Dr. Bronners is Not the Answer

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I discover that a “do it all” biodegradable soap is not the answer to my on-the-water cleaning needs.

One of the things that bothers me about living on a boat is gray water — the water that drains away from sinks and showers. In the RV world, gray water is collected in its own separate waste tank. Although it can be dumped separately from black water (toilet waste), both tanks are often dumped together in a facility designed to receive it. But on a boat, gray water is drained directly into the body of water the boat is floating on. (Don’t worry; black water on a boat is contained in a tank and cannot be dumped anywhere on inland waterways or near shore.)

I remember the first time I realized this. It was in the 1980s and I was on a houseboating trip with some friends. One of us was washing dishes and I happened to look overboard and see soap suds on the surface of what I’d always thought was pristine Lake Powell. I was kind of horrified.

Lots of folks will argue that it’s “just a little soap” in a big body of water. And they would be right. But I tend to think on the macro level at times and thought: what if everyone just dumped their gray water into the nearest river, stream, or lake? Wouldn’t that hurt the fish and water birds?

So, like the environmentally conscious person I try to be, I thought I’d find a more environmentally friendly soap to use aboard my new boat, which I expect to be living on for months at a time.

Choosing Dr Bronners


Here’s what the Tea Tree scented Dr. Bronners bottle looks like.

Dr Bronner’s All-One Soap came to mind first. If you’ve ever been in a health food store or walked through the natural foods section of your supermarket, I’m sure you’ve seen it. It comes in plastic bottles absolutely covered in crazy fine print text. It’s supposed to be pure-castle soap and its website says its good for “Face, body, hair—food, dishes laundry, mopping, pets—the best for human, home, and Earth!” (I think someone in their marketing department needs a lesson in punctuation, although I am a fan of the Oxford comma.)

I think Peppermint may have been the original scent because that’s what I first used on camping trips years ago. It made my skin tingle. Later, I bought the Eucalyptus scent, which I preferred, for my campers. I used it in the bathroom for washing up, including showering. When I had really short hair, I used it for shampoo.

I figured that it would be convenient to have one soap I could use for everything, so I bought a large bottle and a small one — one for the galley and one for the head. I chose the Tea Tree scent because I wanted to associate a new smell with my new boat — I didn’t want it to smell like my RVs. And when I went out on my recent 10-day cruise around Puget Sound, that’s the only soap I brought along.

The Experiment

During the ten days I was away, I used Dr Bronners for washing anything that needed washing: my face, hands, body, and hair; dishes, pots, and pans; and laundry. And it didn’t take long to realize that Dr Bronners simply wasn’t doing it all, as its marketing materials claimed. Specifically:

  • As a body soap, it’s an astringent that sucks the oils out of your skin. While I like that in summer time when I’m sweaty and stinky, I don’t think it would be good in the winter. (I will likely continue to use it, however.
  • As a shampoo, it stripped all of the natural oils out of my hair, leaving it in a severely tangled mess. If I didn’t have the foresight to bring along some leave-in conditioner, I would have had to have my hair shaved off to remove the knots. (Knowing in advance how it was on skin gave me insight about how it might be on hair.)
  • As a dish soap, it could not sufficiently cut through grease, no matter how much I used or how hot the water was. No matter how many times I washed something greasy, there was always a thin, slick film left behind.
  • As a laundry soap, I just don’t feel sure that it really cleaned my clothes. I didn’t see any suds in the water, but since none of my clothes were really grimy, I have no way to judge how well it worked.

Before the end of my trip, I went out and bought a small bottle of Dawn dish detergent. It was pointed out to me that environmentalists use Dawn to clean oil off wildlife after spills, so there must be something environmentally friendly about it. (Or maybe it’s just more environmentally friendly than crude oil?) I just couldn’t deal with that layer of grease on my “clean” pots and pans.

Conclusion

As far as I’m concerned, the experiment is over. I’ll use up the rest of the Dr Bronners I have on board for washing my hands and face and showering. I’ll use my regular shampoo on my hair — heck, I take most showers at marina facilities anyway. I’ll use the same laundry detergent pods I use at home for my laundry, which is always done in a laundromat. And I’ll use Dawn (sparingly) for washing my dishes.

In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for more environmentally friendly cleaning products that actually work, please let me know. I want to do the right thing, but I also want clean things to be clean.

My Maiden Voyage in MV Do It Now

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I start my first boat trip with a 10+ hour, 2-day cruise in the Seattle area.

In my last blog post, I wrote a little about closing on my new boat, naming it, and planning its first trip. On September 6 and 7, 2022, I made that trip. I’ll tell you a little about it here; let’s see how brief I can be.

