We left Sidney, BC on February 9th. The forecast was minimal wind, but once we got out of the marina, that was not the case. It was quite rolly, enough that we couldn’t comfortably get Lia off the side of the Aurelia, into tow mode.

We headed north instead of east to get behind an island to be protected from the wind. There, we were able to get out on the swimstep to get into towing mode.

We decided to stop in Blind Bay on Shaw Island. Once we were settled, we took Lia over to Orcas Island for a walk. Here’s a view of Lia on the dock and some residents of the island.

There was a beautiful sunset that night.

We decided to spend another night out at anchor and take another trip in to Friday Harbor on February 10th. We got one more picture with Popeye!

On February 11th we made our way to the dock in Anacortes. This will be the final home for Aurelia until she is sold. Along the way, we had a great view of Mt. Baker. As we were coming in to the marina, there were a group of people having fun with their remote control sailboats nearby.

Aurelia is in a slip on C dock and Lia is in a slip on N dock. This is a big marina!

We took an Uber to our storage unit to get our car and started packing up the boat.

After 8 days of packing and cleaning, the boat was ready for our broker, Evan at North Pacific Yachts, to visit.

Here are a few pictures from around the marina while we’ve been here so far.

In late February, we got to visit with both of our families and had a wonderful time. Cashew is quite happy, living with Greg’s parents.

On February 28th we visited one section of Deception Pass State Park. There is so much to explore there, we will definitely be back.

On March 1st we took Lia to Jones Island State Park in the San Juans. It is a beautiful place to explore. One of our favorite places to visit by boat!

We took the opportunity of a nice day to map out our future cargo trailer. This planning is fun!

On March 11th we took a drive in the Skagit Valley. The amount of swans and ducks were insane!

We visited Heather & Greg’s boat (Greg’s sister and brother-in-law) on March 13th. They have a few resident seals who are very used to humans! (as you can tell in the video, I’m a bit freaked out being that close to them!)

On March 17th we were in Gig Harbor and had some extra time so we decided to drive by our old house to see how it’s doing. The new owners have done a lot of clearing out of the plants along the road and they added a short white fence along the upper driveway. It looks really nice.

We had a new 120 foot yacht (Maximus III) as a neighbor for about a week. This thing was massive and beautiful! They launched it in June 2025.

To help the boat sell we decided to add marine flooring to the swimstep. It looks great and I wish we had done this sooner! If anyone in this area needs this work done, we used AquaTraction and were very happy with their work.

On March 22nd we found some fun bike trails at the Kettles Recreation Area, near Coupeville on Whidbey Island. We’ll be back for sure!

On April 2nd we went back to Deception Pass State Park for another hike. It really is a beautiful place.

We had an eagle flying overhead while we ate lunch.

On April 4th we took a dinghy ride (with Nugget) through Heather & Greg’s marina (down the road from our marina). We had a seal that was very friendly following us around the marina.