Northwest by Sail and Rail: Part Y

In which the valiant crew navigates a thick fog... Return to Anacortes... Getting the boat ship-shape...

Maybe Not Pea Soup, But Minestrone At Least

Piaw writes:

We woke up at 5:00am, just like the alarm clock said, to a gray sky. Perfect for portraits, lousy for scenics. "And to think I suggested getting up at 5:00am," said Larry. So we packed up the tent, stuffed everything into our backpacks, and took a walk around the island. It was beautifully still and quiet---the straits had calmed down overnight, and the fog was just beginning to settle in. When we got to the boat, both Lea and Scarlet were up. Did we want to get going, or did we want to sit and have breakfast first? I looked at my watch and made a quick determination that if we were quick, we could leave here at 8am and still return the boat on time. Besides, I wanted the fog to lift a bit first.

Pancakes were in our future. A few days back, Scarlet had told us of a nightmare of hers--it was one of those nightmares where you think you've woken up. She dreamt that she'd woken up and the rest of the crew had been standing over her. And they had forced her to make pancakes. So I scooted into the kitchen area before Scarlet could get there and started getting ready. I started looking through the cooler, pulled out the butter, kept looking. "What are you looking for?" asked Scarlet. "Eggs." "Don't use eggs, we've got pancake mix." "Really? Cool."

I considered that the only time I'd been seasick was on a boat motoring through fog. So for breakfast this day, I had one blueberry.

Piaw writes:

So we hurriedly make pancakes and wolfed them down. Then a mad scramble to get the boat ready, and we were off. The couple in The Puffin had awakened and waved us on. While we were having breakfast, the fog instead of lifting had set in even more heavily. Once we left Doe Island we could see nothing, which was a scary experience, since we did not have radar. The tide was moving the boat rapidly, and after a close encounter with land, I headed us on a course more directly away from Orcas. I gave Lea the tiller and pulled out Sam's GPS. This was what would save us. Technology! Later on, I spoke with Sam and he said that that was why he got the GPS. "It's not to be a yuppie hiker, but I figure if it saves your bacon once it's paid for itself." Damn straight. It was a particularly sophisticated GPS unit, with way-point features and fortunately I had actually read the manual, so could program in the various places on the chart that I wanted to look out for. Larry and Scarlet took the fog horn up forward and blew on it every so often. Larry was enjoying it.

Being on fogwatch appealed to my paranoid side. Up at the prow of the boat, Scarlet and I spelled one another, one person taking a watch while the other scurried below to fetch yet another layer of warm clothing. While on watch, I stared out into the mist, flicking eyes back and forth. Where the mist met the water, there was a darker stripe, which I kept trying to convince myself didn't look like rocks. Engines sounded around us--were they boats? Were they planes? Every couple of minutes, I'd give the foghorn a blow, but it seemed pretty clear that there were some boats out in the fog that weren't taking this precaution. Still, a couple of times I blew the horn and heard a reply. The only time boats loomed up out of the fog, we'd had warning.

Piaw writes:

I plotted our position from the GPS, and charted our progress. Though I had the engine going at a low power and water speed was 1 knot, the GPS told us we were really going 3 knots. I had no desire to go any faster, so we aimed the boat to keep a bit of Orcas Island in sight and steered with an eye on the GPS, an eye on the compass heading, an eye on the depth sounder, and the fog horn blowing away. In retrospect it was fun, as we weren't really in any danger, but at that time I was tense and scared, as was the rest of the crew. It's a bummer to wreck the boat on the last day of the sail trip.
By and by, the fog slowly lifted as we approached the southern end of Orcas Island. I could now see Obstruction Island, Blakely Island and Cypress Island. We were clear. I asked Larry to retire the fog horn, though he was enjoying himself so he gave one last blast on it before doing so. We then powered up the engine and headed back as the blue sky peeked in over the nearby mountain tops and the sun came out. None of us wanted the trip to end---it had been so good to us. I wasn't looking forward to starting work on Monday.

