Fort Casey and Coupeville Sept 20 - 22

Found before we left Victoria. Trouble #1 - slow leak on inside rear dually tire. Will fix on the other side. Trouble #2 - City water connection leaking and rear toilet seal leaking so our black tank filled in 2 days. We hope its just due to too much water pressure. 

It was a long travel day for us. We left the Salish Sea RV Haven at 8 am and were in the line-up for the Coho Ferry by 8:15. Trouble #3 Ray managed to scrape the back end of the coach slightly turning out of the pay booth. After parking in our appropriate lines we headed over to the Day's Inn for a quick breakfast. You have to be in the compound 90 minutes before sailing to go through US Customs. They did not ask any questions other than where do you live and how long will you be gone.

Here are some shots Ray took on the way out of the harbour on the ferry.

Salish Sea RV Haven where we stayed.

Empress Hotel

Victoria Clipper to Seattle

Victoria International Harbour

The Disney ship is humongous.

The Coho Ferry

And we are off!

We arrived in Port Angeles 12:10 pm and were offloaded. Ray was in the front of the line-up, so was off the boat quickly. I however, ended up being the last 20 cars so it took me 20 minutes longer. First hurdle was to fuel up. Ray picked out an Exxon Station earlier as the view on satellite showed lots of room to maneuver. Unfortunately there was no Exxon, only Mobile which is the same I guess but what do we know. lol I'd passed the Walmart so stopped to call him. Trouble #4 - Our phones would not talk to each other! After 20 minutes of frustration as I did not know where he was and he did not know where I was, we managed a text, I just said to meet me at Costco as it was one of our planned stops. Finally we met up.

After 1 1/2 of shopping between Walmart and Costco we attached the car and headed to Port Townsend to catch our 5:15 ferry over to Whidbey Island. Our lunch/dinner in the ferry line-up is the Roasted chicken from Costco. lol  Ray also called Rogers with my phone and got his phone sorted out while waiting to board. 

Whidbey Island with Mount Baker in the distance.

After the 35 minute ferry ride we were set up in our campsite by 6:15 to find out that the large bedroom slide would not deploy. Trouble #5. Fortunately the skinny slide went out so we could at least access our clothes (underwear!) and get around the bottom of the bed. Ray spent an hour trying to get it to work with the wires and left it for tomorrow.

Trouble #6 - Satellite system was not connecting. Spent 30 minutes on the phone with Dish TV and finally got that sorted out. Nice campsite though. We did not even manage to sit outside until the next day.

Both of us dropped into bed at 8:30 totally tired out. What a day!

We woke up bright and early at 5 am to find out we had no power! Trouble #7!!! Even the generator would not start with not enough power. We started up the motor for 15 minutes and waited, with some sun on the solar as well, before we could start the generator.  We left it on for a couple of hours until the sun was high enough to keep things up with the solar. Meanwhile Ray spent the morning trying to fix the slide after talking with the Tiffin technician, fixed the city water connection and various other minor things. He could not fix the slide controller and was told to check under the bed for the slide motor. Amazingly he was able to squish himself into a 2 x 2 foot opening and take some pictures of what we thought is the motor with his phone. We will have to see if we can get someone to look at it in the Seattle area. If that doesn't work Tiffin will FedEx us the part to somewhere further down our travels we hope. After all his testing he is pretty certain it's not the motor but the controller that is hooped.

New batteries arranged to be installed on Friday morning so that will be taken care of. That will be one ouch of a bill with 10 AGM's. Booked a night in Everett at the Maple Grove RV Park so we have power until this gets fixed. With all the phone calls completed and all that fixing that done, we headed out to Coupeville for lunch/dinner. What a cute little town on the water.

We ate at the Front Street Grill and for some amazing seafood.

A cute place with a great view of the water.

We wandered around so Ray could take pictures before heading back to the coach. He was pretty tired with all of the crawling around inside the lockers this morning fixing things.

He did manage to stop at the ice cream shop for a homemade waffle cone before heading home to the coach. I had a taste and it was delicious.

Solar panels were also cleaned this morning as we needed them to provide a bunch of power today!

Once home, we finally sat outside watching the ferry come and go. Years ago we did some scuba diving on this breakwater called Keystone Spit.

Thursday morning same deal with not enough power left in the batteries to start the generator! I even turned off the breaker on the fridge overnight. So again we had to start up the motor for 15 minutes to get enough juice to start up the generator. Will be so glad to get the new batteries Friday.

While I was getting the inside ready for today's travel, Ray headed up to the Fort to take some pictures as we were just too tired yesterday.

FORT CASEY STATE PARK

FORT CASEY STATE PARK
1280 Engle Rd
Coupeville, Washington   98239

Phone: 360-678-5632

Fort Casey State Park is a 467-acre marine camping park with a lighthouse and sweeping views of Admiralty Inlet and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. A coast artillery post features two 10-inch and two 3-inch historic guns on display. The park features 10,810 feet of saltwater shoreline on Puget Sound Admiralty Inlet, and includes Keystone Spit, a two-mile-plus stretch of land separating Admiralty Inlet and Crocket Lake. The park is the site of Admiralty Head Lighthouse. A coast artillery post features four historic guns on display. The park offers spectacular views of Admiralty Inlet and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

HISTORY OF THE AREA

In 1858, the U.S. government purchased ten acres of land costing $400 for the construction of Admiralty Head Lighthouse. In 1890, the army took over the premises. It named its garrison "Fort Casey" in honor of Brigadier General Thomas Lincoln Casey, the last U.S. Army chief of engineers. At that time, Fort Casey, in union with Fort Worden and Fort Flagler, was said to comprise a "triangle of fire" guarding the entrance to Puget Sound.

When the fort was constructed, the old lighthouse had to be moved. A new lighthouse was built on the present site in 1903. Today the Admiralty Head Lighthouse at Fort Casey serves as a historic landmark and interpretive center. The park was incorporated into Ebey's Landing National Historic Reserve in 1980.

Above is our old dive site. If you look at the map above, you'll see that most of the water filling up the Puget Sound goes by this little channel.  The pier above and the breakwater below are completely full of life.  Apparently the salmon fishing is good now, as there's lots of angler boats out.

Keystone Spit

Here is an old picture of us Scuba Diving in our much younger years!

Looking across at our campsite at Fort Casey.

Once Ray got back, we lifted the jacks and hooked up the car. Headed out just before 10 to drive down the highway to the Mukilteo Ferry in Clinton at the other end of the island. Once we arrived after the 35 minute drive it was not very long and we were boarded onto the 11 am ferry over to the other side. By 12:30 we were at Maple Grove RV

Ray managed to actually get a mobile RV Tech booked for tomorrow after we get our new batteries installed to have a look at the slide issue. Don't know how long we can stay here but they said at least tomorrow night.

The City Water connection seems to have been fixed, no dripping. Yeah Ray! I will get caught up on laundry as I don't know where it will be done next. :)

We are pretty tired again from worrying I think ... we ordered Chinese Takeout as we really don't want to go out anywhere. Ray's back is pretty sore so staying in is probably the wisest choice so he can lay down in bed and give his back a rest.