Sackets Harbor

One the morning of August 4th, our 17th anniversary, we drove to the War of 1812 battlefield site and found a parking place beside the mouth of the harbor. There was an encampment of reenactors close by and we wandered among their canvas tents admiring their period clothing, muskets, canons and uniforms. I was particularly interested in the iron pot of beef stew on the cooking fire. We talked to several of the friendly folks and learned a good bit about the War of 1812 that we hadn't know before. Foster, Lai Lai, Pbear and Claire watching the regatta. We were placing bets, and I thrashed Claire and Pbear; he's a bad looser and smashed me in the nose; fortunately polyester fluff doesn't pack much of a punch.

Late morning we noticed a flotilla of sailboats coming out of the harbor, and waiting for them, a committee boat and markers; we were about to be treated to the annual fund raising regatta for Hospice. We had crewed for a Hospice race in Sequim, Washington once, and were looking forward to seeing this one. It was much bigger than the Sequim race, and some very, very fast looking boats. We crawled through the handy skylight on Turtle and set up to watch both events from our house roof. Lots of people were jealous of our high position!

In the middle of the racing, two reenactor longboats, one American and one British, maneuvered clumsily and shot cannon at each other. No casualties were observed. This was the prelude to the land battle reenactment to follow.

Connon blast at sunset

After a full day of watching the regatta, a sea and land battle, we walked to the marina to get a better look at the fast boats and enjoy the drunken sailors getting their trophies. Then it was back to the American camp for colors, which consisted of the firing of a large canon at sunset. It was a fitting ending to a full day.

We decided to risk having to move during the night, and stayed in our parking place, watched the stars through our skylight and slept soundly and undisturbed, cooled by the breeze off the lake. We decided it was a perfect end to our anniversary.