Wonderful, Wonderful Land

Piaw suggested that we dump our holding tank in American waters to avoid accidents with a pump-out. "Our own private Canada, eh?" I asked. Still, I wasn't too thrilled with the idea. Someone asked me, "Are you volunteering to handle the hose, then?"

I thought. I thought. I screwed up my courage. I replied, "Yes." The rest of the crew laughed. That Larry, what a kidder. We didn't dump in American waters, but somehow when it came time for our final pump-out, my volunteerism had been forgotten and Piaw was on the hose. Still, during that pump-out, I knew I was tired--asked to check to make sure that the Y-valve was properly set for maceration, I looked right at it, and failed to notice that it was in the wrong position. A few nights of no sleep, going without breakfast--it had caught up.

Piaw writes:

The return to the docks was uneventful. Docking was easy and snag free, and just about the only thing that was an incident was forgetting to pay the fuel dock for our gas, an easily remedied situation.

Tying up at the fuel dock confirmed that the crew was tired. Lea did a statue imitation until I got her attention. I could barely pick up my feet.

We motored back to the Healer's home slip. A couple on a neighboring boat, the Sunday Morning Coffee, gave us some help tying up. We'd done sort of a haphazard job of tying up the boat. We were so tired. I think it was the guy who pointed out that we could use a "spring" line--an extra dock line to help keep the boat from moving back and forth. I think it was the gal who pointed out that we really wanted another spring line. And another. And that one of the first ones wasn't as taut as it could be. And that... And then the guy said that we didn't really need that last spring line, and it was okay if this one wasn't so taut. And the gal wasn't so sure. I pointed out that Really Soon Now, some guy from the charter company was going to come make sure that we hadn't trashed the boat, and he'd have opportunity to make sure that the boat was securely tied. At this, the couple stopped squabbling, giving us a chance to thank them for their help and to start unloading.

The sun beat down. We picked up our stuff, packed it. It was so hot, so very hot. I was near collapse. Eventually I remembered that I'd skipped breakfast. I started eating the food instead of packing it, and lifting luggage out of the hold became easier soon after.

The Healer's equivalent of a refrigerator was an insulated cooler built into the kitchen counter. We'd put in a block of ice and put in our foodstuffs. To get to food that was down towards the bottom, you had to shift stuff around. Somewhere over the course of the week, a piece of cheese had escaped from its bag. The occasional shifting around had encouraged this cheese to smear against the walls of the cooler. Eventually, it had fallen down into the bottom with the melted ice, partially dissolving into the water. We were going to have to clean out the cooler. We were also wanted to empty out the jerry can of water so that we could return it to Rick. Someone handed down the jerry can so I could use the water to rinse out the cooler after scrubbing it: two birds, one stone. One heavy stone. The jerry can was heavy. I got ready to pour water from the jerry can into the cooler. Scarlet was standing by. In fact, she was standing right next to the cooler. I had a vision of me trying to pour water from the can into the cooler, losing my grip, water everywhere... I told Scarlet of my concerns, advised her to step back. I pointed out, "If I'd known this kind of heavy lifting was involved, I would have recommended y'all get the next larger size of behemoth." I rinsed out the cooler, albeit awkwardly.

We brought up luggage, loaed up the cars, made one last use of the Anacortes Marina restrooms. It was on the way back from the restroom to the cars that I spotted the shiny landcruiser. Its rear window had a bunch of Anacortes Marina parking stickers. Obviously, this Land Cruiser was property of a genuinely outdoorsy person. And it was so well-preserved. I went running back to the cars, grabbed my camera, and snapped some pictures. I started heading back to the car. Lea was walking towards me with some trash for the dumpster. She'd figured out what I was doing, was laughing. She said, "You are a good friend," and I had to remind myself that I wasn't talking to an six-inch-taller Veronica Boutelle. I chuckled, "You're pretty good, yourself."

Departures: Sailing: Northwest by Sail and Rail: Part Y

Maybe Not Pea Soup, But Minestrone At Least

Wonderful, Wonderful Land