Cruising with Larry

Imagine this: you’ve just spent a relatively large amount of money on a 33 foot (length over all; LOA) trawler with a 300 horsepower diesel engine, bow and stern side thrusters, three chart plotters, auto pilot, sonar, radar, VHF radio, and everything you need to cruise long-term on fresh or salt water pretty much anywhere in the world. You’ve stepped up to this boat from a 17 foot jet boat and your only other boating experience is perhaps a total of 100 days in motorboats, house boats, and a pair of cabin cruisers similar to the one you’ve just acquired. Would you take it out by yourself on a 120-mile journey in relatively unfamiliar tidal waters?

Well, you might, but I wouldn’t. I hired an experienced boat captain to cruise with me the first day.

His name is Larry and he came recommeded to me by another Ranger Tugs captain who was unable to meet with me on the date I needed him. I met up with him at the Edmonds WA ferry terminal parking lot. That was after making the 3-hour journey from Malaga, which began at 5 AM. From there, we headed on a roughly 2-hour drive through Seattle to Olympia where the boat lived in a covered slip.

We talked boats during that time. He had a good amount of experience on a variety of boats but didn’t know Ranger Tugs quite as much as I wished he did. It wasn’t the driving that concerned me — most boats this size drive pretty much the same way. It was the boat’s other systems I needed schooling in. But that didn’t really matter at that point. The most important thing was getting the boat started on what would be a two-day journey from Olympia to Roche Harbor on San Juan Island.

But first we needed to stop in downtown Olympia at the boat broker’s office to pick up the keys and a box of spare parts for the boat.

Then, at the marina, I needed to fill in some paperwork and get an electronic key for the dock gate. And a parking pass for the parking lot.

And then we needed to move a truckload (literally) of boxes, bins, luggage, and bags of stuff from the truck to the boat.

This is where things got screwy. We didn’t have time to offload all those boxes and put the empties back in the truck. All we could do was fill the rear deck and sleeping area and dining area with boxes and bags and luggage. It was noon by the time we were ready to go and we couldn’t wait any longer. We had 50 miles to cover in a boat that might cruise as slowly as 10 knots — neither of us knew.

 
 
I couldn’t unpack, so I just put the boxes, bins, luggage, and cooler wherever I could fit them.

I learned how to check fluid levels and a handful of other things in the engine compartment and start the engine. Larry cast us off and guided me as I backed the boat out of its slip, used the thrusters to pivot nearly 180°, and pull out of the marina.

It was remarkably easy. The secret is to not be in a rush. At all.

Of course, having a nearly windless, currentless departure with no other traffic helped.

We didn’t have time to plot our course on the Garmin chart plotters, but I’d plotted it on my iPad using Aqua Map. Larry had his iPad and Navionics. We weren’t going to get lost as we wound our way between the islands in South Puget Sound, under the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and eventually past Seattle.


Underway just out of the marina. If you look closely, you can see Mt Rainier.


Approaching the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.


The Seattle skyline from Puget Sound.


My pups settled right into the lower berth, which was still stuffed with all kinds of equipment that needed to be properly stowed.

We started at the upper helm but, since it was cool, we decided to move to the lower helm, which is inside. There was some confusion about how to transfer the throttle control downstairs; it turned out that I hadn’t put it in neutral upstairs. (The boat has Idle Forward and Idle Reverse gears; I’d left it in Idle Forward.) Once we figured that out, we settled in downstairs, leaving the back door open. Lily and Rosie, my pups, settled into the lower berth, moving in as if it had been made for them.

The trip was uneventful. The water was remarkably calm for most of the ride and the channel was plenty wide enough that looking for buoys wasn’t a necessity. We set an RPM that gave us 10 to 12 knots. The engine sounded good. Everything worked.

Except the fuel indication on the chart plotter. It said we had 103 gallons of fuel on board, but it was blinking and didn’t change, despite the fact that we were obviously burning fuel. This bothered me but I wasn’t going to worry about it. (In hindsight, I don’t know why I didn’t worry about it; I should have. After all, how long had it been blinking 103 gallons? A year?) Near the end of the trip, Larry peeked at the gauges in the lower cabin and reported I had nothing to worry about — the gauge there said I had just over half a tank.

I drove most of the way. Larry and I chatted about various maneuvers. We had no time to stop and try anchoring or anything else. The clock was ticking and I wanted to be at Kingston before sunset.


Making lunch while under way.

Around 3 PM we were both really hungry. I gave the helm to Larry and made us some lunch. On the stove. There were pot holders there so I didn’t have to worry about the pan moving, even when it got a little rough. I had to dig through all the packed boxes to find the pan, plates, and silverware. And through the cooler to find the ingredients. I’d prepped some aromatic vegetables at home the night before and cooked them up with olive oil and butter. I added some pan gnocchi. Then, when everything was almost done, I added 12 ounces of sea scallops and cooked until they were done. We took turns eating. It was just as tasty as a first meal prepared in a new boat should be.

