Music Reproduction, in no particular order.  So, a quick jaunt to AXPONA in Chicago to meet with some audio equipment manufacturers, e.g. Pure Audio Project's founder, Ze'ev and a few others.  I really like his speakers!   Dollar for quality, there were tops at the show (there were reported to be over 1,100 vendors in 900 listening rooms. I thought this diffuser was cool looking. We heard a demo in this room with RD Acoustics anti-vibration footers.  They took a Streamer/DAC and had it resting on the floor.  Then they would pick it up and put it on their little footers.   They then played the exact same Phil Collins song ...

Work, work, work...   We are at the PMC dock just getting Blue Redd prepared for another season of slow boating.   With the prices of diesel expected to hit $7.50/gal we will definitely be going more slowly.   Similar to a car, going a few knots slower yields much better fuel economy. We typically cruise around 7.5kts and get 1.6mpg.   By slowing down 1 knot to 6.5kts, we should go to about 3mpg.   That's almost double the fuel economy. To make things a bit confusing, we adjusted the prop pitch from 27.5" to 29" at the recommendation of Gary at the Mukilteo Prop Shop.   I haven't been out to run a new speed/efficiency table yet, but I'll get to that soon enough. We installed a new fridge in the galley.   So much nicer and 50% larger than our old one.   Great work by Brent Richards and Tristan DeYoung - Thank you both! Today we had easter brunch with Paul & Cheryl, our former neighbors (we left the neighb...

The Artemis II launch from just south of Vero Beach, FL.   The video is better, but after cropping and framing, it doesn't look like much. This is where we watched the launch from. Tomorrow, Friday 4/3/2026, we hop on a plane and head back to Seattle and Anacortes to get Blue Redd prepped for the West Coast Selene Rendezvous and another season in Alaska! Woooo Hoooo!   The adventure begins anew.  

My good friend, Mark at one of our favorite Thai places in Lynnwood.   It was good to catch-up. We started the day over breakfast with Vann & Christine, our good friends from Republic, WA.   But, alas, I forgot to take pictures! Then it was lunch in Edmonds with Paul & Cheryl, our former neighbors (we moved, they didn't).  These people are a hoot.  I'm glad we've remained friends.  And Paul gave me a hat!  Thank you!!! Astute reader, you will have to expand the photo to read what it says, because it isn't what you think... And, of course, I forgot to get a photo with them! We met Mike & Kathy of Raindancer, a Selene 60 Ocean trawler Classic.  They keep this boat like a museum piece.   It is absolutely gorgeous. Being the very small world that it is, it turned out that Mike & I both worked at Stemilt over in Wenatchee in the late 80s-90s.   We are sure we worked with each other, but neither of us could remem...

  Here is the actual chart of our route, in blue.   The yellow dots are places we stayed this year and a few from last year. This is another view of our route in a map with a bit less detail. And here is a map with just the Alaska portion of our voyage with our stops (stars are anchorages, dots are cities).

  All of these photos are recycled from this year's voyage, so, if they look familiar, now you know why... We left Anacortes, WA on June 5, 2025, and returned on August 27, 2025.  That's 85 days, if I can still do basic math. We covered 2,141 miles in total. 29 miles in US waters to get to Candian waters outside of Poet's Cove where we cleared into Canada. 542 miles in Canadian waters from Poet's Cove to the Alaskan border just north of Prince Rupert, BC. 778 Miles in Alaska from Ketchikan to Sitka and back. 763 miles in Canadian waters from Prince Rupert BC to Poet's Cove. And another 30 miles from the US border off of Sucia Island back to Anacortes. This took us approximately 333 running hours on the engine. During those hours, plus generator run time, and Kabola furnace time, we consumed approximately1,660 gallons of diesel for a total cost of $6,521.76 USD.   Average $/Gal of $3.93. Our average MPG was a miserable 1.23mpg, way down from last year (was 1.69mpg)....