Tag Archives: Travel

Toilets That Flush

Posted on by

That’s right, we’re back to our regular lives. Toilets that flush, hot water on demand, king sized bed, unlimited furniture that’s comfortable, internet access all the day all the time. A big washer, dryer, two refrigerators (and an ice maker!), the list of amenities we enjoy at home grows tiresomely long.

We miss the boat. Coming back to our house is always a difficult transition for us after a couple of weeks on the boat because in spite of all the amenities our land based home offers,  there is also a lawn to be mowed, a floor that needs vacuuming, and groceries to be bought. And even though it’s so much easier to take the car to Costco and stock up on groceries, it’s much more fun and adventurous to anchor in front of downtown Sidney, dinghy in to shore, and hike up the beach and down the street and lug everything back to Galapagos.  I guess we’re just crazy like that.

Galapagos waits in front of the public beach on the Sidney, B.C waterfront.

We had a wonderful, successful trip and I have over 500 photos to sort through. We got our anchoring routine down pat. I learned that the hot water heater works only when we’re tied to the dock. Whoops! We anchored out 100% of the time and remembered what it’s like to negotiate food storage sans refrigeration. Let’s just say that ice is expensive in the islands. I docked the boat in Poet’s Cove, choosing a dead calm day and plenty of room so I would have a good chance of complete success. It worked out great. And we’re getting the whole ‘docking this beast’ routine down in terms of who does what when Mike’s at the wheel and I’m doing the tying off. We’re learning. So far, so good.

On the Strait of Georgia.

Our route took us from Tacoma to Camano Island and then through Deception Pass for the first time ever. A ten hour day by motor got us to the island and anchored out for the evening. We continue to be amazed at how much faster this boat moves than our Cal 34. We had planned to meet up with a friend of Mike’s from work, who has a house on Camano Island. But alas, his cow was calving that day so they were not home. For some reason, that just cracked me up.

But regardless of cows, we had to pay attention to the timing going through Deception Pass.  For the uninitiated, Deception Pass is one of those places where you don’t want to be caught at the wrong time of the current cycle because you could find yourself with an opposing current of over 6 knots if you don’t pay attention. We had been through that area on the Victoria Clipper, but had never sailed (or motored) through it. The mother cow made it possible for us to make it up to the pass in time to go through without trouble. We had 1 knot of current with us and even with that, it was like Mr. Toad’s wild ride as Galapagos struggled to keep a strait course. A sailboat coming the opposite direction, against that same 1 knot of current, was stopped dead in the middle of the pass for awhile and I thought he was going to drift into the rocks, but he made it. I’m pretty sure current doesn’t tell the whole story in this place. It’s pretty ‘exciting’ to be sure.

Approaching Deception Pass. Fishermen fishing the currents appear to block the passage, but they don’t actually get in the way.

Once you get through the pass you are in the islands and that’s pretty sweet. We hit Rosario Strait at the wrong time, however, and would have been bucking current with no wind all the way north so we decided we were done for the day and anchored at little Strawberry Island State Park. There isn’t much going on at that little park but it was a reasonable enough anchorage in calm weather.  We were already tucked in for the evening and it wasn’t even dinner time yet. I thought about dropping the kayak in the water, but it was too much trouble. I decided to sleep instead.

It’s an interesting thing, going on this kind of vacation. It takes awhile for the ‘vacation’ part to sink in, at least for Mike. It hits me immediately in the form of sleeping. The first two days if I wasn’t on watch, I was probably sleeping. Mike, on the other hand, was doing projects. Here’s a little note from my diary after the first two days of this trip:

What I do best on this boat is sleep. I could sleep all day long and into the night and through to the next day. Honestly, sometimes I can barely keep my eyes open and it feels like my brain just needs someone to hit the ‘reset’ button. Mike does projects. Since we left he has installed and hardwired a small inverter, being used as I type this to keep this laptop running and to allow him to use his little soldering iron. Because he has also wired in the battery charger for his drill and now he is working on some other god-knows-what project in the man cave. I like the IDEA of doing projects, but I cannot bring myself to think of one to do. Well, there was that Creeping Crack Cure I put around the outside of the midship hatch as extra insurance against leaks, but that hardly counts since it took all of 5 minutes. But by GOD that hatch doesn’t leak a drop. Then I did cook dinner and clean up. And then put some gluten free cookies in the oven, hoping the shot of glucose from them would somehow jumpstart my brain. I wonder if this is what I will always feel like when we live on the boat. Will I be this completely lacking in motivation, unable to find the energy to even drop the dinghy in the water? Thank God this laptop works without internet.

Mike, working on a boat project during his ‘vacation’.