And then we were there, just outside the Port of Kingston. A very large ferry boat was crossing from Edmonds just as we arrived. I got back on the helm — upstairs, because the visibility is just better from up there — and brought the boat in slowly, again following Larry’s instructions. There was a bit of a headwind that turned into a crosswind as I turned to go into the slip. Larry had me cruise past the slip, then use the thrusters to make a 90° pivoting turn so I was pointing into the slip. I then drove in slowly, letting the wind and then the thrusters take me gently against the dock. Larry tied us up.


We did about 60 miles the first day, from Olympia to Kingston.

Then I was hurriedly gathering together his things and my checkbook and the dogs. The ferry had docked and he wanted to be on the return run to Edmonds where his car waited. I wrote a check and sent him on his way.

Organization — and a Guest

I walked my pups and went back to the boat to start unpacking.

It was a huge chore. I had about 75% of what I’d need on board in a large cooler and various boxes, bags, and plastic bins. Once I unpacked, I still had the cooler and bins. In a perfect world, I would have had a full day to unpack everything and store the empties back in my truck. But we all know this isn’t a perfect world. Not only did I have to unpack everything and find room for it, but I also had to find room for the empties.

While all this was going on, my Twitter friend Juliana stopped by. I knew that she lived in the area and had invited her. We’d never met in person, but we’d both worked with Lynda.com in the past — I’d been an author and she’d been an editor. She brought a bottle of wine and we made room among the boxes and general mess to sit at the table and drink it. All of it. I was feeling pretty relaxed when she left.

I got the organization job about halfway done, concentrating on the important stuff — the contents of the cooler; the cookware, dinnerware, and silverware; my clothes; and the bed linens. This is when I made two discoveries: First, I’d packed a bottom sheet but not a top sheet for the bed. Second, the custom bed cover hid custom sheets.


Here’s the bed’s custom mattress topper. This is the exact shape of the bed.

I should take a step back and talk a little about the bed. It’s a very odd shaped bed. Custom bedding was available for it on a website called YachtBedding.com and I’d already checked it out. But since I was not interested in spending $1200 for a set of sheets — yeah, I know I’m being a cheapskate here — I figured I’d just use two flat sheets, tuck one in all around as a bottom sheet, and deal with weird overhangs on the top sheet. If that didn’t work, I’d just cover the mattress and use a sleeping bag.

But the bed had not only the fitted bed cover, but a custom cotton blanket, a full set of those expensive sheets and, under that, a custom mattress topper. I was set!


Here’s what the bed looks like fully made with the linens the boat came with. (I washed the sheets at Roche Harbor and made the bed so it would look nice.)

But not that night. I was not going to sleep on sheets that might or might not be clean. They’d need to be washed. Until then, I’d have to use what I brought: a queen sized bottom sheet with my freshly washed queen sized comforter. Fortunately, I’d also brought pillows and clean pillow cases. Needless to say, the bed looked a mess when I was done.

I think I finally turned in a little after 9 PM. The marina, which is on the other side of a rock sea wall from the ferry terminal, was surprisingly quiet. I’m used to marinas being loud places with clanking sailboat rigging, but this place was almost eerie in its silence. Even the ferry boat’s coming and going was muted.


Just past sunset at the marina. Peaceful, no?

I slept like the dead.

Day Two: Going Solo

I woke at my usual time — around 5 AM — and set about making coffee. The boat was plugged into shore power so my one-cup drip coffee maker was available for use. I’d prepped it the night before so I was back in bed with a hot cup of coffee within minutes.

(And that’s a morning routine that I realize I need to change. I picked it up last year sometime — getting up early (as I usually do) and bringing my coffee back to bed with me while I catch up on Twitter, do some word puzzles, read, and/or plan my day. While it’s nice to have that relaxation time in a comfy place with my pups still sleeping beside me, it’s really cutting into the time I’d otherwise use to write or get things done. I skipped it this morning just so I could finish this blog post, which I started days ago. I think I need to stop being so darn lazy in the morning.)

When my pups woke up, I took them for a quick walk to a patch of grass just beyond the docks. Then back to the boat where I finished dressing, fed them, and kept poking around to explore my new surroundings. The lower berth was filled with things I needed to sort out: carpeting, table legs, tables, flagpole, fire extinguishers, PFDs, and other safety equipment.

I found the gauge Larry had read the day before, when he assured me I had more than half a tank of fuel left. It was labeled Water. So yeah: I had no idea how much fuel was on board.

