Author Archives: Melissa

We’ve Got Mail

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Now that we are back in the land of interweb, I can get to updating the blog. Let me just say that if you are looking for the ability to make phonecalls, text, or send an occasional FB update while in Canada or Mexico, then the Verizon ‘all you can eat’ plan that includes Canada and Mexico is probably fine for you. If you want to use the internet for anything other than that, forget it. Ordering from Amazon: No. Doing a Google search: also no. Looking at more than the first ‘page’ on your FB: are you kidding? No. Loading FB comments or replying to them: that’s a ‘no’.  Getting the latest U.S. version of the news: pretty much NO. (We didn’t miss that much.) If you can ‘splain this to me, please do.

It’s not always pretty sunsets and drinks with umbrellas in the cockpit, but sometimes it is.

Even though we had good reception most places, three ‘bars’ or better, we could not effectively do anything web based.  It was an exercise in frustration, mostly for Mike, since I am not interested in trying to tame a recalcitrant electronic device. If my computer or phone won’t work, it’s got exactly 5 minutes of my messing with it before I see a shiny thing on the other side of the boat and go toward the light.  I decided I would just read my books. It’s going to be a challenge getting used to having sketchy connectivity. After all, this isn’t a vacation; it’s how we live now. And we are a ‘connected’ family. Nevertheless, we shall persist in this thing as in others.

In the flurry of activity gearing up to leaving the south sound area, our son and daughter were intrigued with the number of parcels delivered to the house. Was this Christmas in July? It was not. It was stuff for the boat, for the engine, for the solar panels, you name it: we wanted extra parts for it. But as we cruised, other needs came up and we began using the old fashioned ‘general delivery’ service that allows you to have mail sent to the post office near you and held for 30 days. We had my offshore PFD delivered to the Post Office in Port Townsend. Now that we’re in Friday Harbor again, their Post Office is our new address.

It seems like a foolproof system, sending things to a Post Office to be picked up. But there is never enough proof against fools so we share our new found wisdom with those of you who may use this delivery service in future. As we scrambled around Friday Harbor checking packages off our list in a time-consuming game of ‘scavenger hunt’, we learned some stuff. And got some good exercise in the meantime.

View from the American Camp trail around the Friday Harbor airport. Best blackberries anywhere. Shhhh.

  1. Amazon, from whom all goodness doth flow nowadays, doesn’t always deliver using the Post Office. Of course, we knew that. But when you have a house, it doesn’t matter what color the delivery truck might be.  So it wasn’t on our radar. Sometimes they use UPS. Sometimes they use FedEX. Sometimes they use a combination of those things. Unlike at home, if you think they’ve used the Post Office, but they actually used UPS, you want to know it. Fortunately, if you have *INTERNET (* see above) you can check your account to find out how something shipped.  If they use UPS, you may or may not get a phone call saying you have a package and they will hold it for 7 days. Not 30. Make sure your Amazon account has a phone number where you can be reached. Thankfully the nice folks at the Friday Harbor UPS place, down by the airport, called me when we were in Sidney and told me something had been delivered. I was pretty confused, then they were confused about why I was confused. Save yourself some stress and confusion by checking out how something will be shipped so you’ll know how long it will be held. I’m glad we were in a position to pick the Amazon order up before the 7 day ‘hold’ period was over.
  2. If you have a name like mine, Melissa White, be aware that you are not the only person with that name, even though there is always only one of ‘You’ and you are very, very special.  Imagine my surprise when Mike got an email through the blog that ‘Melissa White’ had received a package that was addressed to General Delivery in Friday Harbor, but it wasn’t for her. This alternative ‘Melissa’ somehow, without opening the package, found us on the interweb and contacted us through the blog saying she may have received my package. We are very happy we were able to pick up that email during one of the few times we could do so while in Canada. She returned the package to the Post Office and we picked it up today. But we also will allow this to be a happy accident and meet up with this other “Melissa White” to compare notes about being us. Of course, the Friday Harbor Melissa has an actual address, so she is unlikely to get things mailed to ‘general delivery’. Still, the postal worker probably thought she was doing Melissa a favor in delivering to her home. I wonder if putting something like “Yacht in Transit” in the address would have helped differentiate us from all of our dopplegangers.
  3. Sometimes things take longer to be delivered to an island. Right? So it’s nice to not have a schedule while you wait for large packages. Things that should have been delivered on Monday, might actually not be delivered until Thursday. Best to not have a schedule.
  4. It’s nice to have an actual street address with a person attached to it to have expensive parts delivered. We are grateful to Steven Roberts of Friday Harbor for letting us use his address to have a couple of larger things delivered. That reduces all kinds of worry.