Let’s just say that it takes awhile for Mike to unwind. And it takes me awhile to find my groove. I feel a little bit ‘between worlds’ the first few days, a bit discombobulated. I can’t go on my morning walks with the dog. I have no interweb. It’s a wierd, liminal space.

The following day was one for sailing! We rode the tide up Rosario Strait and out into the Strait of Georgia to find wind! Lovely, constant wind. Getting to the head of Rosario Strait took almost no time at all. By 10:00 we were in the Strait of Georgia, looking through our binoculars at a crowd of boats in Echo Bay on Sucia Island.   We had the whole day ahead of us so we just went sailing, waiting for the Labor Day crowd to leave Sucia so we could find a decent anchorage and spend a little time there. We spent several hours on a warm sunny day just doing long tacks back and forth in the strait, finally having a chance to really get the hang of tacking Galapagos. It was fabulous. Let the vacation begin.

Long, easy tacks on the Strait of Georgia.

We found a great anchorage at Sucia between Little Sucia and the big island, just outside of Fox Cove. It’s not a marked anchorage and it’s nowhere near the mooring buoys. It was perfect. We are learning that we can trust our big Bruce anchor and heavy chain to hold us. We settled in for a couple of days to explore Sucia.

Scenes from Sucia

Sea lions on rocks off Sucia Island.

And just around the corner, seals on rocks. Classic.

That’s Little Sucia and the beach right by the boat.

Forest path on Sucia.

Galapagos and the sandstone of Sucia Island.

Little Blue Heron.

And the next day, it poured rain all day long. The hatch didn’t leak a bit. We stayed in bed and read books and ate bad things all day. Aside from expanding waistlines, this was our reward:

Sunset from Fox Cove

And this looking the other way.

And this.

And now you know why we miss the boat.

The following day was glorious sun and warm temperatures. Time to get off the boat and do some hiking around the island. More photos. Remember, I have almost 500 hundred to sort through.

 

It’s a vulture. It was busy dining on a small dogfish.

Sucia Island is known for its fossils. Here’s a little vein of fossilized shells in the sandstone.

Mike likes to go Geocaching whenever there is one around, and there was one at Sucia. He found this one easily. No cool prizes, though, although there was a pin from the American Club in Hong Kong. It’s probably still there if you want it. 

We stayed at this anchorage for close to three days, then beat time over to Poet’s Cove in Bedwell Harbor to check in with the Canadians. Galapagos’ first two owners live in British Columbia. She would be back in her home waters. More fun to come, so stay tuned.

Our dinghy, Tortoise.

Our dinghy, Tortoise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Travel Ninja

Posted on by

What are parents to do when their adult children decide that working 9-5 for someone else isn’t the way they want to spend the best years of their lives and the traveling thing is the right thing for them; eschewing all previous conventions and throwing caution to the wind? Especially what are parents who are currently planning their own grand adventure and wishing they had known they could have done this years ago, possibly taking the kids with them, supposed to do? (Did you follow that?)

There are lots of blogs written by young people who have made a life out of traveling and becoming world citizens. Here’s one, and here’s another one and even another one and if you are so inclined you, too, can do the Google and find more blogs that will claim to teach you how to be a travel ninja.  Some travel on sailboats, some travel on land. And probably all of them had parents who had minor melt downs when they decided to take the plunge. WhhhAAATTT? You aren’t going to have some sort of ‘stable’ career in a system that will treat you like a number and steal your youth out the top of your head? Are you crazy? We ARE those parents. So instead of wringing our hands in despair because our oldest child, Claire, has embraced the traveling lifestyle rather than a boring desk job in some soul-sucking environment we decided to throw her a party instead. Complete with pony show.

This is not a new decision Claire has made. Oh no. She got the travel bug early when she studied and traveled in France. That was her first trip. Then there was the additional trip to France where she got certified in Business French and then stuck around for a few more months. She’s good with languages. Then she graduated from college and ‘real life’ settled on her like a curse. With it came the crushing realization that traveling was either for the independently wealthy or for some lucky people who found jobs that allowed their creativity to flow as they traveled. She went to work for Nordstrom as a personal shopper. It’s not as fun as it sounds. Oh, she could tell you stories…

Enter the ‘head hunter’ and a job for an insurance agency in Tacoma. Let the soul sucking begin. On a vacation for two weeks, she went to Ireland and fell in love with traveling again, coming back with many stories about people she had met, places she had seen, castles she had explored. We hope she kept notes because she is a good writer and some day she will need them. Memories fade.

Claire sees pony and knows it is really happening for the first time.

