On fuel quality and personal failure

The engine just stopped. Well, first it hesitated, a little heart palpitation, and then failed all together. We weren't in the shipping lanes, and all land all around us was at a safe distance. So we were safe. But why did it stop?

We had plenty of fuel, but the filters had been on my list to replace. Also, the engine kill swith had been acting up, becoming easier to pull, but harder to push. Maybe it had moved out and killed the engine?

Time to pull open the engine hatch (12 bolts) and poke around. I checked the pull switch, and it had broken off at the T-handle. Problem found! Well, no. I reached into the hot caverns of the engine to manually move the fuel cutoff switch. It wasn't obvious to me which way it needed to be, but neither way worked.

Maybe it was the filters? I tried many things, and not methodically, so I forget when I found the smoking gun. I cracked open the bleed nut on the engine fuel filter and it hissed. Air rushed in to fill the vacuum the engine had created while sucking desperately on the fuel straw.

Not to worry! I had spare filters. My fuel system at this time consisted of the engine fuel filter (2 micron), then a vacuum gauge, then a Racor 12s with a 2 micron element, then a Racor 500 with a 10 micron element, and finally the fuel tank itself. The vacuum gauge is meant to give me advance notice of a clogged filter, but this time the engine stopped with only a second's warning.

The Racor 500 element looked pretty clean, and was easily replaced. The Racor 12s element is impossible to inspect, and hard to change without making a mess. Thankfully I had oil absorbing pads close at hand.

My fuel tank is above the engine, and because fuel flows in to fill the new filters, I've never needed to bleed the entire fuel system. I just open the bleed screw on engine filter, pump it a few times til it spurts diesel, and then the marvelous engine roars to life. Not this time.

Maybe the kill switch is still in the wrong position? Nope. Time to learn how to bleed the whole fuel system. I finally was able to reach the high pressure pump bleed screw, doing it by feel while hugging the hot engine. We were both bleeding when I was finished.

But still no go. Maybe the kill switch is in the wrong position? Nope. Time to get out the Nigel Calder diesel book. I opened up the big nut that holds the fuel lines to the injectors, and cranked until they spurted diesel. One was doing it right away, but the others took some time, 5-10 seconds perhaps. I retightened the nuts and cranked the engine. It roared to life. Kristin professed her undying love. I pointed out that I had been meaning to change the filters before we left, but forgot.

If you are like me and you don't need to bleed your whole system just to replace a fuel filter, then I think you should consider turning off your fuel tank, running the engine dry, and then running through the steps to get it started again. Just because you CAN learn this while bobbing around at sea doesn't mean you should.

We continued to Sucia Island and had a lovely time.

And that should have been that. When I have replaced my filters in the past I've gone to the store, gotten new ones, and then used the old ones. This way I always have some in reserve. This time I didn't purchase spare filters. The next week we went out again, this time to move to Port Townsend, south across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The filters clogged again. I had fixed the kill switch, so that didn't confuse me this time. And this time the engine gave us some warning, making a slight hesitation sound that the vacuum gauge confirmed was a clogged filter. We shut off the engine before it could suck the lines dry, and raised sail. We were only a few miles from Patos and by pure luck it was near slack water. We sailed near the point with the lighthouse, and then the wind died. The currents were still active near slack, and the GPS said we'd be on the rocks in half an hour or so.

But because we had advance notice of the clogging this time, and didn't run the engine dry, we were able to use the engine to move the last half mile around the lighthouse and into the safety of Active Cove. We picked up a mooring ball and decided to ignore out problem for a while.

The next day we called Boat US, the AAA service of the water, and asked them to bring us out some filters. They brought the wrong ones, and so we were towed into Friday Harbor. The shame! When we got there I removed the Racor 12s completely. It was just a pain, and too eager to clog. I got a lot of replacement 2 micron filters for the Racor 500, and once I have used enough fuel to make it feasible, I will clean out my tank.