    Just going to pick up our mail. Out in the middle of nowhere.

And for those of you who do not live on a boat unleashed from land, here’s how things roll for us: Yesterday we walked about three miles to get to the UPS delivery place to pick up our Amazon packages and to Steve’s street address to pick up a part for the Hydrovane installation (which we hope will now be PERFECT). We took a great path around the airport perimeter, picked extremely plump and yummy blackberries as we walked the trail and then walked along a heavily traveled road to a dirt road to the delivery location. It was a house.  Mike knocks on the door and the home owner comes to the door. ‘Hi, I’m Michael Boyte. I think you have a package for me?’.  Homeowner hands over the package containing $350 worth of Hydrovane parts. Honestly, it seemed suspicious the way things so easily went down.  Then the guy offers to drive us back to town! Winner! Who says ‘no’ to a ride when the alternative is to lug two boxes on a cart about 3 miles to town? As our daughter says, ‘This is the life you chose’. Getting the mail. That’s our ‘one thing’ we did yesterday. And it was great.

We’re getting kind of anxious to get going down the coast. All the cool kids in our class have already graduated and left home. S/V Blue is gone, S/V Bella Nave is gone, S/V Brigadoon decided to stick around here for a grand baby. We’re the only ones we know who are still ‘here’ and it’s beginning to feel a little like that clock is ticking. As of now, we sail out the strait to Neah Bay to wait for weather, if necessary, a little before Labor Day.  That’s pretty soon. May the weather be fine.

 

S/V Galapagos out, for now.

 

Cheap and Easy(ish) Boat Trick: Cockpit Shade

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This summer the Pacific Northwest fell under the spell of a particularly hot couple of weeks. We had temps in the triple digits in some places, and, while I’m not complaining, it became clear that we needed something to protect our delicate pacific northwest skin from the rays of blistering sun. Those hot days reminded me that we are, in fact, headed for weather that may be even hotter, and sun that is definitely stronger. We needed shade in our cockpit!

I left openings so it’s easy to get in and out of the cockpit without detaching the cover.

Galapagos came with a full set of canvas for the cockpit, including a pretty neat shade enclosure made of some kind of heavy screen material. Alas, it was falling apart. Literally. I mean the fabric was disintegrating. We trashed it. But I began noodling out how I could make a simple shade enclosure that would fit the bill as a ‘cheap and easy boat trick’. It had to be easy to deploy and easy to store.  This turned out to be cheap, and if you have a sewing machine, which I do not, then it would be easy. I had to do everything by hand, so let’s call this ‘easy-ish’. It’s definitely easy to deploy and store.

I ordered two rolls of extra heavy Coolaroo Outdoor Shade cloth from Amazon; enough to go around the entire cockpit, including the windows in the front when they are fully open. (You can certainly order directly from Coolaroo, but it’s more expensive that way.) This fabric is rated to block 86-90% of UV rays.

To attach the side and back panels to the cockpit, I wanted to use the existing aluminum bolt rope channels (called an Awning Track on Sailrite). Yes, this is the bolt rope that is used to make sails.  This is how our current heavy canvas enclosure is attached. I ordered 12 feet of bolt rope from Sailrite. To hold the panels down onto the outside of the dodger, I used plastic grommets in the corners.

Cost of materials:

Sunshade cloth $38
Bolt rope $27.60 plus shipping
Grommets: 2 packages $8.60
Needles, thread, para cord – 0 because I have those things already.

Total cost: $74.20 plus however much I paid for shipping from Sailrite.

