A week or so ago we received an invitation from our Ameriprise Financial advisor, George Selvy, to join him for a bus tour to the Penn Cove MusselFest at Coupeville on Whidbey Island. Having no other pressing engagements, and noting that the price was right ($0.00) we signed up and invited Chris and Patricia to come along as our guests.
The small bus left Northgate around 08:45 with our tour leader Cheryl and a full load of guests. On the ferry we ran into John Mann and some other PG pilots - and later ran into them (and Iain) at Coupeville when conditions at the Fort didn't pan out. At Coupeville, it was still drizzling on and off but we picked up our tickets for the chowder tasting and the boat tour then beat it down to the wharf to get on board for the first tour.
The Glacier Spirit is a 50 ft, totally enclosed boat usually used for whale watching tours, and the Penn Cove Mussel Farm staff member on board gave a really good presentation about how they raise mussels and harvest them year round.
At one of the rafts, the guide pulled a couple of ropes of mussels up for us to see and lowered a video camera into the water so we could see them on a large screen TV.
Back on shore we wandered around Coupeville hitting all of our chowder tasting spots except the Captain Whidbey Inn located two miles from town. The free shuttles were overtaxed with the number of folks who wanted to avoid walking.
Patricia bought us a half-pound of mussels from one of several outdoors cookers after we had returned from a long walk out to the last chowder sample at the Tyee. Then we grabbed waffle cones for dessert and sat on the wharf enjoying the now-sunny weather.
By 1545 we were gathering back at the bus and reached Northgate around 1815 or so.
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