William's 9th birthday: A boat ride

William's 9th birthday fell on a Saturday this year so we celebrated as a family by going on a boat ride. We got the boat ready and Dode decided to check the battery before pulling out of the driveway.  Totally dead.  He spent an hour charging it and it was still dead.  He'd washed the boat a few weeks before and Miriam had been playing up in front.  She'd left the radio on and we'd drained the battery until it was absolutely spent.  So, on the way to boating, we detoured to Costco to purchase a new battery.  We always avoid Costco on Saturdays and for good reason, it was crazy.  You have to purchase the battery in the tire area and the four people standing in line in front of me were all purchasing tires.  So, the wait was long while they decided which tires, which extras they wanted.  Then, after purchasing the battery, I had to stand in the customer service line to get my core charge back.  Finally, we were on the road with a running boat, several hours behind schedule!  We launched from the Highway 20 boat launch under the bridge connecting Fidalgo Island to the mainland.

We boated down the channel to LaConner, passed under the rainbow bridge and landed at Goat Island.  Goat Island at one time was the home of Fort Whitman.  Fort Whitman was used from 1911-1944.  It was built to guard the Deception Pass and  Saratoga Pass entrances into the Puget Sound.  It contained one gun battery with 4 disappearing guns, Battery Harrison. When the fort was decommissioned at the end of World War 2, all the salvageable metal was removed and it was deeded to the DNR.  It was simply abandoned, there is no visitor's center, interpretive signs or even any formally built trails.  We knew about it because Dode had visited there with Isaac years ago and Elizabeth and I were just there when we took a boat ride with Captain Dave in the spring.  I knew the rest of the children would also enjoy exploring the fort.

 We walked up the user built trail to the old fort on the island.  We ate our picnic lunch there and did some exploring of the gun batteries.  Miriam was hesitant to go into any of the dark tunnels, even with her parents.

Trees, moss and ferns are overtaking everything.  William is standing on the stairs the lead up to the area where the men could load the ammunition into the guns.  

The structures are fully covered in graffiti

our birthday boy

We knew there was a sighting structure somewhere on the island so we used Dode's phone to search the internet to see if anyone could tell us where it was located.  The trail to the sighting area is definitely not used as much as the trail to the fort but we made it to our destination with no problem.  The children enjoyed climbing around it before we headed back to the boat.

Where the soldiers used to look out over the water for enemy submarines.

side view of sighting structure

Miriam wore her swimsuit all day.  It looked a bit funny to see her hiking through the woods in just a swim suit!

Dode thought Miriam needed to use the bathroom so we started to head over to the South end of Goat Island where there is a campground with a pit toilet.  (He didn't know that she'd used the bushes.)  Unfortunately, it was really shallow in that area so we decided to turn around and head back.  We were almost back to deep water (literally 5-10 feet from it) when we hit a rock and damaged our prop.

The damaged prop, ouch!

After that, we couldn't do top speeds in the boat without feeling a lot of shimmy but we still had a fun day.

Anastaya relaxing on the boat

The water of Puget Sound was smooth enough for some tubing.

We boated under the Deception Pass bridge and stopped at Deception Pass State Park where we played on the beach for a while and everyone used the bathroom.

On the way back under the bridge, we towed the girls in the tube.  People on the bridge looked down and waved.

It's a warm day when you're swimming in the sound!

Here's our route.

Once we were done playing at the state park, it was time to head towards home.  Jacob was home from work by then so we called ahead and he had a pancake dinner waiting for us.  It was a nice way to end the day.