![[Photo: plumbing the depths]](depth.jpg)
In which the crew arrives at Matia island after lots of other boats... Depth soundings the Rube Goldberg way... Larry tries to describe one of the most beautiful sights he's ever seen, and fails. (Fortunately, Piaw took a picture)...
West Harbor Sucia Island 1998 Aug 06 Thursday
Thus it was late when we headed into the West harbor of Sucia island, where we found to our dismay that the harbor was incredibly crowded. I ordered the anchor dropped, but nobody was very happy about how close other boats were to us. I finally gave in to the inevitable and asked for the anchor to be raised, and off we were again. We headed South around Sucia, and encountered one full anchorage after another, with not much swinging room at all. Leaving Sucia left us with Matia island, a National Wildlife Refuge with one mooring and a couple of slightly promising coves. As we approached Matia, the engine kicked down a notch, and what I thought was the engine temperature (this turned out to be simply an engine clock) was way up. This forced me to stop the engine and look into the sea strainer, but I saw nothing that could cause problems so we kept going, albeit at a slower pace in case there really was something wrong with the engine. The mooring at Matia was of course taken. I was getting desperate, as the sun was getting low, so I asked a couple of a similarly sized sail boat moored to a buoy if we could raft up against them for the night. They declined us, and so we headed back out and around the North of Matia.
I was having a great time with the anchor, raising and lowering it as we made our unsuccessful attempts at finding safe harbor. Does that sound silly? How much fun could one really have raising and lowering a heavy weight? At Sucia island, just Scarlet had helped me to raise the anchor. Instead of the one, two, three, Pull, we were able to pull continuously. Each of us was just a little out of phase with the other--when I had to shift my grip, she was still pulling; when she had to shift grips, I was still pulling. The chain never had a chance to stop, to get caught on the lip of the boat. Later, Lea and I would attempt the same thing, and the chain only got caught once.
Matia Island
Matia island was beautiful. Butch had named it as his favorite spot in the San Juan Islands. He loved its "sculpted sandstone cliffs, seventy feet tall," its birds. As I listened to the whisper of little waves running along the cliffs, I knew this was a beautiful spot indeed. It was a pity that so many other boaters had figured this out.
Piaw mentions that a boat at Matia declined to let us raft. This was the Intrepid, and the vapid-looking blonde Canadians aboard their vessel paid for their refusal: we talked venomously about them behind their backs. We imitated them: "We were hoping for some peace and quiet. Lah dee dah." Scarlet had joked that, since the boat was insured, we should just anchor in a not-so-safe spot and row ashore for the night. If the boat was still there in the morning, so much the better. I countered that we should position our boat so that it would ram into the Intrepid. Let's see if they're insured. A mature and forgiving crew, indeed.
Piaw stayed in the cockpit, steering us around Matia, the rest of the crew stayed up front.
We passed one empty cove, which was exposed and surrounded by reefs that would probably break the waves for us ,but also probably give us something to break the boat against if the wind and waves had their way with us and the anchor. The other cove was more protected, but unfortunately occupied, so it was back to cove #1. I dropped anchor into the middle of the cove. All around us was pretty hard rock, so I prayed that the bottom would be gravel (which is ideal for Bruce anchors). We were at high tide, with a tidal variation of about 10 feet, so I ordered the anchor dropped at 20 feet, giving us 10 feet of bottom room. I asked for 60 feet of rode to be paid out (30 feet of chain, 30 feet of rope), giving us a 3 to 1 scope, the minimum I felt comfortable with. I then backed the engine hard to maximum thrust, power-setting the anchor to ensure it would hold. The anchor seemed to catch and hold. On the kind of engine we had, this would be the equivalent of a 60mph wind. At 3:00am at low tide, 60 feet would give us 6:1 rode, which would make me very comfortable indeed, if we had that much swinging room. The danger zone would be in the next couple of hours, but the crew would be awake then, and we could cope with any situation. I set my alarm watch at 3:00am so I would wake up and check the lines then.
Matia Island Cove near Puffin Island
Piaw wanted to drop a second anchor to further reduce the distance that the boat could swing around. Doing this would involve lowering the anchor into the dinghy, rowing the dinghy a ways away, and then dropping the anchor. I liked this plan, and immeiately started plotting how to work a winch into it. Winching, rowing, and anchor dropping: surely this would be the behemoth triple crown.
Unfortunately, experienced, clever Scarlet thought of a plan to determine if we really needed a second anchor. I knew that using a second anchor could introduce complications, and I was willing to give up two thirds of a triple crown if it meant reducing the risk of tangling anchor lines.
Our worry was: if the Healer swung South from the anchor out to the fullest extent of the anchor line, and then the tide went out, would the water still be deep enough--or would we be on the rocks? Scarlet's idea was to row the dinghy South from the Healer and test the water depth there. My ears perked up at the word "dinghy."
Some trig told us how far the anchor line would allow us to swing at low tide (and why that would be further than its present swing). Scarlet measured out a length of rope and tied it to the tow-rope for the dinghy. We'd use this to make sure that the dinghy was the proper distance from the Healer. Someone tied knots in another rope, each knot a set distance from the last. We'd use this to measure depth. Scarlet looked for something heavy to tie the rope to. She settled on a plastic bucket. I wasn't exactly sure how the bucket was going to be heavy enough, but really the only heavy thing I could think of offhand was the anchor. I was still kind of fixating on the anchor, I guess.