What was I thinking not getting new filters? Before we left the marina I stared at the well stocked shelves and asked myself what I could possibly need. At the time, I remember this clearly, I was staring at the fuel filters. I didn't get anything.

Way back when we left Portland I installed the Racor 500, the vacuum gauge, and put an inspection port in my fuel tank so I could clean it out. You couldn't say I am cavalier about fuel quality. But, with reason to believe I had fuel quality issues, I set out on a trip across dangerous water in the early spring with no spares.

I explain it this way: sometimes I am stupid. I truly believe this, though it contradicts the very high opinion I have of myself. Hopefully you aren't stupid, but consider the possibility. I am, and I keep forgetting it. I should probably get a tattoo to remind myself.

Oh, Mexico

Oh, down in Mexico
I never really been so I don't really know
Oh, Mexico
I guess I'll have to go...

I don't love James Taylor, but his song Mexico cracks me up. It sounds so simple. We've been finishing just about any sentence that ends with an "oh" sound with lines from the song. "That sign points to the left, but we need to head north. Which way should we go?" "I've never really been so I don't really know".

We've been down here for a few weeks. We drove down through southern California, and that provided something of an adjustment period. We started seeing cactus and places that started with San or Santa, but nothing can prepare you for the experience of approaching Tijuana on I-5. We had some typical rush hour traffic, like in many cities up the west coast at that hour. But then things got strange. A sign said "Last US exit". The vast wide road had not narrowed at all, but now we were alone on it; driving off the edge of the interstate, driving off the edge of the United States. Ahead, a Mexican flag the size of Rhode Island waved in the light breeze. All the lanes turned sharply and we passed through the gates saying "nothing to declare".

We were waved aside for inspection and asked questions like where we planned to go, and what our car was stuffed to the gills with. We are camping, Kristin explained in Spanish. I got out to open the trunk. A dog sniffed our moldy old canvas bags, our Jerry cans with diesel and water, our running shoes. Poor dog. Then he sniffed the drivers seat. The handler tried to restrain him but the intoxicating whiff of Trader Joe's snacks proved too much for the golden retriever and he leapt over to the passenger side and clawed at the upholstery to hold his ground as they pulled him out.

And then we were cleared into the country. But we still needed to get a visa to stay for more than a few days, so we needed to find the immigration office. This building is by an unsigned parking lot just to the right after the inspection gates. Large signs and the general direction of traffic urge you the other way, and if you miss it, you will need to navigate through the wasteland that is our border with Tijuana to find your way back. We found it, and got our 180 day visa.

As we drove away from the office and into the concrete jumble of roads and overpasses, the reality was becoming apparent. Tijuana is scary as hell. Our phone's GPS system still worked, though it was all in meters now. "in 300 meters turn right by the burned out wreckage".  The voice of the computer navigation lady gave us courage as we sped down an overpass through scenes out of Mad Max, scattering a group that looked like zombies from the road. We drove south, trying to make as much distance from the border and its hassles as possible.

We camped the first night on the beach outside of San Quintin, and the second night out in Catavina. The low temperatures were startling, and the winds severe. Catavina is in the middle of the desert, far from any beaches or services. It is not popular or populated, but it does feature the fabulous Boojum tree, as well an amazing variety of other cacti set among boulders in a lovely unending garden, tended by no one.

Then we were on to Bahia de los Los Angeles and the Sea of Cortes. Or the Gulf of California. We camped along the beach, which is muy tranquilo in part because there is not much swell on that side, so it behaves a little like the Puget Sound. But the desolation on land makes the vistas lovely. All that dust and rock becomes poetic when viewed from far away, transformed into lines and hues that not even Cezanne could faithfully recreate.

We went for a paddle in our kayak, out among a big school of dolphins. They played with us a bit but mostly were content to feed on a school of fish deep below us and then to surface every few minutes to say "hi". The grace of these 7 foot long grinning missiles is astonishing. After half an hour we finally paddled away from them and out around Isla La Ventana, but we kept looking back. All around pelicans hit the water. The land is desolate out here but the sea and the sky above it teems with life.

