By John – Page 2 – Caro Babbo

The vagaries of dock space

Blake Island State Park August, 28th 2025 — Labor Day weekend starts this Friday. Today is Thursday and I expected people to start to fill the docks last night. Instead, it is more than half empty this morning.

We were here last Friday. The marina was completely full with boats, jockeying and rafting.

People

Parks Bay, WA, 4-Aug-2025 – I haven’t been writing. The compunction hasn’t been upon me for a variety of reasons. The first time we went to Alaska, I wrote fifty posts in 150 days. This is my third post this year, we’re 100 days into the trip.

The reasons are manifold: It has become like work, something I never wanted to happen.* The places we’ve been to have been very much like every other place we’ve been to. Jennifer’s fears have infected me so much I have to fight against my fears to sail, which has taken a lot of life out of me.

Things have been good, however, beyond not writing.

People

Van Anda, Texada Island, BC, 31-MAY-2025 – On our first trip north, I remember getting to Texada Island. We had traveled so far, to the brink of the world it seemed. Today, we have just been piddling around for the past month and had stopped here to wait out some not so terrible weather.

Blogging Dam?

Newcastle Island, Nanaimo, BC, 16-MAY-2025 – I haven’t been in the mood to write recently. I’m sorry. I’m also afraid to write how well things are going.

We moved out of Point Hudson on May first to Mystery Bay on Marrowstone Island, where we discovered how much we left behind, which was just as well since we hadn’t finished cleaning the house for VRBO rental.

It looks like I ’ll have time for the optional stuff, meaning the 277 items on my to-do list.

Point Hudson Marina, Port Townsend, 22-FEB-2025 – Of course, much of what I work on doesn’t show on the to-do list because I didn’t know I needed to work on it, which brings us to the rudder post.

I don’t look at the rudder post much. It sits in a locker in the aft cabin, pretty much minding its own business. The last time I looked at it was in 2019 after we arrived in Hawaii. Someone in the Maxi 95 group correctly pointed out that the reason we had some water in our port locker was a leaking rudder post seal. I had sealed it the year before while on the hard in Boat Haven in Port Townsend. I don’t remember what I did to stop the leak. I expect I just tightened the nut which compressed the packing further.

Repair, don’t replace (when you can)

Point Hudson, WA 4-FEB-2025 – The steering wheel on Caro Babbo has wiggled since, perhaps since we got the boat. There were times when I thought it might come off in my hands, or worse still, Jennifer’s hands. I thought about how I could steer with the sails, or with a wrench attached to the rudder post. Eventually, I had an emergency tiller fabricated in Hawaii.

But, most of the time, I knew it was just a bushing that had worn through. I didn’t know what the inside of the steering mechanism looked like. Like most things, until you’ve seen one, which I hadn’t, you’re frightened by what might be there, or when taking it apart what might pop out never to be found or reassembled again.

Calvin

This isn’t about boats, mostly.

21-JAN-2025, Port Townsend, WA – About 35 years ago, I read a piece by Calvin Trillin. He was writing with some bemusement about people he’d meet or who would write to him to ask about his daughters. He’d written about getting bagels for them on weekend mornings and the life of an urban family with two young daughters.

Time Discontinuity

Port Townsend, WA 4-JAN-2025 – I was thinking about a conversation I had with someone about her graduate school career. It was a story she’d told me many times, but this time she told the group the rest of the story.* It is a story I always looked on fondly because I was a tangential part of the story.

The Video Version of 2024

Port Townsend, WA 24-OCT-2024 – I belong to a Zoom group that started as fans of James Everson’s sailboat Zingaro.

I spent a few weeks on James’ boat in Aruba and would do a two-minute video every morning detailing what had happened the night before and the view from the boat.

This year, given it was our last time in Alaska and we were covering ground we’d never cover again, I asked the group if they’d like me to make two-minute videos in Caro Babbo. I was quite surprised when they said yes. I made them for a while and stopped. No one seemed interested. I asked a second time after stopping for a few weeks and everyone said yes again so I restarted. In this playlist are 52 videos made on the trip down. They are in chronological order and you’re welcome to watch. They are raw video: no editing of any kind, though I did stop and start recording in some videos.

Point Hudson: Caro Babbo is home for the winter

Port Townsend, WA, 15-OCT-2024 – We’re home, Jennifer, me, and Caro Babbo. Caro Babbo is floating higher on her waterline and will for the next bunch of months.