Since 1983, an ever-rotating group of oddballs, misfits, and folks who are all here because they are not all there have been cobbling together (with varying degrees of success) human-powered kontraptions designed to be propelled over land, sea, sand, and mud, and racing them around Port Townsend the first Sunday in October for the glory. If you have never taken the opportunity to watch or participate in–and that line can blur rapidly–this annual event, you are missing one of the quintessentially Northwestern experiences available to the all-weather cruiser.

Over the years, the event has expanded to fill the weekend. Hard-won experience lead to mandatory pre-race brake and float tests, preceded by a general parade, on Saturday afternoon, followed by the all-important Koronation Kostume Ball Saturday night, during which the Rose Hips Kween is selected and crowned. The Kween then presides over the race itself, traditionally started in front of the American Legion Hall by a cheap shot at low noon on Sunday. By rule, in case of sun, the race is held anyway. That was fortunate this year, when the cool, low clouds and showers were broken up by bothersome periods of blue sky and bright sun.

Float Test

We like to get to town early and attend the Saturday events. By Sunday, everyone has been on the hill and in the water already and have proven they can stop and float. On Saturday, these capabilities have not yet been established, and the process of doing so frequently proves more exciting than the race itself.

With friends and family, we drove to town and parked near the marshalling area for the parade in the US Bank parking lot adjacent to the ferry terminal. Racers, spectators, and hangers-on milled about the parked skulptures. An impromptu drum circle serenaded the crowd and the event’s enforcement branch, the fearsomely mustachioed Kinetic Kops, circulated, maintaining disorder and soliciting bribes.

Kinetic Kop

Given the nature of the event and the participants, it can be difficult to determine exactly who is racing ahead of time, but this year as usual there appeared to be about twenty skulptures entered. These range from massive, specialized vehicles powered by sophisticated drive trains with up to four people pedaling at a time, down to folks with some styrofoam strapped to a bicycle. Each year, there is at least one novel approach to addressing the problem of building a human-powered vehicle capable of negotiating roads, sand, water, and mud. This year, it was the Mousetrap, a big hamster-wheel with a single racer walking inside.

Having looked over the field and privately ranked the entrants, we decided to get to the site of the upcoming “break” tests to get good seats. Walking up to the Wooden Boat Foundation, adjacent to both the hill where the mandatory brake checks are conducted and the ramp where the mandatory float tests occur, we passed a lone skulpture pedaling frantically back along Water Street. In the finest traditions of the race, they were running a little late and going in the wrong direction.

Mousetrap

We wandered up to the upper deck of the new Foundation building and got good spots along the rail. Eventually, the parade made its way down to us and the racers took turns going up the hill and coming back down, generally managing not to crash along the way. The float testing was not as successful; one of the first skulptures in the water had a propulsion failure, and a later one capsized.

We were back on Sunday at exactly noon, but other than the usual shenanigans and rambling speeches from the announcer’s stand, nothing much was happening. Nothing moves quickly during anything Kinetic, and part of the fun is chatting with others in the audience and gawking at Kops and offishuls as they attempt to manage the unmanageable. This year, the audience included a real offishul, as Governor Christine Gregoire quietly came up and found a spot on the rail near us to watch the racers brave the frigid waters. Since her term is up in January, there was some speculation that she might be contemplating a run for higher office as the Rose Hips Kween. Keep an eye on CNN for updates.

The Governor Gets a Ticket

The K-Kops were, as usual, liberally distributing tickets, probably in the hope of soliciting more bribes. Anyone, or anything, can be ticketed, and being a member of the audience is no defense. If you are in a position to offer a gratuity, mini-donuts usually go over well. On the other hand, it is sometimes more fun to be ticketed than not. Governor Gregoire got a ticket for being “Best Gov in US” but that seemed like a bit of a kop-out on the part of an admiring K-cop. More typical were tickets issued for being too sleepy (to a skulpture made up to look like a bed), excessive laughter, insufficiently gaudy costume, egregious combovers, and, to one unsuspecting pooch, “Dog Gone Mad.”

It didn’t matter that no one appeared to be in any hurry, however. The top prize one can aspire to in the race is not that for first place, but rather the coveted Mediocrity Award, bestowed upon the skulpture that comes in dead middle in the field.