We had some trouble in this area due to bad planning. We expected ATMs, or at least gas stations that took credit cards. We got neither. We took great care with our limited cash and used our spare jerry can of diesel to make it to the next outpost of civilization. The locals were very helpful though. Our campsite director took US dollars to help us preserve our pesos. We did the math later and found that she gave us a good discount in the process.

We encountered a father/son team on dirt bikes who had made the same error in judgement, low on fuel, water and cash. They told of us a more harrowing adventure they recently endured. Their off-road path crossed a lake bed but a rare downpour had turned it to sticky clay. One bike burned out a transmission trying to turn its clay laden wheel. They were forced to hike out to the highway, reaching it at dusk.

Now the guides for travelling down here will put the fear of god in you. Strict instructions tell you to keep off the roads at night, and to never camp alone. We started to imagine a race of vampires scouring the desert looking for fresh blood. So this father/son team must have felt vulnerable as they stuck their thumbs out in the dying light. They were picked up immediately, by a trucker who gave them the rest of his hot coffee to warm them up, and asked them where they wanted to go. Awfully nice for a vampire.

We continued down Mexico 1. Navigation is usually quite simple, highway 1 is the only road, and it heads north-south for the length of the peninsula. We made it to Guerrero Negro, crossing the border into Baja California Sur and also into a new time zone. There we found ATMs, groceries, refilled our water tanks, ate a good meal, and then headed further south to camp at Ojo de Liebre.

Which is a place almost beyond belief. How many places are both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a major salt plant? There are some signs, but it takes confidence to traverse the vast expanse of dirt roads and salt ponds, convince the guard at the gate that he should let you pass, and then continue miles further  across complete desolation to reach the campsite. And when you do, you must pinch yourself because here, impossibly, is civilization.  Composting toilets. Solar showers. Palapas to guard your tent from the sun and the wind. A bar. An excellent cook preparing breakfasts and in the evening a range of seafood. We had raw scallops and ceviche. And lots of beer. The staff hung around after closing time and played music with us. 

They charge you roughly 5 us dollars to camp under a palapa. Not 5$ a night, 5$ total, stay as long as you want.

During the day, for a fee, they took us out to play with whales. On a day when you see a white whale (a grey whale with white skin) and a friendly whale comes by and lifts your boat on its back, you might forget that you also saw sea turtles, pelicans, loons, and a cheeky bottlenose dolphin that swam ahead of the boat and cocked his head sideways so he could keep an eye on us. Amazing.

We drove on, reluctantly, and reached Bahia Concepcion along the Sea of Cortes. There I ate tiny oysters on the half shell, and we practiced not doing much. I haven't gotten the hang of that yet. Then on again to Loreto, staying in a hotel for the first time in over a week. When campsites have showers and the weather is warm and dry, houses start to seem obsolete. But Loreto, like San Ignacio before it, was a welcome relief form the desolate dry land. For us, a puddle and a palm tree now seems like the Florida everglades. The small town of Loreto was an oasis in many ways, providing welcome social contact and a taste of a more developed local culture than scattered commercial campgrounds in the desert can provide.

It wasn't a long trip Loreto to La Paz, a real city, and then finally on to our destination of Todos Santos. We've settled down here for a while and are still drinking in all the gentle absurdity and beauty of this country. The air around us buzzes and sings with hummingbirds, swallows, doves and the flutter of moths. In a strange twist, the moths are the same size as the swallows but they lack grace and menace you at sundown. 

Out in the Pacific, just offshore, the whales graze like cattle. Sometimes you see Humpbacks, sometimes Greys. The Grey whales take advantage of the steep surf break here and come within spitting distance of the shore, perhaps 50 yards out. Tonight I saw one surfing, riding up the side of a breaking wave. On the shore, biologists have built a makeshift greenhouse to keep the sand warm enough for the gestation of Leatherback turtle eggs. They regularly hold events where tourists come out to line up and let the newly hatched tots go out to sea. Like church, after the main event they pass the hat around.