I know alot of people who sew all the time would probably get busy making some kind of pattern for this thing but that’s way too much trouble. I do better just holding the fabric in place and cutting around the shape, leaving enough room for mistakes and to make a neat edge. If I have to stop and make some kind of pattern, this stops being ‘easy-ish’ and falls into the ‘hard’ category. Plus I don’t have a flat surface large enough to lay out fabric of this size.

The needle is VERY sharp.

Making the side panels was dead easy once I figured out how I could stitch bolt rope by hand. This stuff is extra stiff, my fingers are old, and 12 feet is a long way to sew this stuff by hand.  I tried using Mike’s Speedy Stitcher, but it’s made to be used with heavy waxed thread. It didn’t work well with the thread I was using; heavy outdoor ‘sail’ thread. Plus it was cumbersome. My patience wore thin. What did the trick was using the speedy stitcher as an awl to poke holes along the bolt rope. Those holes allowed my heavy needle to go through with little trouble and I made short work of getting the bolt rope attached to the panels after that.

I wanted the back panel to be in two pieces and I wanted it to go all the way back to the cockpit combing, past the mizzen mast.  A previous owner had attached heavy plastic hooks along the side of the combing and these made excellent attachment points for small bungee loops that I could put through the grommets.This part of the enclosure is large, so I didn’t want to have to take it down and store it somewhere. I wanted to be able to roll it up and tie it out of the way.

All rolled up at the back of the cockpit.

The side panels are held down by putting the grommets over stainless steel screws I put in the teak dodger in strategic places. This fabric is not meant to hold snaps. The weave is too open. Grommets work better.

The most challenging part of this project was the front, which I made in two pieces. Because we wanted the windows to be able to open, I had two different measurements for the length required to go around them. Looking more at getting something functional and fast to deploy rather than something with a tailored fit, I opted to cut two lengths of the fabric that would cover the windows on each side at their widest-open setting, then fold the extra away and secure with a bungee through a grommet if the windows were closed. It’s the least pleasing part of the project visually, but it works great and I was able to leave enough space at the top to be able to see over the top of the screen.

Openings left on either side to get in and out easily and for air flow. It feels a bit like a tent inside. Cozy and cooler than the outside.

We are very happy with the results. We store the large front pieces, which we use much less often than the other parts. The back pieces stay rolled up and out of the way unless we need them. The side panels are folded and stored in cockpit storage. The whole set up is versatile. I have no idea how long this fabric will last in the tropics, given that the sun there eats things fast. But at this price, I can buy more fabric in the states when I come to visit and remake the thing in a day if necessary. The bolt rope is protected from UV as it’s underneath the dodger. I wouldn’t have to buy that again. And the grommets are cheap.

Here’s a photo of one of the front panels. Honestly we do not use them very much up here because our cockpit seats are set well back from the windows and the dodger top has a generous overhang in the front. It has to be pretty hot to deploy these. It’s possible in the future if we end up using these front pieces a lot I may decide to make 4 panels for the front, making one panel each for the opening windows and one panel that covers the two fixed windows on each side. That would require more attachment points, which means more little holes in the dodger. But it would look better and might give us even more flexibility. The way I have it now,  wanting the flexibility of opening the windows, which we almost always have open, means there has to be enough fabric to accommodate that. For now, I call this ‘good enough’. I did end up using large cup hooks tucked up under the dodger top so that I could put two little bungees on one attachment point.

Not great, but effective.

We’re still anchored here at Cabbage Island. It’s a great place and one of our favorites. S/V Galapagos, out.

 

Destination: Point Disney

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One of the requirements of a good anchorage for us is the ability to go to shore and do some walking. It’s easy to just sit around on a boat and that’s bad for us in many ways. After several days of walking the county roads, there was one last place we wanted to go: to the top of the rocks of the prominant Point Disney, located at the south end of Cowlitz Bay.

Point Disney

Point Disney preserve is protected from development by The Land Bank and the San Juan Preservation Trust. It offers mature growth forest and rocky cliffs that are home to some of the healthiest madrona trees we’ve seen, as well as  juniper, oak groves and grasses. We had heard rumors of a trail to the top, but there is no public signage pointing the way, and an interweb search showed nothing in terms of getting to the top of the rock.