Scarlet and I got into the dinghy, me on oar duty, she ready to lower the bucket and count knots. I rowed out to position. The rope tied to the dinghy's tow-rope went taut. Since the tow rope was at the front of the dinghy and the distance-rope was stretched out behind us, it turned us around. Scarlet yelped. I noticed that she wasn't wearing a life vest. She lowered the bucket into the water, and it steadfastly refused to sink. We were going to need to use something else. Something that would sink. "How about the crab-pot?" It was at this point that the giggles began.
I rowed back to the Healer, where Scarlet explained the new plan. The heretofore useless crab-pot would finally help us. Soon Scarlet was back in the dinghy, and we had a crab-pot. I rowed out. Scarlet started to lower the pot, and looked back. "You know, we're not really all the way out." She was right. Most of our distance-rope was in the water. I figured that there was no way to really pull it taut. Wet rope is heavy, right? And it's really hard to pull a rope really taut, right? And dinghies are unwieldly, right? And besides, the tow rope kept trying to turn our boat around--to counteract this, I'd only be able to row with my left arm, and that made it impossible, right? Then again, Scarlet was an experienced sailor. I started rowing my left arm for all it was worth. Our distance rope tightened, pulled out of the water. Omigawsh. Then I looked down at the left oar. There was something on it--seaweed? No, that wasn't it. Oh--it was the crab-pot line. Each time I rowed with the oar, I was wrapping the crab-pot line around it. I think it was at this point that the uncontrollable laughter started.
Still whooping and gasping, we got the line untangled, and I started to row again while Scarlet re-dropped the pot, measured the depth. The water wasn't very deep, but it was deep enough: we wouldn't need to drop the second anchor. As I rowed us back to the boat, we were still laughing. A use for trigonometry, a brilliant engineering feat, a plan executed by means of a scientifically calibrated crab-pot: were we not unruly young engineers?
I wanted to deploy a second anchor from the stern to hold us, but Scarlet had a better idea: she would take the dinghy out with the crab-pot to measure depth and give us an estimate of the swinging room we had. Larry would go on board the dinghy with her to row. The result of that campaign was one of the funniest moments of the trip: picture two people on a dinghy with a crab-pot, rowing around in a dinghy while tethered to a sailboat. Larry would paddle in one direction until the line became taut, whereupon the dinghy would shoot off in a different direction, causing Scarlet to lurch around. I pulled out my camera, loaded it with fast film, and proceeded to shoot away between giggles. Larry was having fun, and so was Scarlet. 60 feet turned out to be relatively little singing room in this cove, and we had 15 feet easily even as close to the rocks as we could get, so our hero and heroine came back aboard the boat with big smiles. "Dinghies rule!" declared Larry.
Dinner was what was left of our hot dogs, and we watched as the sun slowly set around us. Before we knew it the dark had come, with a nearly full moon lighting up the sky. Larry still had plenty of energy left, so he suggested a photo excursion ashore for pictures. I did not hesitate to take advantage of his suggestion, so as soon as we could we loaded up the dinghy with the camera bag and off we went.
That dinghy ride was one of the most beautiful times of my life. I know, I know, the good times don't make for interesting reading. I was rowing in an island cove, under the light of the stars and moon. In the background, a smaller island and the boat with its lights on. Moonlight reflected on the water, occasionally interrupted by craggy shoals. This is boring the hell out of you, isn't it?
Over the last couple of days, Larry had honed his dinghy handling skills by an amazing amount. He could now point a bout wherever he wanted and push it there. Thus, we made a beeline right for the beach, and I grabbed the dinghy as we hit the shore and pulled up and forward. My camera bag came with me, and I was soon set and clicking happily away with a tripod. Larry took the time to explore the beach, and found the usual garbage on the National Wildlife Refuge.
The scene was breath-taking. The water reflected the nearly full-moon, The Healer off in the middle of our little bay, and all around us were the white bark of dried and dead trees on a heavy gravel beach. The moon light reflected off all these surroundings and gave us a beautiful monochromatic scene, and the only color around us was the light from The Healer. The wind blew on-shore quite strongly and consistently. Larry read the sign on shore out loud. "National Wildlife Refuge."
The sign also said "Area Closed", but it seemed to demarcate only the island's interior, not the beach. And so I wandered down to the beach, carefully picking my way using my flashlight. I looked beside myself, and noticed a shadow, my shadow. It wasn't being cast by the flashlight. I turned off the flashlight, and looked around. I could see by moonlight. I'd been an idiot, just focusing on that circle of light. Light was all around me. I danced a little jig down the beach, humming "I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot," listening to the crunching and clicking of gravel on gravel.
I took various pictures, going through a roll of film. Larry then waded back into the water with the dinghy as I climbed aboard and then we were off again, back to the boat. It was 11pm by the time we were back and ready to bed. It didn't take me long before I was sound asleep.
![[Photo: Full moon over Matia]](moon.jpg)
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