Last night the wildlife came over to our house; several horses decided to graze on the overgrown lot next door. They ate our trash, which as is well, as there is no local trash collection. I guess they weren't wild, but they stuck around for several days and showed no outward signs of being owned. In the night, otherwise silent but for the distant crashing waves, a horse simply walking and chewing outside your window can make an amazing amount of noise.

Wildlife, sunsets, dirt roads, whales everywhere, Spanish speaking native Americans, state run gas stations, new food, odd bathrooms, new customs, incredibly tasty torillas, the whole breadth and depth of the world changes dramatically right at the U.S. (los EEUU) border with Mexico. I'm just getting over the initial shock, and though I have now been, I still do not know. Oh, Mexico.

Newly Salted Interview

You can read this, and also many useful interviews at Newly Salted...

I (Matt) live aboard and travel with my wife Kristin on a thirty foot Rawson ketch named Madrone. The boat has been kind to us and we love her. It says Portland Oregon on her sides but she most recently called Olympia Washington her home. I don't know if she is so much cruising the Salish Sea as being driven like cattle across the plains, left to graze where the kelp is greenest. Right now I am taking her to a marina in Blaine, Washington.

In 2011, we spent six months heading north from Portland around the inside and then the outside of Vancouver Island and finally south down the west coast to San Francisco.

Feel free to contact me if you have questions or want to chat.

What (if anything) do you wish someone had told you before you started cruising?  

The following three things may be obvious as the day is long, but they were not obvious to me.

Nothing, not even scary things, are all that scary in the moment. You will worry and fret about small things when its not clear what to do. But when things are scary you know exactly what to do. When I first started anchoring I spent an amazing amount of energy and some sleepless nights in conditions so mild my chain alone without the anchor would have kept us in place. But then I didn't worry one bit sailing with a broken engine from the open ocean between reefs back into Effingham Bay because I was too damn busy steering. While still keeping safety in mind, try to never ever worry. Worrying hasn't helped me.

There are things you can't learn in books. If you don't have experienced boating friends find some somehow. Take classes, crew, invite people aboard your boat. A friend helped me anchor my boat for the first time in the Willamette river for the fourth of July. It was a little tricky because it was a bow and stern anchor so the boat would face the wake from passing motorboats. I knew that part, and how to deploy them in a reasonable order, but I had no idea what proper scope looked like. I knew what proper scope was of course, but not how to visualize it in the real world. Also, my friend showed me how calm you can be if you know what you are doing. See the first point about worrying. In a moment, I learned things missed over a hundred hours of reading. Of course I could have done it myself and maybe learned even more, but I would have suffered more as well.

Lots of cruising destinations can be reached by car or plane. Plan on sailing to Baja? New Zealand? The Mediterranean? A vacation of several weeks will still be a small fraction of the cost of outfitting a boat and sailing there. It will never be a waste of money. If you love it there then it was a good vacation, and you will know more of what to expect when you sail there. If you hate it then the vacation was even more successful, having saved a costly and perhaps dangerous voyage. Of course you can't reproduce the feeling of accomplishment at having sailed your home there, or of comfortably baking bread in an isolated anchorage. But to get some idea, go to the port town and walk down to the marina. Try to time your visit with the cruising season of the area. You can see the people you'd meet if you had sailed there, and maybe help them buy some groceries. I got a better sense of the long term cruising lifestyle from a few hours with the characters in the La Paz marina than I got from a lot of literature.

tl;dr Don't worry, and get as much real world experience with the skills you need and locations you are going as you can.

What do you find the most exciting about your cruising life?

Our trip around Vancouver Island was an unending cascade of wonders. I loved the way each new day brought something amazing, sometimes a new bay, sometimes an exciting catch, sometimes a new friend, sometimes a new problem. It was a relaxed but also frenetic adventure, like a child's Christmas morning when they are old enough to know how to pace themselves and enjoy the experience but young enough to want to open every present at once. Each day was a new present and at night we'd shake the box to guess what might come next.

