A great opportunity to learn new things and meet new people — and an excuse to take my new boat on a 250-mile round trip journey.

Last week, I wrote a blog post covering my maiden voyage in my new boat. The purpose of that voyage was to attend the 2022 Ranger Tugs/Cutwater Rendezvous, back at Roche Harbor on San Juan Island after a two-year Covid break.

In this blog post, I’ll try to fill you in on how this event was for me.

New Friends

I want to cover new friends first since that was the first thing that happened for me after securing my boat at J Dock. I was doing something inside the main cabin when a woman came up to my open window and invited me over to their boat for drinks. And just like that, I met the folks who sort of adopted me for the long weekend: Cindy, Tony, Joan, and Mark. They were all aboard Cindy and Tony’s 2022 Ranger Tugs R-43, which is the top of the line boat Ranger Tugs makes. With a length overall of close to 50 feet and a beam (width) of 14 feet, this boat has two good sized sleeping cabins and two full heads (bathrooms), making it a perfect boat for four people to be comfortable for an extended stay on the water.

The boat’s name: Infinite Loop. Cindy worked for Apple during the late 1990s and into the 2000s. She jokes — or maybe not? — that her Apple stock paid for the boat. (My Apple stock paid for my divorce so we both got good deals.)

I eventually took them up on their offer — I had to walk my pups, hose the salt off my boat, and do some organization things inside first. I brought vodka for a martini, made it with the wrong kind of vermouth (but I only used a little so it was okay), and joined them on the back deck at a table with plenty of room for all of us. (I joined them for dinner three times, too, and was glad to be able to contribute with my eggplant and goat cheese pizza and a vegetable dish.)

While we were sipping our cocktails that first night, another R-43 backed in across the dock from them and next to me. On board were Janet and Sandy who were all business as they coordinated their parking jobs with headsets on. Although they kept more to themselves, we did see a lot of them at events and on their boat.

We started referring to J Dock as where the cool kids were.

I love this group selfie that Mark took. Front row (l-r): Tony, Cindy, Joan (holding my dog Rosie), Mark. Behind (l-r): me (holding my other pup Lily), Janet, and Sandy (holding their dog Yogi Bear).

The Others

There were an estimated 200 Ranger Tug and Cutwater boats at the event. Ranger Tugs and Cutwater are sister companies owned by Washington based Fluid Motions LLC. The boats are very similar but I think Cutwater boats are built more for speed. All of their boats are built in Washington State, at a number of factory facilities in the Seattle area.

Here’s an aerial view of Roche Harbor shot from my drone. All of the boats on the Guest Dock on the right side of the photo were Rendezvous participants. J dock is on the other side of the marina; it’s the first dock on the right off the dock on the left. My boat is the smallest one there and I had to get the drone camera pretty high to see it behind the larger boats there.

The Rendezvous had an app and the app had social networking capabilities. But although it let you share photos and comments, it didn’t alert you when you had a response to a comment or a private message. So although I tried to connect with other R-29 owners to see how they had modified their boats over the years and learn some tips and tricks from long-time users, and I got some responses, I could never quite connect with any of them. It was a bit frustrating.

But part of the problem is that I just kept very busy while I was at the event. Seminars, organized social events, socializing with friends, taking my pups for walks — I was constantly on the go and not consulting that app as often as I should have or making more of an effort to connect. My loss.

Here’s a look at the Guest dock at night. Our boats come equipped with underwater lights and colored lights for the aft deck and everyone seems to have turned theirs on.

