Granite Bay

Granite Bay, Prince William Sound, 29-Jun-2024 – It’s ten after eight in the evening. The sun is at 35-degrees, and the temperature is in the 70s. I’m wearing a black T-shirt, a pair of Carharts without Long Johns, and no socks. I’m sitting in the cockpit writing, while Jennifer sits across from me navigating.

For the past few years, Jennifer has taken us into places that were horizontally skinny. This year they will be vertically skinny. This means that we need to arrive within a specific time window. Tomorrow is easy, we can leave anytime and still be good leaving Granite Bay; we must arrive within a specific time window. Not too tough.

The next day we must leave within a specific time window and enter the next site also within a time window. I trust Jennifer: she counts on her fingers, but has gotten quite good at it.

Where we are now is lovely. The wind for the next week will be negligible, so we’ll motor on days when we need to make time, and sail when we can on days we don’t.

Yesterday, we took the dinghy off the deck and slept in daylight most of the night. Jennifer is used to it, and I have gotten used to it again. ‘‘Close your eyes and go to sleep,’’ was the advice my mother always gave me and I have given it to Jennifer.

This morning we moved Caro Babbo across the bay into a former cannery, Port Audrey Cannery. It was closed in the 40s. The book we read was written in the 80s and 90s, there is no sign of the buildings that we could find. We did find metal pipes and an oven.

We left there and ate lunch along the way, celery, with peanut butter for Jennifer, and with brie for me. It was very good.

We sailed for a few hours, at less than three knots. Like it does, the wind finally died and we motored the rest of the way. It was a great sail, silent, peaceful. We talked about the sailing on Long Island Sound we did in a 26-foot T-Bird named Taaris. We sold Taaris to buy Caro Babbo.

The last of the ice melted today, so we’ll be cooking the last of the fresh meat tomorrow and eating the fresh vegetables in order according to how long they last.

We have about 20 jars of chicken, lamb and beef, several jars of ground tomatoes, so we’re good for the next few weeks. We move into canned vegetables in the next week or so. We have pounds and pounds of cheeses and about a gallon of yogurt. Eventually, we be eating canned food for the most part when we’ve been away from towns for a while.

The water maker is making water, the engine is running well and the mast seems steady. The bilge pump runs every twenty minutes or so. The ice box empties into the bilge so that will slow tomorrow. I don’t think the dripless seal drips. Since the bilge pump has been running at this rate when I was living aboard on land, it looks like the stainless steel water tank either leaks or a hose running from it leaks.

To remove the tank to inspect it and its hoses, I must remove an immobile through-hull fitting. It was on my to-do list, but I decided to live with it until fall when I can work on it in Port Townsend.

Jennifer’s house at 706 starts making money Monday when the VRBO tenants move in. It was the last space available in PT, so we did rent it for July through the 8^th of September. It was listed too late to rent for June.

We have a slip in Point Hudson Marina in PT for October, but a good friend, Peter Coleman and his spouse are coming to visit us in Port Townsend, co-incident with the Wooden Boat Festival. We need (Jennifer and I) need to get back for those dates. Jennifer is volunteering in any case. If we can’t get all the way there by then, we must get to Vancouver Island. We can take a bus to Victoria and it’s easy after that. Then come back and work our way south.

Peter was my editor when I wrote a column, I’ve never met his wife. I think I did my best writing for him. I started writing very vanilla, I was working and worried about insulting people. I stopped worrying about it and just wrote my thoughts without regards for what followed. It was very nice and people liked it. I got fan mail!

When Peter last visited he learned that although I live 40 miles from SeaTac, it is 2-1/2 hours to get there no matter how we travel. I also threw a dinner party for him with sixteen or more people. I don’t think I know sixteen people anymore. Brion Toss was there. Peter wasn’t impressed by Brion who held himself to be a big-time celebrity, which he was in certain circles. It’s funny how all of that works. I was once a celebrity of sorts.

For this trip, I bought a fishing license ($100) and fishing gear. I spent $159 for a pole and reel and about $70 for lures, etc. So much for the lures because I keep losing them. I think it is the line because in places it is not smooth, but I’m not sure. When we get to the next town I’ll speak with people and replace the line. I had planned to be eating fish and jarring fish by now, changing what I wrote above to something more… well, you know.

Jennifer tells me she likes eat fish but not clean it and does not want fish blood and guts anywhere on the boat. We both like to catch cleaned fish the fishing boats toss over to us. The processors pay between 29¢ and a dollar and change per pound for fish, depending upon the year and the type of fish. I had no idea how much wild fish sold for until New Years a few years ago when I bought a $100 salmon to serve for dinner.

You may have noticed when I wrote what we would be eating, there was no mention of carbs… well very few. Jennifer is no longer eating carbs to control her blood sugar. We went off a few times in Seward and her blood sugar shot up. We’re getting it back down now. We’re both a lot thinner than we have been.

We sail on, thinking about our world, where we will go next, and where and when we will end up.