Eventually, the Kops and offishuls got a majority of skulpture pilots lined up at the start, and sent them off with a siren blast (an actual gunshot would be a little too violent for Port Townsend). The pilots mounted their machines and took off pell mell across the starting line. Half of them promptly turned in the wrong direction and went off-course, careening about in the crowd and forcing some extraordinarily belabored three-point turns.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The first leg was a short around-the-block warm-up to get some speed up before heading into the water for cold and wet stretch out around a buoy and back again. No short float test this; skulptures without well-considered marine propulsion systems are in for a long afternoon fighting wind and waves. Predictably, more than a few exercise the pilot’s privilege of cheating to either get a tow from someone more favorably equipped, or to simply splash in and back out again and claim they went the distance.

Although the skulptures all reached the ramp at about the same time, there were still a few either steeling themselves for the passage or laboriously re-configuring their craft into aqua-mode by the time the hard-charging leaders were coming out of the water. We took this as a sign that it was time to head to the next obstacle, the Kwik-sand next to the Marine Science Center at Fort Warden. Since there is a big hill in between, and it was after one o’clock, it was also a sign that there was time for lunch, which we snagged at the ever-popular Waterfront Pizza on the way back to the car. A lot of spectators walk the route; it’s not hard to keep up with the actual contestants.

Cheatin' Time

The Kwik-sand is a recent addition to the course and I have not been a big fan. Even having stopped for lunch, we got there early and waited quite a while in a cold breeze off the Strait for the first skulptures to show up. Once they arrived and entered the beach, it just seemed cruel to watch. Apart from the tension of wondering whether or not the tide will sweep them away before they get through the course, it’s all just watching the poor pilots grunting and heaving until they get tired and start cheating. I’m not saying that isn’t why I watch in the first place, only that the Dismal Bog is a much better place to see it, because then they are all muddy and miserable at the same time.

The Dismal Bog was up next, at the county fairgrounds. It consists of two trenches filled with water and left to marinate overnight. The skulptures must each pass through one or the other of these within fifteen minutes of entering them. This year was less dismal than some, thanks to relatively dry weather. Still, few skulptures managed to escape the bog unscathed. In fact, the first three to plow in promptly got badly stuck and bottled the course up for a half hour or more. Some years this results in an impromptu chain of spectators wading in and hauling on tow ropes to get the pilots across the line, but no one was so inspired this year.

The Mousetrap was the sole exception to the general misery. The pilot calmly shucked down to a bathing suit and promptly rolled her extra-wide hamster wheel right through the mud as if she were strolling down the sidewalk. Then she did it again, showing off by coming back through the other trench, earning herself a ticket for “Double-dipping” in the process.

Mired in the Dismal Bog

In the past, the Bog event was followed by a celebratory catapulting of teddy bears across the fairgrounds, but the trebuchet broke a couple years ago (the rule requiring each skulpture to have a teddy bear on board at all times, however, has not yet been exculpated, and several unwary pilots were ticketed for failure to have a teddy bear) so now everyone just heads for the finish line and the Survivor’s Party. This was our cue to pile back in the car and head back to Seattle.

We have rarely stayed for the actual end of the race. I can only think of one year I even found out who won, but winning isn’t really the point. The point is good old-fashioned zany fun, and we always get our fill of that.

For more information about the race, see the Port Townsend Kinetic Race website, or stop by Kinetic Koffee the next time you are in Port Townsend… it’s an easy walk from Boat Haven.

“For the glory!”

So I always enjoy going to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, and this year was a particularly fine time for it. I can’t remember better weather for it, and coming at the tail end of a summer that has, for the first time in a long time, seen us tied up in town rather than out sailing, it provided a badly needed shot of nautical for us. My wife and I sailed up to Port Hadlock (a much less crowded port during the Festival weekend!) last Friday to meet up with friends and family for a long weekend of visiting and show-going.

The schedule was jam-packed with seminars and lectures, but we skipped all those in favor of boat-viewing. There are very few bits of nautical knowledge that we figure we don’t need to know, but wooden boat maintenance is among them. We like to look, not touch. And with eighty-odd boats on display, there was a lot of looking to do.

