Author Archives: Melissa

Sailing Hiatus :(

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We’re on a forced hiatus from sailing here at the Little Cunning Plan household. Our son, Andrew (age 20), had his tonsils removed, along with a couple of other minor surgical procedures, and we’re in hospital mode around here. Since there’s that nasty risk of post-operative bleeding, as well as the use of narcotics to control pain, we’re tied to the house for awhile until he is healed. That means no one gets to go down to either Moonrise or Danger Kitten. They sit at the marina, waiting for attention and probably feeling unloved. We could not plan our yearly sailing trip until this surgery was over so now we can tentatively plan to leave on August 24. Moonrise is still for sale, so who knows? Maybe we’ll take her off the market for a couple of weeks just so we can be sure to have a vacation.

So I don’t completely neglect this blog while Andrew is recovering, here are some photos from the garden this year. This is the year I have discovered that the gardens do, indeed, grow lustily without much help from me. The hydrangeas and lilies are in lovely form this year.

Intoxicating lilies. Their fragrance is positively thick in the evening.

The Hot Bed.

Little native ground orchid that volunteers in a few places. It's very subtle and my camera certainly doesn't do it justice.

Hydrangeas in full bloom.

Love this combination! Japanese Forest Grass: one of the best plants ever.

Japanese anemones. Exuberant but lovely.

 

Play that Funky Music, White Boy!

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View from the anchorage off Vashon Island.

What does ‘Play that Funky Music, White Boy’ have to do with being on the boat? The answer, of course, is absolutely nothing. Unless you are anchored off of Vashon Island near Quartermaster Harbor. Then, apparently, it has everything to do with it. But I’m giving away the punch line too soon. Let’s start with yesterday.

When I refer to ‘yesterday’, I refer to a period of time that does not exist for me; a time so black that I simply remember nothing of it. Why? Because I was sleeping the entire day, sick with some kind of weird virus that hit hard and furious and then left quietly during the night. Nice of it to do this on my day off.  It attacked with a splitting headache, nausea, and sensory overload just from opening my eyes. The works. I missed a day with my mother and sister, and I missed stocking the boat for a weekend on the water. (A much needed weekend, I might add.) Sometime during this alleged ‘time’, if it really DID exist, Mike came in to hold a mirror in front of my mouth to make sure I was breathing, or so I am told. I have my doubts. I mean anyone can say anything about a time that didn’t exist. Had anyone clapped with one hand, I surely would have missed it. I was sure our weekend on the boat was history.

So this morning when I awoke with only residual soreness from being in bed for 24 hours, it was clear to me that the weekend plans were still a ‘go’. We would simply find someplace quiet to anchor that was close to home rather than several hours away.  Mike wanted to get some things done around the house before leaving, and some friends were dropping by to take some of our cast offs to their lovely daughter who is setting up her own apartment in Seattle, close to Claire! Gone from our life and on to their next life are a cool antique-ish buffet that I bought about 20 years ago at Goodwill, a ‘collectible’ old suitcase that will make an awesome coffee table, a funky orange lamp, and a beautiful little settee for which we have no place. We are making progress!

Goodbye cool old buffet and sweet little settee!

After loading the truck we began looking through the pile of stuff awaiting it’s turn for the trip to Goodwill.  We were able to say bye bye to a leather bomber jacket with a Boeing label and my friend Lynn tried to convince me that I should keep my wedding dress, a vintage Gunne Sax circa 1982. She invoked the possibility of grandchildren (they’ll probably be boys anyhow) who might want to play dressup with it but I did not waver. The poor dress has had its day in the sun and has languished in the closet ever since with no one to love it, carried from house to house out of a sense of duty.  I’ll never wear it again. The sleeves are too small.  I was unable to interest Glenn in the new gate hardware or the garden fogger, or the two volume Oxford English Dictionary, but, after all, his truck was full so no regrets there.

Mike, Lynn, and Stephanie fondle my wedding dress one last time.

We got down to the marina just after lunch and after a quick stop in the head to change out a couple of hoses, we were off.  There was no wind (maybe summer actually IS here) so we motored at 6 knots with the tide over to Vashon Island, planning to go either into Quartermaster Harbor or to Dockton. Quartermaster Harbor is always crowded, and I wasn’t interested in crowds. We motored close to Dockton, but after seeing the number of boats at anchor we decided to go to the other side of the passage and simply anchor off the shore by a copse of trees. The houses on either side looked quiet, and there was only one small fishing boat present. It looked great. Anchor set in about 20 feet of water, I broke out the hammock as the sun broke through the clouds and commenced to reading. Mike immediately fell asleep in the cabin and all was peaceful.

For those who don’t live in this area, let me say that finding a peaceful spot to anchor close to Tacoma is no easy feat. There are people and boats everywhere down here and the shore is lined with houses. Lots of people don’t mind being crammed together in an anchorage, but we go out on the water to get away. And that means away from people for the most part. It’s not that we don’t like people. Generally speaking, we do like people. But we don’t like their noise and it seems like there are always plenty of folks who don’t think about how their noise detracts from the otherwise lovely environment. We felt like we’d found gold with this anchorage: only about an hour from the marina, and quiet.