The Seminars

What was keeping me busy was mostly the seminars. There were quite a few of them and very few overlapped. I attended a bunch but didn’t stay for all of the ones I attended. Here’s a quick summary:

• Volvo Engine. This seminar was led by someone from Volvo that definitely knows its engines. It covered important maintenance and inspection details for the D4 (which I have) and D6 Diesel engines. I took four pages of notes. At the end, they gave out a USB drive full of factory publications to help me understand and maintain my engine. I’m determined to do as much regular maintenance as I can on the boat, not only to save money but to be more familiar with the boat’s components, including the engine.
• Garmin topic TBD. The title of this seminar should have given all of us a warning: they had no idea what they were going to talk about. The Garmin representative rambled on somewhat incoherently about updating chart plotters and using Active Captain and buying maps. He bounced from one topic to another and made the mistake of taking questions so we all had to listen to the highly specific issues other boaters were dealing with on their setups. Cindy and Joan left first, I left after 20 minutes, and I’m pretty sure Tony and Mark left soon afterward. It was more confusing than enlightening.
• Women in Boating. This was a major disappointment for me. I was hoping that she’d provide some insight into challenges facing women as boaters, but what she really presented was Boating for Dummies, that started with basic terminology like hull and gunwales. Her handout included images of every slide and I paged ahead to see if it would get any better. But no, it was more of the same. I realized that most of the women at the event were there with husbands or other male partners and I also understand that in most of these partnership, the man was doing the boat stuff and the woman was along to taken in fenders, tie up lines, cook dinner, and wash dishes. This seminar was geared toward them, not me. I left after 10 minutes.
• Anchoring. I was very interested in this seminar because I plan to do some anchoring and had neither training nor experience. It was led by an R-29 owner named Glen Wagner, who also does most of his boating solo. (Actually, it turned out that he and I had a lot in common.) He covered basics and techniques in a presentation that was informative and entertaining. Although I didn’t take a lot of notes, I learned a lot.

There were other seminars, too, and although I thought I might want to attend them, I just felt as if I needed more down time. Being Whale Wise, Puget Sound Fishing and Crabbing 101, and Cruising Alaska were all topics I’d definitely explore later in my boating life, after I’ve gotten the Great Loop out of my brain and have brought the boat back to the west coast. The one about Exterior Boat Maintenance was being led by a guy who sold boat ceramic coating so I figured it was either going to be a sales pitch or concentrate on maintenance with that coating. (And yes, I could be wrong.) The boat insurance seminar was led by the folks I’d bought my insurance from, so I didn’t think they’d tell me anything I didn’t already know.

Sponsor Tables

There were tables at the event for each of the sponsors, including Volvo, Garmin, and the insurance folks.

Although we were encouraged to visit and ask questions, I hit a brick wall every time I visited the Garmin table. I needed to understand why certain features seemed to be missing from my chart plotters and why my remaining fuel indicator kept blinking at 103 gallons. The four guys there kept trying to me off to each other. Or to Volvo. After being passed from Garmin to Volvo and back to Garmin, I finally got a guy willing to walk back to my boat with me for a look. Sure enough, he passed me off to a Ranger Tugs guy who was busy doing something else but promised to stop by.

He stopped by later that day and showed me a feature on the Volvo engine monitor that I didn’t realize would do anything: a Back button. I thought I was already looking at the Home screen so I’d never tried that button. Back brought me to a menu that brought me to a Fuel screen. Duh. I felt pretty dumb.

In my defense, however, I did not receive a single manually that originally came with the boat. Although the broker and the surveyor both claim the manuals were on board, I went through every single compartment on that boat and did not find them. So it looks as if I’ll be downloading and printing the missing manuals so I can learn what I need to know when I need to know it.

Social Activities

In addition to the seminars, there were social activities every night: a Sip and Chip Happy Hour on Thursday, a Margarita Happy Hour on Friday, and a Tropical Paradise Happy Hour on Saturday. I skipped Margaritas, but attended the other two with my new friends. That last Happy Hour included food, which I don’t think any of us expected, and was good enough to make a meal.

There were also games, including a scavenger hunt with flowers that I didn’t quite understand, a cornhole tournament and championship, a fishing and crabbing derby, a blindfolded dinghy race (which I wish I’d seen), and a tropical theme boat and costume contest.

I didn’t know about the boat decorating contest and was sorely unprepared, but my new friends kept adding flowers and leis to my railings. I even put an inflatable fish Cindy gave me on my VHF antenna. And I dug out a strand of solar powered fairy lights I used to use with my camper and strung them up on the bow. Cindy, Joan, and Janet were really into it and really decked out their boats. But I don’t think the judges came to J Dock; neither of them won.