Now that we are not underway, the knowledge that my home is mobile, that I am fundamentally not stuck in one place is an ever present comfort. I like that I don't know where I am going, but that because of my choices I am headed there.

Is there something you wish you had bought or installed before starting out?

As we looked forward to our trip down the west coast from Vancouver Island we decided to get a sea anchor shipped to us in Uclulet. That was a silly idea as it cost extra and we relied on the kindness of strangers to get the job done. They were Canadian strangers so there was no trouble, they are a wonderful people. Still, if you are on the fence about some safety gear, get it before you go. We never used our sea anchor and I doubt we ever will, but it gave us peace of mind for the trip down the coast.

What piece(s) of gear would you leave on the dock next time? Why?

As I looked forward to long ocean voyages I knew I wanted a wind vane. I'd read Moitessier and Pardey and loved the idea of a simple passive device steering by the wind and taking its power from the water that flows by the boat. I still do but I bought a cranky old Aries vane that I have never made work right. Meanwhile my much maligned auto helm 3000 that came with the boat has been steering thanklessly now for over 1000 miles. A boat I was crew on for an ocean passage used a powered steering system, and it worked flawlessly the whole time. We often abused its compliant nature, making it steer the boat despite an unbalanced sail plan. I may still fix that Aries, but don't ignore powered steering for romantic reasons.

What gear do you love the most?

The surprise hit in Canada was the Kindle, an e-ink model with cell data capabilities. It used almost no power and allowed us to check email if we were patient with its limited web browser. We even used it to buy that sea anchor. Because they want you to be able to buy books anywhere, Amazon has deals with most cell providers. This means free access in other countries, where normal cell policies punish roaming.

Our wood stove had a fire in it most nights, as the normally chilly Canadian summer was almost a no show the year we rounded Vancouver Island. A wood stove is many things: a romance generator, a trash incinerator, a free source of heat, and reason to row to shore (to collect more twigs). We had a Newport solid fuel stove but it's firebox was cracked by a previous owner so we had poor control over the draft. I just installed the "Tiny Tot" by Fatsco, and I love it. Much smaller than the Newport, it still has roughly the same size fire box. It is also really cute. I am moored off Patos island, the northernmost in Washington State, and it is 30F degrees outside. This wonderful stove is keeping me toasty. They are less than 300$ with shipping. Even dog houses should have them.

After sailing to San Francisco and preparing for a trip across the Pacific, you had your boat trucked to Bellingham, WA. What were you thinking?

Several things, as you might imagine. One thought I had, having seen the path I was on while I was crew on a Pacific crossing, was that I didn't think the risks, costs, and discomfort were offset by the numerous rewards. I didn't like that it was a one-way ticket to Australia or New Zealand. I prefer open ended futures. But I have been learning, and thanks to good examples set by others, I realize that the options are much more complex than I had imagined.

Also, I was looking ahead to a trip down the warmer half of the California coast and Baja and wishing I could return to the Salish Sea. Not because I hate warm water and tuna, quite the opposite, but because I knew I was leaving behind the most wonderful place I had ever been, and leaving it for good. Then Kristin got a job in Portland, and if she took it we wouldn't live on the boat there, so we decided to bring the boat back to the top of the waterslide and reset the clock. Now I can cruise as many seasons up here as I want before heading down the west coast again. Maybe then I will like the cost/benefit picture of a Pacific crossing better.

I'm going on a road trip to Baja now, trading in the v-berth for a Coleman 4 person tent and two sleeping bags that zip together. My boat gets 9 miles to the gallon and tops out at 7 miles per hour. My car, which admittedly lacks a head, gets 28 miles to the gallon and goes so fast I don't really even know how fast it can go and for how long. Indefinitely at 70 miles per hour though. I can be in Baja in about the time it takes a boat to go from Portland to the ocean. And then come back that fast as well.

