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| 2009 CRUISE REPORT, WEEK ONE
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June 11, 2009.
If you walk the gentle, winding road from the Fisherman Bay moorages to Lopez Village on Lopez Island on a Wednesday, Saturday or Sunday afternoon, you’ll pass one of Lopez Island’s unique activities, the dump. Most dumps aren’t unique. They’re where people send their trash. On Lopez Island, though, three times each week from noon to four, the dump is the site of the Take it or Leave it exchange. Bring the useful things you don’t want anymore, and scan the offerings for something you do want. Everything is free. MarJoe Davidson, co-proprietor of the Fudge Factory in Lopez Village, told us three-fourths of the display fixtures in her store came from the dump.
This wasn’t something we already knew about. We just happened upon it as we walked to Lopez Village. Cars were parked along the road and people were going to and from the dump, carrying things. We asked a nice lady in a mini van what was going on. She filled in the details. Later, in the village, MarJoe Davidson added her comments.
Cruising is like that. At least it’s been like that this first week away from home. Every day has been filled with the unexpected. On the day we departed, it took two hours to get from our moorage in Seattle’s Portage Bay and through the Ballard Locks. Topping up the fuel tanks was responsible for part of that time, but waiting, waiting, for the assembled boats to be finally directed into the large lock was the big culprit. Two large commercial vessels had to be accommodated before the rest of us could fit in. At last, a little after 3:00 p.m., we were released and the boat tasted saltwater. The eight-week trip to Prince Rupert, B.C. and back had begun.
What a change the weather has been. In the last few years, we motored into Puget Sound under gray skies, in cool temperatures. The 2009 departure was under clear blue skies, in warm, welcoming temperatures, and not a breath of wind. Powerboats like no-wind conditions.
We decided to go north along the east side of Whidbey Island, with a planned overnight possibly in the Oak Harbor area. A little north of Edmonds, I took a siesta on the new couch, and my wife Marilynn helmed. Through my light slumber I noticed that the boat was bucking a little, and from time to time the wipers were clearing the front windows. I got up and looked around. A little northerly breeze had developed, with occasional whitecaps – nothing to worry about. It was probably a sea breeze, and would die by sundown.
Except this breeze had legs. It developed into a wind (a wind that lasted through the night), and the occasional whitecaps of an hour earlier now looked like a blanket of white ahead of us. The gentle chop turned into close-spaced swells, and even at eight knots the boat slammed down into the troughs. Sheets of spray hit the front windows. Maybe more speed would help. Sixteen knots is as easy as eight for us, just push the handles forward. I went halfway, to about 14 knots. The bow came up and spray flew beside us instead of onto the front windows. But the sun was growing low, and we were heading into the sun. We couldn’t see drift in the reflections from the water ahead. We knew drift was there, because we saw floating pieces of wood to the side as we went along. One piece of wood hitting a propeller could spoil the entire trip.
By this time we were beyond the Clinton ferry terminal on Whidbey Island, and north of Sandy Point. Whidbey Island’s village of Langley, with its breakwater-protected marina, was abeam to port. To heck with Oak Harbor, it was time to turn for Langley.
Now for a confessional about Langley. The Waggoner says the moorage there is tight, and that description was written after we visited in the 26-footer and the present 37-footer. But it was not written after we were getting in out of a storm. Most of the slips are designed for 20-24-foot powerboats, with narrow fairways between the slips. End slips will hold larger vessels, but the end slips were taken when we came in. A float far in had a sign designating it for larger vessels. You have to think fast at times like these, and I decided to go for that float.
The problem was that finger floats from two docks made the approach too tight. Even our 37-footer would need to be hinged to make the turn, and Tollycraft never built a hinged 37. The commitment made, however, I did my best. Marilynn was in the cockpit, ready to take a stern line ashore. Ashore turned out to be a finger float 20 feet from our moorage.
We are not young. We no longer jump from the boat to docks. We move carefully, with thought, and with handholds. And the boat was going to swing into that finger float. Somehow, Marilynn became a girl again. She was off the boat and onto the dock, pushing the stern away and moving the bow to the far float. Then she ran down the finger float onto the main dock and to the moorage location. The boat swung in. Marilynn took the pre-rigged midship line down to a cleat on the dock. I left the lower helm station and ran (ran is a relative term for me) out the transom door and onto the dock to tie down the stern line. It wasn’t pretty, but we were safe.
Rick Brewer, the harbor manager, came down a short time later, the evening patrol of the docks. Rick is friendly, and he’s certainly knowledgeable. He spent many years as a captain of small cruise ships, and he understands docks and dockings. When we told him that the next morning we wanted to leave a little after 0630 to make Deception Pass around slack water, he offered to be at the dock to help get us away. A little after 0600, there he was, and his advice (and assistance) were important.
The weather has been beautiful and the marinas are busy, at least on weekends. Although G Dock, the visitor dock at the Port of Friday Harbor, was all but empty when we overnighted Sunday, it had been full the night before. The spring three-day weekends in Washington and B.C. have been blessed with warm sunny weather, which brings the boats out. This is in marked contrast with our usual experience. In most years the spring weather has been more winterlike, and the marina owners and managers are complaining.
In early April I came down with a bout of flu and bronchitis, and had to cancel a three-day research/ad collection trip by car to Sidney and Victoria. The visits still had to be made, so we tied up for three nights at Sidney’s well-run Van Isle Marina, rented a car for two days, and used the boat as a hotel room. The boat that shared our slip when we arrived was a clean and well-equipped 38-footer that looked for all the world like a Bayliner 38, except it said Fehrway on the side.
The next day we learned that the boat was indeed a Bayliner, owned by Jeff and Kami Fehr, from Calgary, Alberta. Jeff loves the basic boat, but he has made so many improvements that he renamed it. It’s his second 38. When we met them, he had just finished installing an elegant two-reel stern-tie system on the transom. He had engineered and built the system himself, and this was the first model. They were about to leave and find an anchorage to try it out. (The system is his variation on the two-reel system described in Jennifer Hamilton’s Pacific Yachting article a few years ago, and shown in the Hamiltons’ book, Cruising the Secret Coast – which we publish.)
What interesting people. Jeff sells equipment to the Alberta oil patch, and I suspect the business has been good to him. His interest, though, is boats and building things. He would like to change careers to the marine field and move out to the coast. I cautioned that even with the oil patch down to 80 rigs from more than 300, oil equipment probably would pay more. We’ll see. Jeff is a talented designer and a skilled workman. He has a dream. Most of us in the marine industry began with a dream. The dream keeps us there.v
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