At sunset, the marina did a colors ceremony that included playing music while they lowered flags. Flags were at half staff when Queen Elizabeth II died and taps was very sad. At the end of the colors ceremony, all the boat owners near their horns sounded them; I was never close enough to sound mine.

Roche Harbor Resort at night.

Here’s a post-sunset look at the ramp down to J Dock. It was gorgeous there, even at night.

One-on-One Training

I mentioned that Glen Wagner had an R-29 and it happened to be parked near mine. I arranged to meet with him in his boat to get part of the Ranger Tugs orientation that I missed out on by buying used instead of new.

The first thing that struck me was the modifications he’d made to his boat. He had removed two of the three rear deck seats — he said that they weighted 27 pounds each and he didn’t need them. He’d also removed his wine cooler and had somehow managed to get a door for the new cabinet space that matched all of the other doors and drawers on the boat. He’d moved the heating controls, too. But in looking around, I got answers to questions I had about my boat, including where to mount the fire extinguishers, which were on board but had never been mounted on my boat.

We went over his pre-departure check list, which was an enormous help for me. I wanted to create a check list and Sandy had given me his as a starting point — even though it was for an R-43 instead of an R-29. I grabbed a photo of Glen’s, which was a better starting point for me. He went over each item and went into detail about some of them. We opened the engine lid and looked at important inspection points inside. He filled my brain with new information, most of which was very important for me to know.

Then he came over to my boat to check my chartplotter set up. I’d been missing the Autoroute feature that everyone else seemed to have. Every time I told someone, “No, that button is not on my chart plotter,” they’d respond, “It has to be. Maybe you’re not looking in the right place.” Well, Glen came over and actually looked. It wasn’t there. (It turns out that the original owner only had the default charts installed; I need to buy G3 map cards to get additional information and that feature.) He also reviewed how to update fuel information in the chartplotter and explained why it was a more accurate reading when under way than the fuel gauge on the Volvo engine monitor.

Departure Day

The event officially ended Saturday evening with the Happy Hour and prize distribution. I went back to the boat and hung out for a while afterwards for some excellent nachos on Infinite Loop. I was exhausted — all the uphill walking I did every day closed all three of my Apple Watch rings daily — and turned in early.

In the morning, most folks headed out, including my new friends. We did a group photo — see above — and everyone packed up to leave.

Except me. I’d decided to stay an extra day to rest up and prepare for more training and a chartplotter update on my way home in Anacortes on Tuesday and Wednesday. So I mostly watched my friends get ready to move out. There were lots of hugs; Joan squeezed me long and hard enough that I thought I might pass out. Then Infinite Loop was on its way out of the marina. I sent my drone after it, but interference from the metal dock and the huge boats all around me prevented me from getting a good shot.

Here’s the best shot I could get of Infinite Loop cruising out of Roche Harbor. (I should have repositioned to a different location with less interference.)

Janet and Sandy left a short while later. I didn’t even bother trying to get a drone shot because I knew the drone would fail me.

I went for a walk with my pups and soon realized that the Guest dock was nearly empty. Most folks were leaving, going back to their marinas or continuing their cruises elsewhere. I took my pups to the dog park, where they just looked at the open, fenced in field as if they didn’t know what they were supposed to do.

And when I got back to my boat, the huge boats that were normally docked there started returning. I guess they’d just cleared the space for us. I wondered if another huge yacht was waiting elsewhere in the marina for me to leave.

My boat looks minuscule next to the large boats that returned to their slips around me on Sunday afternoon.

The colors ceremony was somber that evening. It was September 11 and we were asked to take a moment to think about the lives lost on 9/11. There were no tooting horns after Taps.

Sunset on September 11. I’d already removed the fairy lights and boat name sign I’d put on the boat in preparation for departure the next day.

I’d start my trip back to Olympia the next day, so I prepped my boat for departure as well as I could. I’ll tell you about that trip in another blog post.