But everything has costs. Its really easy to hop in a car and drive down there, so there isn't the same selective process that applies in sailing. The bunch you meet at the end of an ocean crossing are a rarefied lot, full of vim and vigor. And I am bound to gaze out at the the warm blue bays down there and wish my boat was anchored just offshore. And I bet we'll spend more money on things like food,  lodging and entertainment than we would if we had a kitchen and bookshelf with us. 

But its cold and rainy here right now, what would you do?

Moving day

I've been staying in a vacation rental in Portland, OR due to an obligation there. It has been fun to try on a house for size again. This one had very high ceilings and a loft bed. You could climb the ladder and survey the place from a bed 10 feet up. And as far as headroom aboard Madrone goes, I have negative two inches. I was not born to have an easy time finding shoes, gloves, or boats that fit. Also, there was a shower in our unit, and laundry facilities in the same building! I'm about to go for 1/4 mile walk down to the laundry and shower facility here in the lovely Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes, WA. So houses do have their appeal. I guess most of you know that already.

The obligation in Portland is over, and so we shoved our stuff in the car and drove north to Olympia (Boston Harbor) where Madrone was waiting patiently for us. Now we are traveling again, moving the boat to her new home near Blaine, WA. It's a trip that runs the length of the inland waters of Washington state, from the bottom of the south sound to the border with Canada. And yes, it is late December. There seems to be a rule though, which I like better than most rules, which states simply that when I am on the Puget Sound in a boat, the weather is sunny. I have a sunburn right now.

The trip up has been fantastic, but very cold. We stayed on Blake Island and watched Seattle go pink in the all-too-early sunset. Behind the city with its iconic Space Needle, a startling array of Cascade Mountains stood out razor sharp in their chilly whites and blues. We stayed at the guest dock in Everett, where on the ebb tide the Snohomish river rips right across the finger piers. Madrone heeled ten degrees and I put out an extra dock line. The river otter across the way at the fuel dock didn't seem the least concerned. We continued up the east side of Whidbey Island, until we reached the south entrance to the Swinomish Channel. After the deep water of the Puget Sound this tight channel was a surprise. But what a glorious location. The punctual hills foreshadow the San Juan islands, some of them rise from farmland, others from the mud or the waters of Skagit Bay, but their turtle-like form and their delicate plantings of Madrone and Doug Fir are unmistakable. Flanking both sides of the channel, those hills feel like the gate to the San Juan Islands.

We spent last night in La Conner, which reminded us of Fort Bragg in that you turn a corner and the wild untamed world gives way to the utmost in civilization. Free docks in the middle of town, and bars from which you can watch your boat. Now we are moored in Anacortes, which feels like home to me though I haven't spent more than a week here in my life.

I can't tell you what the new year holds for me. We've shuffled the deck a few times and the dealer is handing out cards right now. I do know that it will involve travel, warm weather, cold weather, boats, and jobs. But I have no idea in what order those things will arrive. Or where. My plan for the next few months is to exercise, eat better, learn a new language and play the ukulele better. I made those plans and never once thought of them as resolutions, or that it was important that I was doing these things in a new year. Then it occurred to me that they were resolutions, but I feel like they are more pure for having been the plan all along. New year's resolutions seem cheap for being new year's resolutions. Like an apology forced on you by your mother. "I'm sorry I called you warthog butt."

But resolutions are good, and since exercise and the like were already resolved, I feel I need to come up with a proper new years resolution. There isn't one thing that needs fixing but I think practically every aspect of my life could use some attention. So I resolve to have weekly resolutions. Old business, new business, and so on.

"Self, what is the status on the ukulele?"

"Good, we've made real progress on the whole getting rhythm thing."

"Excellent. How is the diet?"

"Jesus. Don't even ask. Anyway, you know. You're the beer drinker."

"Yeah. Well, lets try harder this week."

"New business?"

"Yeah, we need more outreach and PR work in the friend department."

"I know, last week's numbers on staying in touch were just appalling."

"Okay, same time next week."

I hope you all fix everything this year. I know I am going to try to.

Happy new year!