After a long-time resident gave us some directions on taking the ‘long way’ to the cliff, we found ourselves wandering in lovely woods, but with no idea which direction to go. Was that a right turn he said? Or a left turn? Google Maps works, but shows only the county road system. We had left that far behind us. We were getting a little anxious because most of the land on this island is privately owned. In our country you do not walk on private land without permission (unlike the way more civilized, in this regard, United Kingdom where you have the right to ramble). This is especially true on an island where many people take their privacy VERY seriously.

Can you find Galapagos?

Fortunately, we came upon a man chopping wood with a long, sharp axe. I say fortunately because this was a person who turned out to be helpful, if not startled by our appearance on the trail. He directed us to the actual trailhead for Point Disney, which, it turns out, is right on the beach by the public dock. Who knew? He informed us that  the ‘long way’ to get to the top of the rock is up the mountain road on the other side of the island, but it involves going over several private land parcels. I guess our first resident didn’t mind us walking on private land.

The trailhead is under a large tree that grows out onto the beach by the county dock, just at the high tide line. The branches come down so low that the entrance to the trail is obscured. Once you locate it, however, the trailhead is obvious.

Mike enjoying the cold water close to the trailhead, at the end of the hike.

Be prepared. This trail is extremely steep. I’m not sure how one rates the difficulty of a trail, but on a scale of 1-5 where 1 is flat walking and 5 is scrambling over huge rocks and possibly rappelling down crevasses, I’d say this is a 3.5 or even a 4 until you get to the ridge. After that it’s easier. But you are going to be hiking up a very steep incline for about a mile with almost no relief. You can extrapolate from that data how the trail is coming down. Let’s just say you will want to take great care not to let your feet go faster than the rest of your body on the downhill hike. I wouldn’t take young children on this hike unless you are prepared to carry them the whole way.

The brutal nature of that uphill climb is more than compensated for by the magnificent views at the top. There are plenty of tall grasses and large, flat rocks to rest weary muscles. I think this is the only time I’ve ever seen an eagle from a vantage point well above the bird. We watched porpoises feeding in the hypnotizing currents below.

The smokey haze of the forest fires to the north still obscuring the view. See the eagle in the tree on the right? He’s way down there.

On the hike down, we were itchy from the grass seeds and brush and sweaty from the effort. It was high tide when we returned, and we were grateful to walk in the cold water up to the knees. Who needs a spa? We can sweat and then jump in a cold pool just by doing this hike on a warm day.

If you come, please respect the privacy of the people on the island. You’ll find most people friendly and helpful, but others are not crazy about visitors and worry the island will become too popular. I feel like this is unlikely given the lack of amenities that most people want but I see that they experience what must be a delicate balance between being welcoming without being too encouraging.  A few bad experiences with visitors have left a lasting impression here. I was told that airplanes buzz the island, trying to get a look at how people live there. That’s sure irritating, but I guess they should be grateful that no one flies a drone over their private land, as so many boat travelers have experienced. Talk about invading privacy!

In fact, one woman was concerned that I would write about the island. We had a conversation about experiences they have had with outsiders in the past and at the time, I found myself agreeing with her not to write about a specific experience there.  But that felt bad to me and I think it was an unfair request.   I understand the desire for privacy, and I’m sorry that they are not immune from the bad experiences we have all had with other people at one time or another; you know, people who trash a beach or who break someone’s stuff, or who steal things. That happens everywhere, even on islands where people have gone to live to escape the rest of humanity and invent their own version of what they think is paradise. It’s pretty hard to be a part of the San Juan Islands and not have anyone know your island exists. In addition, Point Disney is public land that has been set aside for the public to appreciate. Those are public roads and a public dock.

So I’ve tried to split the difference between her concerns about privacy and my desire and right to write about our experiences by not naming the island in this post and by changing the title of the post I put up the morning before I talked with her. I hope these gestures will suffice to communicate my good will.

If  you go, be a good ambassador for the rest of us. Use the dinghy dock on the side away from the load/unload area. Stick to the public roads (unless directed, as we were, by a native), and take all trash out with you.