A couple of hours into the hammock swinging time, I began to hear the gentle strains of an old Michael Jackson tune. “Oh baby give me one more chance”…. My toe began to tap as it is prone to do when music has a good beat and is easy to dance to.  The sound increased. I thought it was coming from a passing sailboat. But it wasn’t’. “People all over the world, join hands, start a love train, love train…” Hey, these were my people! My decade! My hammock began to jiggle a bit as I got the binoculars to see what was happening.  They say sound travels well across the water and it surely must because the music was coming from a house on the other side of the passage and I could hear it as though it was coming from my own boat. Roberta Flack, Journey, The Village People, more Michael Jackson from the early days. If there had been room on Moonrise we could have had our own dance party. I had to make do with hammock swinging to the rhythm of the beat. There is peace and then there is peace. This worked for me.

Had they been blasting rap music or some such I might have wanted to move but with Motown in the background it seemed right to have dinner outside and enjoy the music. I popped some brownies in the little oven for dessert, booty shaking to ‘Play that funky music, white boy’.  Maybe we’ve found our peaceful anchorage close to home after all. Or maybe next time we’ll anchor in front of that house and they’ll invite us over.

It's like baking in an Easy Bake oven!

I thought I had finished this post but as I was downloading the photo of the brownies, the fireworks began. Seems someone had some left over from the 4th of July and they chose tonight to set them off. Just in front of Moonrise. Fortunately, they were both pretty and short-lived, so the peaceful nature of the night was disturbed only briefly. A heron squawked and flew off, dogs barked, people cheered, and it was over. Peace returned.

 

I got this photo before the show was over.

 

 

 

 

And the Winner is… S/V Danger Kitten!

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The real Danger Kitten! Take care!

Andrew and I were having a mother/son conversation recently about the lack of a name for his boat. Andrew was telling me that he feels a little sorry for the boat. He really loves it, but he feels like he is the first owner to feel that way. Even though this little Ericson 25 was well kept and clean, he just didn’t feel like previous owners had given their hearts to the boat. And he couldn’t explain why he felt that way.

I thought it probably had something to do with the fact that the boat had no name. I mean, boats just have names. That’s all there is to it. They are named ‘things’ and this name gives them a sort of consciousness that people who love boats feel in their bones. That’s why we can talk all day long about what we want in a boat, but if the boat doesn’t feel like the right one, it’s not going to become ours. Just like Mr. Right, a boat can look good on paper, but if it doesn’t make our heart throb, we’re going to walk away. It’s beyond logic. Boat lovers know this and accept it. A boat with no name is kind of like an orphan, even if it has an owner who keeps it clean.  A boat with no name is sad.

The name sort of defines the vessel in a way, making a statement about not only the owner’s feelings, but about the qualities of the boat in terms of its personality, at least the personality the owner wants the boat to embody. Additionally it allows people to bond with the vessel in the same way they bond with, say, their pets (sort of). Boats require care, money, and attention and it’s so much easier to spend this kind of energy on something that you feel attached to rather than something that is simply a toy to play with.  So I asked Andrew what qualities he wanted to bring out in his boat.

French Danger Kitten

He had been spending quite a lot of time aboard the little boat and thought she was extra saucy with a bit of an attitude. She wanted to sail fast, but the sail plan was inefficient and pretty much not worthy of the boat’s capabilities. He thought the boat felt young and inexperienced, like no one had bothered to let it explore its limits yet. And it had an edge of danger about it, but mostly in the ‘wanting to explore the world’ kind of danger, an adventurous kind of danger. Nothing serious. He felt like he would need to keep the boat safe while it grew up a bit in this way. He felt like in spite of the boat’s small size, it had a big boat attitude. I mentioned that this could lead to trouble unless kept in check. (A fact that I know all too well.)

Later that evening he came into our bedroom, as he often will, to continue the discussion. He and Mike and I began exploring adjectives and metaphors that might lead to a name. Mike, who likes to name his projects at work, was trying to do something with the word ‘marmot’, a word which he especially likes. (Our family is a little wierd in this way. We like words.) Little, saucy, adventurous, dangerous, disgruntled (don’t know where that one came from), the list went on and it soon became clear that an animal name was needed, combined with an adjective. Sea Monkey was batted around a bit more, but it just wasn’t quite the thing. Mike suddenly blurted out ‘Danger Kitten’, and the conversation just came to a halt, because that was just brilliant. Andrew thought it was a keeper, but wasn’t quite ready to commit.

He decided to spend a little more time on the boat sailing, anchoring, bonding, and then see if the boat lived up to its name. He practiced rolling it off the tongue, saying things like ‘I’m going down to the marina to work on the Kitten’ and ‘The fuse in the Kitten blew again and I’m working on the wiring’ and ‘Danger Kitten and I are going out.’ It didn’t hurt that the name provided endless amusement when talking to his girlfriend, especially in front of her parents. My son has an excellent sense of humor.

Danger Kitten with sword and boots. En guarde!

I believe Andrew is truly in love with his boat. Now that it has personality, it’s even more apparent how much he is enjoying her. He’s practically a live aboard and I know he is already planning how far he can go with this boat.  He left on Friday and has been anchoring here and there, just enjoying being out on Danger Kitten, sometimes with a friend, sometimes alone. He was supposed to come home today, but called and said he won’t be home for a few more days. Let the adventuring begin! If he can bother to get home for a few days, we’ll have a christening party and look for someone to design a logo for the boat. Now, if only I could interest him in writing a blog.

S/V Danger Kitten, a little boat with a big attitude!