My boat hook

My previous boat hook was the typical plastic hook on a telescoping aluminum shaft. It went overboard during a difficult (read: botched) mooring operation in Alaya Cove off of Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. By the time Madrone was secured to her mooring ball the boat hook was no longer in sight. It had taken on too much water and gone to the bottom. I picked up a bronze fitting to make a new boat hook while in a chandlery in Anacortes. My hope was to find a branch or driftwood that could serve as a shaft for the fitting.

Anacortes is a town not far from Bellingham, where Madrone recently went back into the water. It is named, oddly enough, not for some first peoples native name for this or that, but for Anna Curtis. It is a hub for the Washington Ferry System service to the San Juan Islands, connecting the car driving world to the many nearby islands. I was in Anacortes waiting for Jon, who would travel with me on Madrone for the next week in and around the islands.

I'd seen these islands before, from water level in a kayak. So I knew a few of them. Notably Cypress Island and Sucia Island. I knew that they have an arranged and well tended beauty that makes one suspect that there is a creator, and that the creator had good days and bad days. For much of the world he held back, but he was on a goddamn roll when he made the San Juan Islands. Not only was the creator at the top of his powers, I believe he also owed a boater a favor at the time. A more perfect world to explore from the water would be very very difficult to imagine.

There are marvelous tides - they ebb and flow like anywhere else, stronger with the phases of the moon, coming and going twice a day - but in the San Juan islands they ebb and flow through 1000 foot deep channels around a maze of islands. This means they go slant-ways and up-ways and down-ways. A patient mariner with a very long rode could travel anywhere by riding the tide when it was in his favor and anchoring the other times. A slight wind to give steerage-way allows you to put your boat in 2-4 knot currents and make great progress on almost still waters in near silence. And if the wind should blow too hard the sheer number of islands and anchorages means that one will be at hand that is secure and out of the wind. Islands always have leeward sides.

Jon and I set out that first morning into a slack tide and soon noticed good fishing signs - random dots on the depth sounder and lots of birds on the water. I dropped a jig over the side into about 100 feet of water, and as I pulled the lure off the bottom doing my best spastic herring impersonation I felt a hit. "Maybe its a halibut" I said. It came up, angry about it, and revealed itself to be a salmon. I never claimed to be an expert. Into the boat it went, where it showed its displeasure by coating my pants and every inch of the cockpit in gore. It puked up squid and herring. I gave it 2 shots of cheap California brandy in the gills. It was slightly pacified. Then it was steaked and filleted.

By this time the tide had turned and the wind had gone from dead calm to a slight breath. We drifted slowly up the Rosario Strait toward Strawberry Island. 

Strawberry Island lies to one side of the Rosario Strait like a sleeping turtle. It sits in deep water and rises as one rock from the green depths. It is delicately planted in Doug Fir and Madrone, with a carpet of thick moss and a jeweled array of succulent plants. It has one trail that runs along the turtle's back from the head to the tail. It can be comfortably walked in bare feet. The island rises to about 100 feet, and the views from the island are amazing and the view of the island is even better.

In the time that it took to drift from the south end of Cypress Island where the salmon was caught to Strawberry Island, I was able to clean the fish, grill two steaks, and make couscous and salad. We ate al fresco with Strawberry Island providing the visual feast. As we cleaned our plates the wind piped up and we moved with almost no effort at 5 knots up the channel. By night we were snug in a one boat cove on Matia Island. The cove was lined with immaculately landscaped cliffs, but also with a gentle pebble beach to allow easy access to the land by dinghy. No one else was around as the sun set over seals playing in the tide rips.

That it was a Friday seemed beside the point. That there was an actual world somewhere else seemed beside the point. This was Disney World for adults, the dreamy promise of childhood made real on a massive scale.

As if to prove the point, that this was a world unlike the one we had left behind, a world designed for the enjoyment of grown up boys, we found an unexploded bomb on that pebble beach, with instructions in French and English to call to the police or the military. Appelez le militaire? Oh mon Dieu!

