Casey
09/14/2007, San Juan Islands

Despite the late ending to the previous night's boat party at the marina in Fisherman's Bay on Lopez Island, Carla's mom, Marge, was at the dock bright and early the next morning with her clothes bag and some more fresh food and ice. We needed to be away from the dock by 8:30 am to have any chance of getting out of the narrow and shallow channel that separates the bay from the deep water of the straight that runs between Lopez and Shaw Island. As it was, our boat draws 4'10" and the depth sounder read 4.10 feet at one tense moment on the way out. The only problem once in open water was figuring out where, now that we had our celebrated guest on board, we were going to take her.
'Where were we going to go next?' one of the kids asked. 'Does it have a pool?'
'No pool. You were in a pool yesterday, so you don't need to be clean again for the rest of the week.'
There wasn't much wind, a big southerly heading ebb tide and plenty of sun. Carla wanted to go to Stuart Island, which is the northern most of the San Juan Islands and we were at Lopez, the southern most island. That would mean a long day of slow motoring with a bunch of children who were dying to stop somewhere and fish. I clawed frantically at charts and guide books trying to formulate the ever elusive back up plan. I suggested Canoe Island (too close). I suggested Blind Bay on Shaw Island (no beach). I suggested the much closer (but not too close) West Sound on Orcas Island. Marge sagely declined to get involved with the choosing, and simply expressed that she was happy/thrilled to be out on the water on such a perfect sunny day. Carla and I had no time to waste on good weather appreciation. She made her pitch to the kids on the virtues of Stuart Island (trails, a lighthouse, perhaps a whale would come by, something good might come of it somehow...) finally sort of waving feebly at a closed guide book as if to infer the kids could look it up for themselves if they had any doubts. They gave her the same sort of distrustful stare they do every time she tries to convince them that fresh fruit counts as a dessert.
I took my turn. 'Alright my little pirates, what would you rather do? We can go to Stuart Island, which might be nice, but we don't know because we've never been there, and which will take us a long long time. Or we could go anchor at a place called...' I paused dramatically and then whispered it to Sophia, and her eyes lit up. 'Tell 'em where pirates can anchor,' I told her. In her best 4 year old cutthroat voice she whispered, 'Skull Island!' They looked at me, and I nodded. 'For real. Skull Island in Massacre Bay.' There was much rejoicing amongst the shorter crew members. Carla looked at the sky, perhaps searching for a cloud that was whale shaped. I gave Marge the wheel and told her to keep Shaw to her left. I sat down and had another cup of coffee; my mornings work having been finished.

I had anchored at Skull Island about two decades ago, soon after getting my first boat. It was a great spot then, except for my backing over my dinghy line and breaking my shaft coupling. I have had an aversion to towing dinghies ever since. Unlike the urban sprawl of Deer Harbor, Massacre Bay was still just as lovely. At the far top end of the long West Sound, the water was glassy and clear. Seals circled the boat discretely. Skull Island has one small sandy beach to land a dinghy on, and we anchored a few boat lengths away from it.
The six of us piled into the dinghy and we rowed ashore. I tried to row in a straight line after Sophia's remark from a few days before in Shallow Bay, 'Dad, you're not towardsing at our boat!' The Livingston was a little overloaded with all of us aboard, and I accidentally splashed Carla on one oar stroke. She responded by putting her hand in the water and flinging some at me. The children now believe this to be acceptable behavior. Skull Island is an undeveloped state park, which for an island, is far and away my favorite kind. We spent hours looking at the different views, wandering the vague trails, and climbing rocks and trees. Finally the perfection was brought to an end in the usual way; one of the kids had to poop. I rowed us back so the boys could fish and I could have a beer.
Cavan absolutely adores fishing. Tommy likes fishing, but really adores organizing the tackle box. I don't actually hate fishing. I like eating fish, but am happy to simply buy them. Fishing to me is like standing outside a store and handing a stranger 20 bucks and a shopping basket, and then standing around waiting to see if he will come back out with anything or not. What ever it is that I don't get, Cavan does. I sat in the shade, and read my book and drank my beer, occasionally answering his good questions about hooks, bait, rods, fish feeding habits, etc. They were thoughtful smart eight year old unpreconceived, questions. He changed bait a time or two. He tried different depths. He fished the sunny side of the boat and the shady side. He patiently cleared seaweed from his hook and from his weight.
A long time after his younger brother had gone on to other activities, Cavan kept working his pole. Finally he said, 'Do you think I'll catch a fish?'
'I don't know,' I said putting down my book, 'but you know what Cavan? You work so hard at fishing that you will catch a lot of fish in your time. And if you work at everything in your life the same way you do your fishing you will be a very successful man. I am very proud of you.' He smiled. 'Why don't you put your pole in the rod holder and we'll read some more Narnia?' He did. We read for maybe ten minutes or so and I looked up and said, 'Cavan! Look at your pole!' It was bent double. His Dale Earnhardt Jr. 2-lb. test trout pole had all it could handle. He struggled to reel it in, and I pulled the line by hand away from the boat so it wouldn't foul on the rudder. Once Cavan got the pole out of the rod holder he had that little closed reel singing. If you remember, when you were a kid, it's hard to reel in a fish and breathe at the same time. The whole crew was at his shoulder by now, wondering whether it was really a fish or had he just caught his hook on the bottom. Finally it came up near the surface where we could start to see it.
'What is it, Dad?'
'It's a shark.' The dogfish was about three feet long and trying to shake free. Carla ran for her camera. Cavan was nearly hyperventilating. It broke loose a little before Tommy or Sophia got a good look at it, but the boat was thrilled with the capture of what really was the perfect fish for an eight year old.
'How big was it Dad?'
'About three feet.' I say.
'No it wasn't!' Carla scoffed.
'It was.'
'No it wasn't.'
'How big do you think it was?'
She moved her hands a yard apart.
'That's three feet,' Marge agreed.
'Well, maybe it's two and a half,' she admitted (and who knows why) grudgingly. You would have thought we were paying a bounty.
Cavan was re-baiting his hook and giving Tommy a play by play on bait selection criterion. I got my cell phone out so he could call his pal Tate back in Ferndale.
The next morning Tommy caught one. As we were finally getting ready to leave the anchorage, Cavan reeled in his line to put the pole away and had another one, this one the biggest of the lot. The legend of the Shark Hunters of Skull Island had been born. If you doubt it, just ask one of them. You might want to sit down and open your beer first.

