Floating Southward

Eagle Island, WA, 20-SEP-2024 – We’ve been floating southward with little urgency and less stress. Jennifer does not want to sail at all, but when there is wind I’ll set sail and we’ll sail for as long as it lasts.

A few days ago, we sailed from Kingston to Quartermaster Harbor. [Our time in ] Kingston was on a dock in a very nice town. We were only there for a day, but packed a lot into it. We arrived shortly before noon and docked in a slip we reserved the day before: $45 dollars. We arrived by boat, obviously, which gives a skewered view of a town we pass through by car on our way to the ferries. By boat, we see the harbor and the ferry dock. We walk a block or two away from the harbor to the separation between the small downtown roads with tourist shops and the larger highways that have few small shops.

We checked in with the harbor master (mistress?; wharfinger in Canada), got the bathroom and WiFi codes, and discussed this and that. We walked around the downtown. On tables on the dock were pizza boxes from a local downtown restaurant, which when I opened one had pizza. We learned that a yacht club had come together and the pizzas were theirs, leftover.

Traveling in large yacht club groups seems to be something power boaters do. They gather under tents or enclosures for breakfast and on one another boats for drinks and then go to dinner together. It seems like a very fun thing to do… for them. That sort of togetherness doesn’t appeal to me. Maybe it is just me. I was going to say it is power boaters vs sailors, but we ran into a group of eight or ten sailboats in Canada traveling together. It is me. I match the profession I chose and the sports I like: I was a software engineer; I like solo or nearly solo sports.

Kingston had (expensive) ice cream that we enjoyed, a jazz venue we visited, and endless, free showers that we took advantage of. We also fueled up at its very inexpensive fuel dock.

We’ve been meeting young women working the docks at various places trying to get boats to live aboard. They’re very nice, very tatted and I hope get their dreams. I haven’t exchanged info with them, as I would normally do, or did in years past. I don’t know if it is my age, my stroke, or my realization (or interpretation) that they really aren’t interested in being friends. There is a tendency at my age to want to share your knowledge and the frustration that those who can use it are generally not interested.

We sailed half the time down to Quartermaster, I say time, because in distance it was about one-fourth. It was a nice quiet sail. I started with the 135% genoa and then went to a 170% before the wind died. We motored the rest of the way. On the sail, I thought about our sail in 2014 when Caro Babbo was new to us, and none of us had potentially life-changing medical events.*

It was winter, it was cold and it was windy. Jennifer and I tacked down the sound with the current and the wind. We made it to Gig Harbor in two hours or something like that. John Riley told us we couldn’t be there that fast, but come into the harbor we did. I don’t know how many times we sailed to Gig Harbor. The visits are all tangled up. On one visit we sailed to Quartermaster and anchored in the cold all bundled up, laughing. We had so little experience on a boat this large, but did very well from the sailing we had done and the books we’d read.

This time we sailed all the way to Burton, back around the corner, and anchored next to John Riley’s boat. Jennifer did a great job positioning us so that we swung but never came close to another boat. In Port Townsend, we had started getting used to the idea of shallow water anchoring. The years in Canada and Alaska have conditioned us to 35 to 60 feet of water beneath us. In Burton, we anchored in 8 to 20 feet. Now in Eagle Island it is the same.

John brought over dinner: big fat tomatoes, buttermilk bread, and zucchinis. The tomatoes we made into what Lewis Grizzard called kitchen sink sandwiches† and pan-fried the zucchini.

John returned the next morning for coffee before he and I rowed over in Caro Babbo’s Portland Pudgy to work on his solar panels. That work went very quickly, mostly it was my ability to squeeze the tools, or to have a third hand to hold things to the attached connectors. We had everything up and running in two hours. Then we picked up Jennifer and rowed ashore.

John assured us we wouldn’t need boots on the beach with an easement to the roadway. Jennifer didn’t believe him and wore boots. When I rowed to the beach, the closest I could get had nine inches of water in front of the bow. Jennifer stepped over the side and pulled us to where I could jump and then we pulled it further so John could step over. Then the three of us dragged the dinghy the rest of way to the steps, where Jennifer tied it. We put the oars under the seats and then walked, I thought, to town. Along the way, John gave a tour, stopped to say hello to ducks and chickens and their owner and we paused at a giveaway table.

A woman walking the other way said hello; John tried speaking with a young woman walking a dog, who turned out to have earbuds. She saw John was talking, pulled an earbud. By this time she had walked past. John explained that he had wanted to pet the dog, but the moment had passed, and the woman nodded and moved on.

John walked us to a bus stop. Jennifer and I looked at each other. We had no cash. Did John? He said no, but don’t worry about it, the driver will just let us ride for free. When we entered the bus, the driver said, please be quick, I made a mistake and now I’m late.

We sat down and John talked to the driver, sometimes in a conversation, most of the times in quips that they exchanged. John explained where we wanted to get off and as we were leaving the driver gave Jennifer and me passes for the return trip.

John took us on a tour of the town, during which we decided where to eat: Burritos at the Thriftway. Lots of food, an outdoor setting. (John paid.) We discussed the history of John’s boats and whether he’d like another boat. We also decided what we’d do when we went back to the harbor: We’d all three go to John’s boat, John and I would put in disconnect switches, and see how the batteries had been charging since we left for lunch.††

John has 300 watts of solar split among a 100-watt panel across the dodger, which he uses to charge battery #2, and two hundred watts split among four 50-watt panels on his stern. The 100-watt is flexible, the 50s are rigid. John chose four 50s so he can aim them all in different directions. As the boat spins at anchor there is a good chance one is aimed the correct way for the sun and others may be close. It seems like a very good heuristic.

John climbed down into the cockpit locker and mounted the boxes for the disconnect switches, then he climbed out and I climbed in to do the connections. John spoke with Jennifer while I did the work. I asked, ‘‘did we want to do the second switch?’’ It was getting to be about six pm. It would take about another thirty minutes. John hemmed and hawed, it was clear he wanted to quit for the day, which meant it wouldn’t get done while Jennifer and I were back here, but quit we did.

I rowed us back to Caro Babbo, where we had a repeat of kitchen sink sandwiches with a spinach salad.

John left the next morning at six am for the ferry to Tacoma; Jennifer and I left around 9:30 to motor there.

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* None of the three of has been held back by these events, but we’re all on medication. I reflect that John and I are past our sell-by dates, but not Jennifer who would have been fine with no intervention.

† Grizzard, trying to preserve southern heritage, insisted upon Miracle Whip as opposed to Hellmans/Best Foods mayo of those of us from the north.

†† We also went for ice cream and watched high schoolers gravitate between the ice cream place we were in and the pizza place across the street. I don’t think I ever saw them buy anything.