Not moving up fast enough in that agency, she landed “THE JOB” in Seattle and moved from sleepy Tacoma and her little Victorian house apartment to the big city and a beautiful apartment overlooking Elliot Bay. She had ‘arrived’.  She worked her ASS off. But time was passing and her best hours and years were being given over to someone else; someone for whom she was simply an employee. The good money she made wasn’t enough. She took a vacation to Scotland and came back a changed woman. That’s when the planning began. Money began being saved. Designer clothes were left on the racks at Nordstrom. Dreams began to be plotted. Then a one way ticket to Edinburgh was bought.

Claire’s apartment building in Seattle. The trappings of success.

She let her apartment go, had a huge garage sale and sold almost everything she owned. She moved home with us, back in Tacoma, where she could save more money. She stockpiled travel ninja skills, left the job-of-death,  and then took off for Scotland. That was last December. Alas, post-911 no one wants people from other countries staying too long, so she had to leave Edinburgh behind for awhile, but she already has her return ticket.

To welcome Claire home, we had a gathering at our home and invited her good friends from Seattle and beyond. It was a dandy group and made me look forward to the days when we will be able to entertain people from all walks of life in our own cockpit on Galapagos. And yes, there was a pony, too, because our family has a running joke when either of the kids are off traveling. The joke is that we bought a pony while they were gone and everyone is having fun with it except them. It’s one of those ‘inside’ jokes that mean ‘we miss you, but we’re having fun with our lives, too’. But when planning this shindig, I thought it would be brilliant to have a pony show up at the party for snuggles and photo ops. Fortunately, Andrew’s girlfriend, Jill, has ‘connections’ in the horse and pony world. And so it came to pass that a cute pony named ‘Norm’ made a grande entrance in our backyard just as the festivities were getting started. A good time was had by all and Claire  was completely surprised in the best possible way!

It was like a Pier One advertisement.

It was like a Pier One advertisement.

So now that the party is over she has to replenish her ‘cruising kitty’.  Just like cruisers who have to stop and replenish their bank accounts, no matter how cunning a ninja you are, traveling takes some money.  So, aside from skyping the main squeeze boyfriend back in Edinburgh (who will be coming to visit us in September!) she will be spending considerable time and energy figuring out how to find temporary jobs, or creating a way to keep this gig going. She would like to find some kind of employment that would allow her to work virtually. College educated, excellent customer service skills, great people skills, National Merit Scholar; quick learner and that internalized sense of responsibility that most employers wish they could find, we take the leap of faith with her that the world will offer up a way for her to follow her heart. How can we do any less? I mean, that’s what we’ve been teaching our kids all along. So it better work! Come on Universe! We’re counting on you!

 

Boat Graveyard

Posted on by

When we were stuck in Bellingham with the exhaust system blues, we had a day to play a bit while waiting for the welder to finish his work. It happens we were fairly close to the used sailboat wrecking yard in Bellingham. It sounded like a good way to spend some hours, so off we went.

The owner, Jeff, has an interesting business idea. He takes derelict sailboats off the hands of marinas and others who need a place for them to go, cuts the keels off, and recycles the lead in the keel. He does a brisk business in recycled lead. If a boat is in good enough condition, he might repair it, clean it up, and sell it to someone who will use it.

The rest of the boat gets cut up and the fiberglass ground up to be recycled. Before the boats go to their final rest people can climb around on them looking for useful parts. This is the fun part for anyone who loves crawling around boats, which I do, by the way. Most of the boats are small because Jeff doesn’t have a way to move larger boats. So I didn’t find any useful items for Galapagos. But it was a fun way to spend a few hours in the blistering heat.

We spent a couple of hours listening to Jeff’s stories about the boats resting in what feels to me more like an old boat graveyard than a wrecking yard. Most of the stories will make you want to weep. There’s the one about the guy who worked at Boeing as an engineer, then bought a boat when he retired so he could go sailing, then died. That one hits a little close to the bone. Then there are the boats whose owners die because they are old, and they haven’t been able to care for the boat in many years. It’s always sad to see a boat that is neglected in her slip. Jeff said people just get used to paying the marina fees so they don’t really think about selling the boat to someone who might love it and care for it.

You’d think that with all these stories about failures to launch, death before sailing, and complete neglect that the place would be a downer. But it wasn’t. It was really interesting, kind of like visiting an old graveyard. And it’s a great place to learn about how sailboats are built.

The only downer is that it might not exist after August 1.  Some business man from Russia has bought the place, allegedly hoping to cash in on the new marijuana laws. Sheesh. The boat yard has to move, and Jeff is having trouble finding a place in Bellingham that can accommodate his need for both a shop and a yard.

Considering the number of derelict boats that the state has to worry about, it seems like this would be a big loss to the boating community. We hope he is successful in moving the business. It’s a fun place to spend an afternoon, especially if you have a small boat, and especially if you like listening to stories.junglerides