Yes Please heading out for the Christmas Parade.
The wind was howling out of the Southwest and the freezing rain was biting, but Yes Please and 27 other boats from the Olympia Yacht Club braved the elements to venture out onto Budd Inlet for the 45th annual Lighted Ships Parade.
This was the first time we had participated in this event, the first time we had decorated the boat and the first time we had been out at night in the new boat. It was also the first time we had the Kirk’s aboard as guests with their Baby and Three year old daughter. What a way to be introduced to boating, night time operations in the winter during a storm!
The Christmas Snow Bear on top of Yes Please
We had a blast, kept warm and managed to navigate out to Boston Harbor without incident. We had the wind at our back, which made our eight foot tall mascot stand tall and proud. When we made the turn to Cooper Point, we suddenly had the strong winds and waves on our beam, and things got interesting. Our mascot blew over, so I asked Sherri to unplug it. When she pulled the plug, all the decorations died. Can you say, “blackout?”
All of the Christmas lights on the boat made night vision nearly impossible, but I was managing. The complete blackness was pretty eerie, but after a couple of attempts to figure out what had gone wrong (GFCI had tripped due to salt water hitting an extension cord), we got the lights back on and carried on with the rest of the parade.
After about 3.5 hours, we put the boat back, snug into her boat house and decided that next year, we will secure the inflatable much better. And, there will definitely be a next year, the parade was a lot of crazy fun.