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Casey
09/07/2007, San Juan Islands

The successful operation of a sailing vessel throughout history has been based on the symbiotic and coordinated relationship between the ironclad unquestioned authority of the Skipper (Master under God, as he is known), and the willing and eager compliance of the crew. So long as any and every intention of the Captain is met with a hearty 'Aye aye, Sir!' the sailing boat will have a productive and happy swim. A breakdown in this partnership of command and compliance brings a ship into uncharted and dangerous territory. Frank Brookesmith, who chronicled his voyage as a young man on one of the last great square rigged merchant ships, wrote about a time of light winds and constant crew work to make the most of every zephyr during a long Cape Horn voyage:

The Mate had a slight 'breeze' with his watch about this time. One night of these variable and short-lived airs we were constantly on deck and pulling on braces to trim the yards to each change of wind and I suppose we weren't putting our backs into it as we might. He wanted to know in the name of the Seven Sozzled Sisters why we egg-bound, stuttering bloody landlubbers were fumbling round the ropes 'just like a lot of twittering old ladies at a tangled ball of wool!'
We resented this. We went dumb.

So the point here is this delicate balance can break down even with professionals. In the case of the Dawn Treader, where we have a strict policy against egg-boundedness, we still managed to offend this principle of sailing effectiveness, within the first two hours, and yet managed to have a spectacular tour of the San Juan Islands anyway.
It was our intention to leave for 10 days of sailing on Saturday morning, but when I came home from work on Friday, nothing had been taken out to the boat and shopping and packing remained to some extent, undone. 'What ho?' you say, 'a bag of hard tack a few cans of bully beef, and splice the main brace!' Well, you might not say that, but I might have more or less, at one time, maybe, but Carla, Logistical Goddess, is in charge of provisioning and transporting and stowing (though when she says we're ready to leave and I see an open jar of mayonnaise sitting on the edge of the salon table, I sometimes get involved a little. In a past life, Carla was the expediter for Everest expeditions, until the fateful day that her assembled pile of supplies rose higher than that mountain which had been there original goal. For one thing, Carla suffers the cold like a Bedouin in Alaska, so everyone gets four winter coats for summer sailing. Five hats right out of a scene from Fargo for each person. Enough sweaters for a Norwegian ski vacation, etc. That sort of thing. Now the children run through approximately 25 pair of underwear a week, so she ended up giving them each 3 for ten days intending our 'vacation' to be some sort of cruel Protestant based training, but that is a different story than this one. On the food side, the Dawn Treader has a large deep top loading refrigerator. This was to be supplemented by at one point five plastic coolers. The Admiral/First Mate [A/FM] also has a near fetish for plastic bags. Why put anything in the plastic lined garbage can that first can't be put in a plastic bag? Why put anything already wrapped in plastic in the refrigerator without first wrapping it in a plastic bag. {On my single-handed delivery back from the ill fated Gulf Islands trip, I left the helm to pop below quickly and found I couldn't get in the hanging locker (closet) or forward head (potty) because all the kids dirty laundry was stacked up in a towering heap of tightly stretched (not to mention smelly) little plastic grocery bags loosely knotted at the top. As I tried to move them they toppled and ripped and spilled open. That sort of thing.} So anyhow, as I popped in the door after work Friday night ready to shout with joy, "Cerveza!' my joie de vivre was tempered by the sight of a series of rooms in the house which appeared to be a laboratory studying chaos theory in the aftermath of a tornado hitting full force against a St. Vincent de Paul.* Carla's eyes, once again, were shooting out death rays in all directions that caused small fires here and there that the kids had to scramble to stamp out quickly with their little stocking'd feet. 'You know,' I said, getting my own beer, 'this is a vacation, not a forced march. If we want to take our time loading tomorrow, we can spend the night on the boat and just leave on Sunday.' Some mumbling and grumbling implied this was being mulled over, and so I went and packed my own bag in a different wing of the house.