There is also a lot of history involved. There was a time when the broad availability of wood as a construction material roughly coincided with the explosion of international travel and commerce. The oldest wooden boats we have today are relics of the last dregs of that explosion, and provide a fascinating window into the daily lives of our forebears before roads and cars, when the vast highways of water were the main arterial of the nation.

If that fact weren’t interesting enough, the tides of history have selected for survival those that were beautiful enough or interesting enough or owned by folks famous enough to draw favor. So it’s not unusual for mortals such as ourselves to find ourselves aboard Howard Hughes’ old sailboat, checking out frequent guest Hugh Hefner’s favorite berth, or standing around on the Duke’s old yacht, listening to the current owner read out entries from the logbook of glittering Hollywood parties held aboard in the 1930′s.

Some of the more prosaic vessels have also gained fame through either longevity or proximity. On a snowy day last November, my wife and I had watched from across the bay as the tug Elmore, built in 1890 (and re-built often since) had her bow stove in at her dock by a loose fishing vessel. Through the winter, we had kept track of the repairs with some interest, driving through the boatyard in Port Townsend and watching as the planking was stripped off and slowly replaced.

Going aboard to see the interior after such a catastrophe, then, was an eye-opener; her forepeak, previously packed with random gear and filling the same role as the average quarter-berth on a sailboat, had been entirely re-done with a new berth and lovely wooden lockers to complement the new planking. She looked as if she easily had another hundred and twenty years in her. I wondered what one of her original passengers in the late eighteen nineties would have thought to see her still chugging along today.

If boating generally provides a community, then wooden boat owners and crew have their own distinct neighborhood in it. It’s this close-knit group that keeps all these relics not only sailing, but thriving. Watching them chat and compare notes, it struck me how dedicated they are. In comparison, I feel like a weekend sailor. Many of them make their living on boats as well as making a hobby of them. If you enjoy a life on the water, nothing could be more appealing.

Of course, as I dreamily contemplated such a life, the stark reality that I wouldn’t even make a halfway competent deckhand was driven home as I helped catch the lines for the Elmore as she eased back into her regular berth on the last afternoon. I managed to stand in the wrong place, look the wrong direction, misunderstand instructions, and generally prove more hindrance than help at docking the 78′ tug with a touchy clutch.

This weekend, of course, is the Lake Union Boat’s Afloat show in Seattle. I plan to go to that as well, this time avoiding any attempts to help out, and hoping that the newer, slicker, less ingrained presenters there will prove a little less salty and will make me feel a little less lubberly in comparison!

“Hi Bob,” I said. “Where are you headed?”

“Well,” he began, “There is this French couple who are sailing around the world, and they fill up their cruising kitty by performing acrobatics in the rigging of their boat. We sponsored them for a show this weekend at Point Hudson, so we’re heading up there tomorrow morning.”

This was not a particularly unusual pronouncement to hear down on our dock on a summer evening, but my curiosity was piqued. Bob handed us a flyer. Sure enough, there was a picture of a woman, spinning around in a manner that I most associate with the high flyers of Cirque du Soleil, in the rigging of a sailboat. The flyer announced shows at five and seven, with a potluck on the docks to follow the late show.

As it happened, we were sailing up to Port Hadlock that same day to visit with family. Watching death-defying acrobatics performed over water seemed like good family fun to me, so I told Bob we would try to make it.

“Great!” he said, “Look for us, we’ll be the ones in berets.”

Sure enough, the first thing we saw after carpooling into Port Townsend Saturday evening and walking past the new Center for Wooden Boats complex was Bob and his wife, resplendent in striped shirts and red berets, walking up the dock. They pointed us toward the west end of the marina and we joined the stream of other people already heading in that direction and found places to sit along the rim of the boat basin.

Franck Rabilier, Delphine Lechifflart, and their two daughters, all aboard their bright yellow 40 foot sloop La Loupiote, have crossed the Atlantic, kicked around the Caribbean, hopped over to Hawaii, and cruised BC before ending up in Port Townsend on a lovely August evening. The basin around the linear dock at Point Hudson marina formed a natural amphitheater, with the sloop tied off diagonally between the travel lift pier and the end of the dock. A good-sized crowd fanned out along the rocks, grass, and piers as Franck came on deck and announced that they were going to wait another five minutes before starting, because some folks on the ferry just coming in didn’t want to miss the show.

