Outfit Details:

Barbour Jacket (on sale, also similar here and vest version here), 360 Sweater Knit (in navy), Gant Top, Amour Vert Striped Tee, Old Navy Jeans, Soludos Espadrilles, Tuckernuck Hat, Ray Ban Sunglasses

As I’ve mentioned previously, the reason Thomas and I went up to Seattle, was to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. The whole trip was amazing, but we knew that we wanted to cap it off with doing something special on our actual anniversary, and it didn’t take us long to come up with what we wanted to do! We both had been really wanting to go sailing and, despite living in one of the most world famous sailing locations, we’d still never been together. So we thought this would be the perfect occasion. After some research, we found exactly what we were searching for, Upbeat Sailing, a nice sized private sailboat that we could charter for half a day. The booking couldn’t have been easier, we told them the occasion, our date and our preferred time and we had a confirmation email minutes later!

Upbeat’s crew and owners, Andy and Kris, were fantastic and so, so sweet! They were perfectly accommodating to our desire to sail towards downtown, despite it being a less ideal route for sailing purposes. They told us we were more than welcome to bring our own snacks and drinks as we’d be sailing for about 5 hours. So on our way to the marina, we stopped to picked up some food and rosé from Ballard Market (a recommendation from a reader). The weather couldn’t have been better, for enjoying as well as for sailing. As we sailed south from the Ballard neighborhood, we headed downwind towards Downtown. This was the perfect time for sitting back and enjoying the sun since it didn’t feel windy, as we were going with the wind. Neither Thomas nor I have any sailing experience, so we enjoyed watching and even playing a small part in steering (which is much harder than it looks!) the boat. 

I mentioned that I packed a lot of basics and stripes for this trip, which ended up being perfect for this last-minute sailing excursion. Even though it was a beautiful 80 degree and sunny day, the winds out on the water made it pretty cold. Luckily, we packed a few layers that we kept adding on as the day progressed. What started out as a simple striped summer top quickly transition to this long sleeve striped tee, to this cream sweater, to this quilted Barbour jacket.

After taking in the beautiful downtown from a vantage point not every tourist get’s to enjoy, we made a U-turn and headed back in the direction from which we came. Now that we were sailing upwind, that’s when the real sailing began. It’s pretty incredible how the physics of sailing work and how you’re able to reach impressive speeds by zig zagging against the oncoming wind. I really started to understand it when I got the opportunity to steer the boat. It’s quite an odd feeling, that in order to keep the boat going straight, you have to steer against the resistance. It was only a matter of time before my arms got tired so I handed off the wheel to Thomas. 

With as much fun as we had on this outing, we still can’t believe we haven’t done it in San Francisco. So we are hoping to do this here in SF, sooner rather than later!