Saturday turned out to be cloudy anyway, and a good day for a nice leisurely lounge on the boat, and a good dinner. Come Sunday morning, after coffee and breakfast, we were purportedly ready. 'Okay,' I said making good solid eye contact with the A/FM, 'this is a sailing vacation. We have all day to get to Sucia. We can sail any old direction for as long as we want and still motor in by dinner time.' She nodded, which means to me that she agreed, and to her that my allotted talking time was over. Through a last second miscommunication due to a dock neighbor offering a helping hand as we were about to take off, we tried to back out of the slip with one bow line still hooked to the dock. Other than that we were now off to a smooth start. We motored out of the marina and thru the shallow channel into the bay. Once out past the last green buoy we picked up the Southerly breeze. The sail covers were already off and the lazy jacks already hoisted. We really only needed the halyards attached and then the sails could be raised. 'I'm hungry,' one or all of the children said and began pleading/begging/whining for food. It had been an hour since breakfast. So really Carla just had to feed the kid's lunch and we would be ready to hoist canvas. Dawn Treader motored along while Carla went below to unstack various shelves of the top loading refrigerator, poke about in various coolers, and move a succession of cushions to load and unload storage lockers to get all the many and varied ingredients to feed the children-who-can't-eat-the-same-kind-of-sandwich. 'Oh, I forgot to make us one,' Carla pointed out, once the kids had stopped keening and started eating. 'Are you hungry?' Hmm. 'I am now.' So the whole process started again. We ate our sandwiches enjoying the beautiful day on the water. The subject of which anchorage came up, and it was decided by the majority to go for Shallow Bay, because it had the better (sandy) beach. 'Okay, I'm just going to stow a few more things now so they aren't rolling around,' Carla said. 'What the hell was Saturday all about?' I thought quietly to myself. Then we would start sailing? When that latest logistical challenge was met some not inconsiderable time later, the kids (who as soon as they are on the water develop this extravagant Iditarod sled dog metabolism, requiring {evidently} 20,000 plus calories a day to ward off malnutrition and the much more troubling onset of dramatic scenery chewing pantomime stomach pain) began to clamor for more meat and drink. So it's off for another food search, juice search, water search, stuffed animal and book search. The beloved children are, between bites and sessions of holding their stomachs (now distended like a Kalahari tribesman who has just eaten both hind quarters of a springbok) and claiming further improbable famishment, are saying, 'When will we get to the sandy beach?' Or else they use their much more nautical version, 'When do we turn the corner?' And we're not talking about them just saying it occasionally or maybe even once through a spokeschild of some sort, but repeatedly, and individually, and (give credit where it's due) idiosyncratically, in a nerve pinching, rolling barrage of yelping, sort of way. I try to remind the entire crew that Shallow Bay, home of the sandy beach, is first of all, aptly named, and second of all, a notorious crap anchorage as far as getting an anchor to bite. It really begs you to be on a mooring ball. I might as well be twittering away at a tangled ball of wool for all the mind I'm paid. Finally up pops the A/FM from below with a hearty 'Okay, I'm ready! Shall we put up the sails?' I look at her, and nod dramatically at the headland of Sucia Island that looms above and before us. She equally dramatically raises her eyebrows and shrugs the universal 'So what?' sign. "Uh, we're now like 20 minutes from Shallow Bay, and we might as well see if we can get a moorage buoy since the kids are going to be pretty unhappy now if we don't.' She rolls her beautiful green eyes and says to her Captain, 'You never want to sail, and we always motor.' I went dumb.