Paddling in Circles

Our neighbors told us that the late show is the more serious and impressive display of acrobatics, but I was just as happy to have caught the earlier slapstick routine. It struck me as being more authentic to our own cruising experiences, apart from, you know, spinning around upside down in the rigging. Although I don’t doubt that some day it will come to that.

Anyway, at first I didn’t even realize they were starting the show… two people in a blow-up dinghy paddling in opposite directions and going in circles is such an integral part of our own average routine that I just assumed they were trying to get back to the boat to get ready for the high-wire stuff. I finally figured out it was just a performance when they didn’t finish up by screaming at each other.

Getting Aboard

Things got progressively funnier and more acrobatic from there. They came aboard over the bows, had an altercation over the whisker pole, and got tangled up in the lines. Again, this tracks closely with our own sailing experience, except that when things get heated aboard Insegrevious we just throw things at one another; Franck and Delphine had a mad-cap chase up and down the mast and through the air over decks and water.

The pace built until they were frenetically popping up and down the mast and forestay like yo-yos, making ascents that take us five minutes of grinding in a matter of seconds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I won’t say I haven’t been tempted to do the same with Mandy from time to time after hoisting her up the mast, but I am not sure she could hold on like that. Nor could I; I happened to get a look at Delphine’s forearms before the show, and they make mine look like strands of under-cooked spaghetti. In fact, through the entire show, what struck me the most was how free and easy she and Franck made the acrobatics look. There were no nets, no safety lines, nothing but their own strength and skill in an environment that was never designed for such manuevers. A profusion of stays, halyards, booms, and dangling sails strikes me as putting a lot of dangerous obstacles in the way of the aerialist. But you never knew it while watching Franck and Delphine’s performance. Their apparently effortless ascents of stays and halyards, all while acting out their slapstick routine, made it look fun and safe and easy.

If you missed the show in Port Townsend, fear not; La Loupiote will be booting around Puget Sound for the rest of the summer. They will be performing in Port Ludlow August 23rd, 24th, and 25th, and in Seattle at Elliot Bay Marina on August 27th. You can see their schedule, and more details, at their website, voilierspectacle.com. Prepare to be entertained, and to learn to look at your rigging in a whole new light.

I feel bad for the authors, because these are the easiest things to talk about when it comes to sailing, and in truth there is not a lot else beyond the purely technical. You’re cooped up in a small cabin in a big ocean for long periods of time, one day of sailing is just like the next, self-discovery is pretty much what you come out with. And you visit some neat places that are off the beaten path, the history is often fascinating and usually somewhat necessary to understanding them. I often catch (or, unfortunately, don’t catch) my own blog posts slipping in those directions. So I get why it’s coming up in all these books, I just wish that someone would find a different way.

It’s not even that the books are bad, just repetitive, and I suppose they’re only that if you are reading a lot of them in sequence, which I know not everybody does. But it turns out that most of what all these authors find out about themselves and the ocean are the same things… the ocean is big and relentless and unforgiving, and they are small and humbled but ultimately become tough and self-confident and resourceful in the face of it. There is often some discussion of adopting new rhythms in their lives, something more “natural” and gentle than the rat-race they have come from.

I get all that and I don’t deny the truth and power of the message. But once you’ve heard it… there are few fresh takes. Joshua Slocum may have penned the last truly original sailing narrative (if you don’t care about hard copy books, you can also get the text for free as an electronic download). That was in 1899.

The psuedo-history also becomes problematic, because most all these authors are circumnavigating, and circumnavigators tend to stop in all the same places… the Caribbean, Panama, Polynesia, the Azores. The history of those places can be truly fascinating. But the amount of that history you get in a snapshot sailing narrative is limited, and everyone is cribbing from the same sources. If I read one more Cook quotation, I may become seasick.

Again, I sympathize; it’s hard to write about places without writing their history to some extent. I spent most of my summer in Desolation Sound and it’s damn near impossible to write about the place without noting the irony of the name and explaining Vancouver’s original exploration of the place. But if I did that, I’d just be telling you stuff you had already read ten times before, probably written much better and in more detail. I only wish that someone would find a more original approach than the recycled tourist brochure drivel.