In the San Juans there are small uninhabited islands like Strawberry and Matia. And then there are bigger ones, like Orcas. The eponymous San Juan. Lopez. Shaw. Each fringed with lovely anchorages. Each trying with varying degrees of success to be like the real world. Our voyage through them felt like a variation of Cook's or the Starship Enterprise's. We'd load up the dinghy for the "away team". Phasers on stun, whiskey and cigars at the ready. Are the natives peaceful on this island?

On Jones Island we met a traveler aboard a Flicka 20, perhaps the smallest vessel meant for the open sea. He bought it in Hawaii and sailed it through French Polynesia before bringing it into the sound. He warned of a gale in the forecast. We pulled out the charts to find a safe harbor. Garrison Bay on San Juan showed promise, several corners turned before the bay is reached, no gale could get us in there. Intrepid, we sailed ahead of the gale, and reached the bay safely.

On the bay is a state park, called "English Camp". A similar park further down the island can be predicted: "American Camp". The two sides contended that all these islands belonged to them. A vague treaty left the question open, and it was resolved without a shot by a German arbitrator. English Camp still has the original buildings and well above the camp is Young's Hill, with expansive views of the Queen's Land - Vancouver Island and Victoria. I'm sure the English were sad to go.

We hiked up Young's Hill to view the impending doom of the gale. On the glacier scoured hill top, surrounded by wizened Madrone growing impossibly on the rock face, we met Elder McKay. He is a Canadian Mormon trying to convert the population of the San Juans over the next 2 years. We were not converted, and no gale arrived. On the way down the hill in the dark we found a dead but still standing 15 foot tall Doug Fir sapling. It came down with a loud crack and we hauled it back to the boat. It could be excellent boat hook material.

That night my faith in weather forecasting was shaken, though the boat was not.

The next evening we approached Shaw Island. An island full of Nuns, or so we had heard. I wished Elder McKay luck when he tried converting this population. And what to one man is a cloister of nuns might to another be a cult of amazons. I've been beaten by nuns, but not amazons. Which would you fear? 

We landed on the island with some trepidation. Signs said no beach fires. 

This island had roads, and the roads were lined with feral apple and pear trees, as well as blackberries. Welcome fresh provisions to keep scurvy at bay. Signs said "No Trespassing" and "Private Property". Even small unimproved strips of land between the road and the water were angrily signed. Then as we walked on we saw jagged white boards, arranged in a semi-circle, random sizes leaning this way and that, jammed into the ground. We walked further, and then we saw ominous faces in the trees. They were masks, nailed to the trees, watching us from the thick brush as we passed by. Around the next corner, a bench by the road, decorated all around with garlands of sea shells, with a roof to keep off the rain, and a surprising sign - "Passerby Bench". Could it be a trap? We sat and smoked our cigars. We did not see or hear any people. 

Later we came to the end of the road, the ferry terminal, a small parking lot, and a store. The store should have closed just 5 minutes before. And surely a ferry terminal would have some workers. But there was no one about. It felt a little like the village in "the Prisoner", only with a rustic theme.

We went back the way we came humming "Country Road" by John Denver. At the beach by our dinghy, feeling lonely, Jon created a totem to guard us. A witch queen, or perhaps the head nun. I went to work with my draw knife, reducing that Doug Fir sapling to boat hook size. The rough form, 9 feet long and tipped with a fine bronze hook, was complete before we left. 

Which is good, because our destination, James Island, was too steep shored to anchor safely alongside, and we needed to pick up a mooring buoy. The hook provided fine service. There were only two mooring balls on this island and no one used the other one. We went to shore to cook a can of beans over a camp fire. That side of James Island looks back over Rosario Strait at Anacortes. The next day we'd return and Jon would head south. We'd completed a loop, dodged dangers, feasted on the wild foods available, seen odd and beautiful things, and had more fun than you are supposed to. 

I've seen Jon off now, and tonight in Anacortes I cut the boat hook down to 7 feet, and sanded it smooth with an orbital sander to prevent splinters. It was a lovely process to get it to this state, and I believe that no one has a finer boat hook.