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.