I find that I have begun to prefer the historical exploration couched as travelogue, instead; Tony Horwitz’s Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before is an excellent example of the genre. Beth Hill’s Upcoast Summers was good, despite the dearth of original text and the extreme reliance on the original sources. Following the Curve of Time by Cathy Converse also looks to be a promising entry (as The Curve of Time itself is an outstanding exception to my original complaint; but then, so are many of the classic cruising stories, which I suppose is what makes them classic), although I haven’t had time to get to it yet, and likewise Sam McKinney’s Sailing With Vancouver.

And there are still decent examples of the sailing narrative itself coming out. Maiden Voyage, albeit repleat with most of the self-discovery tropes I noted above, manages to avoid the historical pitfalls. My Old Man and the Sea is an altogether different approach, refreshing and interesting, and covering unusual territory as well as offering a new take.

But I’m afraid I am about through all the more unique sailing narratives I have been able to find. Soon, I’ll have to start in on their evil stepsister, the sailing disaster story. Those never get old!

Passage Island from Whytecliff Park

You’ve sailed past this lovely little park if you have dodged the ferry traffic out of Horseshoe Bay on your way to or from destinations deeper in Howe Sound, north of Vancouver. You may have noticed a large and distinctive white rock, jutting six stories out of the water, forming an island joined by a tenuous causeway of stone, in between the Lookout Point and Batchelor Cove. If you happened to look closely, you would probably have seen people waving at you from the top. That’s Whyte Island, the most prominent seaward facing aspect of Whytecliff Park.

You sailed past it because the small bays formed between the rock and the headlands on either side are rocky and indifferent anchorages. So you may not have realized that a fine public park backs the Rock and the beach it shelters, and that fine vistas and picnicking spots are to be had ashore there. Braver souls may even venture in to swim at the beach… it’s not as cold as you might think.

Whytecliff park boasts lovely old trees, vast expanses of cool green lawn, tennis courts, play areas, barbecue pits, and dozens of intertwined, hidden trails twisting along the seemingly impassible rock face, leading to small, secluded crevices along the cliff perfect for small picnics, each with its own isolated and distinct view out toward Bowen Island, up Howe Sound, or out across the Strait of Georgia.

A vast crevice delves between two of these massive outcroppings, and at high tide the surf pounds and churns within. You can follow the twisting trails down into the gap at lower tides and pick through the debris that has been flushed in and stuck there, including huge logs the likes of which you hope never to meet under way.

Sunset is the best time to appreciate the vistas of Whytecliff Park, but you will probably have plenty of company.

Getting there will take a bit of work for the average boater. Although relatively close to Horseshoe Bay, Sewell’s Marina and the public dock there can be difficult places to find moorage. Should one do so, a quick dinghy ride around Lookout Point and down the shoreline might be the best option, although the crowded and debris-strewn beach at the park doesn’t promise an easy landing. Walking is another option, following the twisting path of Marine Drive up and around the other side of the peninsula, but it’s not a foot-friendly route.

From Vancouver or its vicinity, the 257 bus will get you closest, from which you then follow the same walking route as above. The 239 provides an easy transfer from Lonsdale Quay to the 257; Lonsdale Quay is a transit hub that is fairly easy to get to from most marinas or anchorages around the area.

A rented car, or friends who have one, may be your best bet.

Duck, duck, goose!

The combination of high temperatures and low tides seems to have kick-started the summer scene at Shilshole Marina. Before this week, you would see more people out and about on their boats, but it was mostly racers or older gentlemen out getting ready for the season. Now, we’ve encountered the magic combination that is bringing everyone out for fun instead of just function.

A posse of very small girls have taken over Q and P docks, racing about on foot and in kayaks with small nets, stopping to peer down into the depths every few feet for new and strange examples of sea life. All manner of small creatures are captured and forcibly detained in buckets, awaiting what grisly fates I don’t yet know. You can track their exploits by damp footprints and bucket sloshes up and down the dock.