There were two mooring balls available, and we took the one that was deep enough to keep us floating on the upcoming minus tide. It was beautiful, sunny, and calm. The only moment of difficulty came after launching the dinghy when it turned out that there were actually three sandy beaches, and the children all insisted I row them to the furthest away. Once I capitulated there weren't anymore issues. The sandy beach was all it could be (beach, sandy), with the children skipping rocks and running timed wind sprints, Carla counting the number of huge red jellyfish (47?), and Dad reading a book sitting on a log. I did spend a fair bit of time watching four elderly and drunken power boaters try and climb up to some caves on a cliff face while repeatedly dropping their cell phone and shouting and swearing at each other. Four Sozzled Stink potters, as it were, giving a pinch of spice to classic NW cruising really.
We could have stayed there for more than one night, but it was simply too perfect, so we had to leave in search of something even perfecter. Off we motored in a flat calm toward Jones Island, famed for its kid friendly park. The small sheltered cove on its north side was chock full of boats and there wasn't really room to swing a cat, let alone a forty foot ketch. The children, thinking they were moments from the beach began the old lugubrious caterwauling they do so well, as we turned back out to sea. 'We will have to go to plan B,' I said. 'We'll have to remember to have a plan B,' Carla pointed out. So we wandered about a bit, flipping open guides and charts and came up with the quick and easy destination of Deer Harbor on Orcas Island. Our loose plan for The Trip was to end up at Lopez Island sometime mid week to pick up Carla's mom and take her out for a night or two on the water. We went into Deer Harbor and got a real Killer Whale's view of the way Orcas Island has changed over the last 20 years. It looked like the suburbs with water. There were houses everywhere, a big marina, private land with no public beach, and a hundred private mooring balls (75% empty, but covering the bulk of the anchoring area). Unless, we wanted to go to the marina (which had [whisper] a P-O-O-L). Since we were planning on a night at the marina in Fisherman's Bay, Lopez Island, just ahead (they also have a p-o-o-l), we decided to U-turn back out again. The three shortest members of the crew were working themselves up to some sort of emotional tipping point, held at bay only just by juice and string cheese. 'So even if we had a plan B...' I began. 'It wouldn't have been any good?' Carla noted. This however is where a good Admiral really pays for her keep. Carla remembered (of course she remembered, she of the total recall of every moment of her life up until the moment we met after which things get hazy/haywire) visiting Turn Island when she was a young girl.** The whole island was a public park, it was beautiful, and had trails all around it. It was also pretty much right nearby. Carla got out the binoculars and spotted an open mooring buoy. Despite her endorsement, it didn't look like that promising of a spot to me. The main channel running North/South in front of Friday Harbor is maybe the busiest spot for boat traffic in the whole Puget Sound, with non stop ferries, big currents, and gusty land breezes. The approach to Turn Island appeared to be completely open to every wave and wake, and anything but a Southerly wind. 'I can see why that buoy is open', I thought quietly to myself (sometimes it's prudent to whisper even when you are only thinking). We scooted toward the mooring after being buzzed by a couple fifty foot power slabs throwing out Oahu sized wakes and were nearly surfing. I was hoping the sailboats on the other two balls, didn't think I was the one responsible for nearly swamping their dinghies. All this wave blasting seemed to confirm my fears, but we gave it a try anyway, and that was really the last of the big rollers except for one testosteroned ferry wake much later (to the disappointment of the children who love a big gunnel to gunnel wallow.There was a tiny hook of half submerged rocks that protected the little spot on each side, and there were powerful back eddies that pushed the tides away from the top of the little island. It was the little island that could, and the cove-let, seemed to have its own protective force field. We were on the beach and hiking in moments. It might have been just a bit perfecter after all.

** From my own experience, I suggest you do not ask if this visit was made on the Mayflower.


* Stylistically throwing too many language scraps into once sentence could be tres pelagroso or muy dangeruese, et cetera, if not done precisely and with accurate spelling will leave a prose pile that will not smell too bella, and have the poor reader stomping his or her jack boot and shouting 'Gott in Himmel!

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08/15/2007

I found this poem on the 1000 days website, and it gives the best explanation of the why and what of leaving on a long journey.

Ithaca by Cavafi

When you start on the road to Ithaca
wish that the way be long
full of adventures, full of experience.
Fear not the Laestrygones and the Cyclops
the angry Poseidon
you will never find such as these in your way
if your thoughts stay clear, if a choice
emotion affects your body and spirit.
The Laestrygones and the Cyclops,
the wild Poseidon you will never meet,
if you do not carry them in your soul,
if your soul does not set them up in front of you.

Wish that the way be long.
Let there be many summer mornings
when with such a pleasure, such a joy
you will enter harbors never before seen;
you will stop at Phoenician stalls
and will acquire lovely goods,
mother-of-pearl and corals, amber and ebony
and hedonic perfumes of every kind,
hedonic perfumes as plenty as you can;
go to many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from the studious.

Always keep in mind Ithaca.
Arriving there is your goal.
But do not hurry the trip at all.
It is better that it lasts many years;
and when finally an old man, you berth on the island,

rich with what you have gained on the road,
do not expect that Ithaca will give you riches.

Ithaca gave you this lovely voyage.
Without her you would not have started on the road.
She has nothing else to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not fooled you.
Wise that you have become, with such experience,
you must by now know what Ithacas mean.

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