We’ve been camping at Spencer Spit with this crew since 2016. Every year, these kids build beach forts and bike jumps, paint rocks, make up songs, and get really, really dirty. And every year, we mark the passing of time with some new milestone. 2025 was the first year every single kid pedaled themself into Lopez Village for ice cream, and the first time a 15-year-old had to use our boat’s Starlink to take online driver’s ed classes.
Among this group are friends who took our kids swimming at Greenlake all summer so we could focus on our to-do list, who prescribed us scopolamine patches for seasickness, who looked everywhere and found James’ forgotten AirPods under a knitting project. They carried us, as the kids would say.
Of the many hard goodbyes we’ve said this summer, this was the hardest. It was easy to pretend it was just another Spencer Spit departure while lugging gear up the hill from the beach to the cars, tripping on the same tree roots we’ve tripped on for years. It got a lot harder when we were hugging and crying in the parking lot. When our family headed alone back down the hill to our dinghy and rode quietly out to our boat, the leaving part of this adventure was feeling very, very real.
We think a lot about our community in Seattle — friends, neighbors, schools, offices, dance classes and grocery stores that we love — but, boy, will leaving on a slow boat really give you time to consider just how much you’ll miss it.
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