It’s not just the kids that are in on the act now, though. This morning I saw one grey-haired gentleman down on his knees, talking on his cell phone with his nose down near the water, tracking the progress of a small crab across the bottom. The tide is at -2, which isn’t the lowest of the year, but low enough that I swear some of the most shoreward boats are resting on their keels, and you could just about reach down and grab those little crabs if you wanted. One fellow on the next dock over appropriated one of the nets from the girls and lay down flat on his stomach splashing and flailing after something or other down there.

My wife has been carefully tracking the progress of the single remaining gosling from the flock of geese that have made their home around the stream outfall south of P dock. It seems like it gets bigger every day, going from ball of unidentifiable fluff to small proto-goose in a matter of weeks. It may be my imagination, but it seems like the geese are happier in the sunshine, too.

It’s nice to be able to have the hatches open now and sit here working while all the commotion outside filters in as background noise. It’s been a glum spring in Seattle, and for the whole nation in some respects… oil spills, financial troubles, long wars. At times, all that gloom and rain we were having just seemed the natural companion to everything else happening in the world.

But the return of sunshine, the families, and the simple illumination of nature going about its daily business a few feet below the keel brings a little joy back into the picture. Starfish don’t care about recessions.

But where, oh where, can you get coverage against lawsuits over the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (NSFW)?

I know that I’ll be reviewing our policy with a magnifying glass after that shocking wake-up call. What’s your coverage?

I’d worked out our trip from Sidney to Seattle precisely accounting for the tides and currents at Sidney, through Haro Straight, down San Juan Channel, and into Admiralty Inlet, taking into consideration the behaviors of Rosario Strait and Deception Pass just in case conditions militated our entrance into one of those two bodies instead. I felt confident that we actually would get to Seattle that day, late, to be sure, a long day, a very long day, no doubt, but entirely possible. At the very least, we would make it across the Strait of Juan de Fuca for a short overnight stop in Port Townsend before making the last leg quickly the following morning.

But I forgot about Spieden Channel.

I didn’t really forget about it, of course, I just discounted it. We’ve been through there a few times, and it’s always been sedate. We were just lucky. Today, after a fast crossing of Haro Strait from Sidney, seeing the water boiling up in front of us though the channel was sheltered from the shrill northern wind, I got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. Too late, I pulled out my copy of Coast Pilot 7 and looked up Spieden Channel. “The meeting of the flood currents, which flow E from Haro Strait and W from San Juan Channel, cause heavy tide rips and eddies. This channel is not recommended for sailing craft.”

Oops.

So we slogged our way through it at about a knot, getting in to the Customs dock at Friday Harbor almost two hours later than I had planned, throwing the entire rest of my carefully honed schedule into disarray. Sailing is like that.

So, we decided to stop and get a burger and a slip for the night.

We’ve been living pretty decadently this trip, mostly because we can; it’s the off-season, and all the yacht clubs with which our own has reciprocal moorage agreements have guest slips standing empty, just waiting for us. So in Silva Bay, Sidney, and now here in Friday Harbor, we’ve indulged in the luxury of a solid tie-up, where in the summer we’d be lucky for a spot to anchor within dinghy range. Of course, in the summer we wouldn’t be madly in love with AC space heaters that require shore power, either. Still, it feels very decadent to just stop here for the night and go out on the town, when we had expected a hard day of sailing still ahead of us.

In fact, I haven’t even unlashed the anchor from its perch on the bow pulpit this trip. We’ve either found free moorage (well, everywhere but Vancouver) or an open buoy at a state or provincial park. I don’t really mind anchoring, but I won’t pretend that it isn’t easier and more certain to tie up at a dock or mooring ball.

Strangely, the prospect of being back in our own slip at our home marina doesn’t have quite the same allure. Maybe it’s the knowledge that the trip will be over and work will again loom at that point. Still, if we make it back there without dropping the anchor anywhere in between (which seems likely at this point) it will mark a first for us… we’ve never taken a trip before where we didn’t anchor out somewhere. Decadent, indeed.

Our last couple of days in Vancouver were just spent wandering, taking it all in. A stop to see the now famously cordoned off Olympic Flame; a quick public transit tour of the venues, or at least those accessibly by public transit (Cypress Mountain was not on that list, even before it started melting and even ticket-holders were prohibited from visiting); and a night spent wandering the streets of downtown, listening to the music and watching the throngs of people from every nation acting and interacting.

