Welcome to Washington

My arrival on Amtrak to Seattle after 3 days from Ohio was full of anxiety in coming somewhere I've never been before. From my first ever Ferry ride my husband, over to Bremerton and the drive to Port Orchard to reunite with my son on a 26ft sailboat, then on to Gig Harbor.

They had driven out here during the beginning of the Pandemic a couple of months before me and stumbled upon the boat idea due to everything being shutdown and no place to go.

We started out on our adventure early morning with the tide, on my first trip to Gig Harbor. It was beautiful for me to take in the view of new sights on the water I was now sharing with my family while sheltering in place.

Now let me make this clear, my husband has very little sailing experience and he was depending on a tiny outboard motor to get us all the way there. He was quickly learning that the wakes from a passing Ferry or powerboat wave slamming into the side of our tiny sailboat would knock us off course.

He was looking for landmarks to navigate and was happy when he figured out that Blake island was ahead of us and the entrance to Covos Pass. Now while it may take someone maybe 40 minutes to drive from Port Orchard to Gig Harbor, he figured it would take him about 6 hours.

During this time, the outboard motor would abruptly stop and this made it extremely difficult to time the passing of a Ferry to get around it without getting hit.

Several times we just drifted with the current heading towards shore, rocks and other boats giving us panic attacks in not knowing what to do.

There are so many new things to learn, but in a crisis situation to experience them is not something I'd wish upon anyone.

When we had almost traveled to a point of land sticking out in the water that told us on the map, we were closer to Gig Harbor than we've been all day. Something happened.

The look on my husband's face said it all, he began scrambling I shouted out orders to our son. The motor completely died because our gas tank ran dry.

The tide shifted towards us and our boat quickly went backwards faster than when the motor pushed us. We could steer the boat, but there wasn't any Marina docks. Only rocks, sand and some floating mooring balls.

Then our Emergency radio came to life with a small craft advisory warning. My husband had our son steer the boat while he ran forward with a rope and tried to lasso a mooring ball.

Once he secured a rope and the sailboat stopped, the Wind picked up along with raindrops and the Sun was slowly disappearing.

My husband took out a flare and tried to signal a tugboat pulling a barge. However it did not acknowledge him and suddenly a man from the shore began shouting to my husband trying to get his attention.

He talked my husband in rowing the dinghy to shore and the man retrieved a 5 gallon can of gas, which he said he didn't want back due to the virus.

He explained to my husband how close he was to Gig Harbor, then gave him instructions on how to even return to our boat safely.

That kind good Samaritan saved us that day and we don't even know who he was.

After reaching Gig Harbor, (our son who is on the Autistic spectrum) took our dog up to the park. While on the public dock he tripped and lost his glasses in the water. He was devastated as he is totally blind without them.

Again a good Samaritan posted on our behalf to not only locate paynent for a new pair, but found an eye doctor willing to open up shop to be able take an eye test, order in glasses while being locked down not open for business.

During this time a wonderful woman came in contact with us and the Pastor of her church along with others, got us a hotel room to stay in while my son waited on his glasses.

This is a short version of our story, but we need these people to know that they are real heroes in our eyes.

You went out of your way, you did something that helped, but you went farther in making sure we were not only taken care, but checked back on us later without even really knowing anything about us or our circumstances at the time.

Hopefully I will be able to give more details in how these little events played a big part in helping a family begin a new life, in a State that we haven't yet been able to explore.

Thank you for being who you are, caring enough to make a difference that touched our lives deeply in our time of need. God Bless you and the other Heroes out there like you that remain unknown.