Looks pretty safe to me

I say every nation but it’s just a broad assumption that I am making; Vancouver is such a cosmopolitan city anyway, it’s difficult to say if even the most exotic-looking or -sounding person is a resident or not. But from all those we saw fumbling around with maps just as we were, it’s a safe bet that not all were locals.

Being in attendance with the rest of the world, we weren’t really looking forward to leaving, but when we did, we did it fast. The day dawned clear and cool and brought a northerly wind bombing down the Strait of Georgia with it that left us tearing across at hull speed and better, bashing through three foot swells with a part-time escort of porpoises, who alternately annoyed, as they splashed water toward an otherwise miraculously dry cockpit, then frightened, as they made breathtaking cuts ahead of and beneath our bow. We were heaving and bounding so much that I was sure one of them would miscalculate and face an unexpected appointment with the leading edge of our much-abused keel, but they knew their business far better than I and steered clear, if only by inches.

The wind and weather encouraged us to angle south for Active Pass, cutting the corner on the route we took north, and saving us a day on the return trip. We caught the tides barely in time at the pass; we didn’t dare sail through but motored dully against the slight current, pausing only to raise sail again on the other side before rocketing off to the south again. A rail-car carrier, seeing us pause to unfurl the jib off Enterprise Reef, acidly informed us that he and a ferry were coming through and we should start our engines to get clear. I didn’t bother to tell him we were faster under sail and that he should step outside the bridge and check the wind sometimes… I just let the genoa unfurl again with a roar and took off down Swanson Channel.

With so much and so favorable a wind, we decided to put in at Sidney for the night. This was no easy decision; Mandy loathes Sidney and its approaches, cluttered with rocks and other vessel traffic year round. It always seems to be her watch when we’re passing through there. I talked her into it, then regretted it when I saw the chart for the approach to Blue Heron basin in Tsehum Harbor, where our moorage was… shallow. Then I realized it was a metric chart, and that wasn’t a one fathom sounding I was looking at, but one meter… half of what I had already thought was pretty thin water.

A detailed study of the tide tables convinced me it was safe to go in, but we only managed it with a lot of false alarms and the prop barely ticking over. Docking, even with the wind blasting down on us, was an anti-climax.

We were still in Canada, but the sedate club house of the Sidney North Saanich Yacht Club where I went up to register for the evening convinced me we were a world away from the Olympics. It was too soon, and we’d gone too far to go back. So it’s on for home in the morning.

But there is a certain sort of satisfaction and well-being I am experiencing at the moment.  I’m warm, well-fed, and well-connected right now, snugged in at a berth in the middle of one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, during one of the premier athletic events of our time, and I suppose I am just feeling a little bit smug about it.  That’s all bound to disappear as soon as we pull out of here and I am cold, exposed, and nervous out in the middle of the Strait of Georgia in the winter, but right now it’s just terribly satisfying to me to be sitting here, watching the Olympics live on a laptop, with a bustling metropolis right out the window.  I don’t feel like I’m traveling; I feel like I am at home.

The boat is, after all, home, and sometimes it’s still a revelation that we can take that home to any number of fantastic places for whatever amount of time we can manage.  And it’s getting easier to manage all the time, as we structure our jobs to work remotely, and with gaps in connectivity.

I don’t feel isolated, I suppose, and that’s what is fueling the infusion of well-being right now.  It’s very easy out on the water to feel alone, at least at this time of year.  Sometimes that’s a great feeling to have.  But at the moment, I think it’s just as well to be here with the crowds, with a Starbucks every two blocks, McDonald’s every three, and well-stocked stores in every neighborhood.  Just having unlimited electricity and Internet seems a boon.

I think that’s important, because all that stuff represents something to get away from when it is time to get away, but it also represents something to come back to when it’s time to come back.  And if you can find ways to enjoy both, then cruising can be that much more fun, because you can look forward to both leaving port and to coming back in again.  I used to think it was only the first that was important but now I am beginning to think that to really enjoy this lifestyle, it’s just as important to appreciate returning.