By this time, it was nearly 7 and I took my pups out for a proper walk. There was a crepes restaurant on the corner and I waited patiently for it to open so I could buy a breakfast crepe and bring it back to the boat. It was huge but admittedly not very good. I ate half. Then I finished securing everything that needed securing inside. The sailboat that was parked at the fuel dock pulled away. It was time for me to pull out of my slip and dock for fuel. By myself.

Again, slow and steady is the way. There’s no reason to rush and the conditions, once again, were perfect. No wind, no current. I turned on all of my instruments and started the engine. Then I went out on the dock and untied the boat, leaving the aft midship line for last. The boat barely moved. I climbed aboard, went up to the command bridge, transferred the controls to that helm, and slowly backed out. Once I cleared the boat on my port side, I used the bow thruster to bring the front of the boat around to port. (I should mention here that because of the position of the rudder on this inboard engine powered boat, steering has no effect in reverse, although “prop walk” does tend to bring the stern to port a tad.)

I have to say that I impressed myself — and I am my toughest critic. I’d visualized my approach to the fuel dock and I think that helped a lot. I just eased over there and set the boat beside the dock, getting it to a complete standstill before the dockhand could grab a line.


My first fill-up. OUCH.

A while later, I was pumping diesel into the tank port. It was a thirsty puppy and took 92 gallons. (If you figure I have a 145 gallon tank, that means I only had 53 gallons on board — not 103 gallons or more than half a tank. It would have been enough to get me to my destination, but what if it hadn’t been? Better safe than sorry, no? And yes, I’ve since discovered not one but two fuel indicators; more on that in another blog post.) While filling up, I learned that the glug-glug sound near the end means to stop fueling now. I also learned how diesel fuel spill rags can soak up oil but not water.

While I was chatting with the dockhand, the subject of lines came up and I told him I didn’t think I had enough. Did they sell them in the office? He told me that they had a bunch of lines that they were giving away. I had my doubts, but followed him to a storage building and was rewarded with three brand new ropes, still in their packaging. “Defective” he said, but neither of us could find anything wrong with them.

I paid for the fuel, prepped the boat for departure again, and cast off. I made a graceful (i.e., slow motion) departure from the dock, using the throttle and my thrusters to get the boat turned around. Then I left the marina at idle forward thrust, which gave me about 3 1/2 knots. It was low tide and not difficult to see why staying in the channel was important — beyond it were what I’d call mud flats. Then I was out beyond the sea wall, slowing to let the ferry depart ahead of me, and then picking up speed to start my trip north.

And this is where I made my first error: when I came away from the marina and was in open water beyond the ferry path, I should have brought the boat to idle and retrieved my fenders. Instead, I let them “fly” for the entire trip to Roche Harbor. No harm done, but not good for the lines, the fenders, or the side of the boat. What’s crazy is that I had to drop down to idle anyway to come from the upstairs helm, which was chilly, to the more comfortable inside helm. Why didn’t I do it then? No idea, but I won’t make that mistake again.

The conditions started off very good, with smooth water as I headed northwest along Whidbey Island’s west shore. There was a ship channel that was well marked and I did pass one inbound ship along the way. I got to play with the AIS feature on my chart plotters.

AIS or Automatic Identification System is like ADS-B is for aircraft — a system that broadcasts and/or receives vessel information including name, position, speed, etc. What’s odd is that in the aviation world, ADS-B Out is required for all aircraft while AIS transmit is only required for commercial ships. And while ADS-B In is not required or even used on most general aviation aircraft, AIS Receive is widely available on boats with chart plotters. My boat, it turns out, receives AIS signals but does not transmit them. That means I can learn about at least half the boats I’ve seen in my travels but remain invisible to them. This is something that’ll cost about $1000 to “fix” by adding a Garmin AIS Blackbox Transceiver to transmit my signal. I’m not sure yet whether I want to make this investment.

 
I can see a ship and tap an icon on my chart plotter to learn more about it, including its name and speed.

While Admiralty Inlet wasn’t rough at first, the farther north I got the rougher the water got. It didn’t help that the current was against me, slowing me down. I’d been traveling with the RPM set at 2600, but when speed dropped below 10 knots, I upped it to 2700 and, later 2800. That got me more than 10 knots and, at times, up to 12. By the time I got into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, I was cutting through choppy waves, rolling, and getting splashed good enough to run my windshield wipers. My pups were not happy and I wound up putting them both on the bench seat beside me.

It was a 19 mile stretch across the strait with only the tiny Smith Island in the middle of it. I don’t know if I imagined it, but it seemed that the water calmed a little once I’d passed that island. The current changed, too, and was soon in my favor. It was pretty much rolling through the gap between Lopez and San Juan Islands, spitting me out into the San Juan Channel with SOG (speed over ground) in excess of 15 knots.

There was a lot of debris in the water as I continued up the channel, taking the wheel to steer around logs, sticks, and rafts of weeds big enough to hold sea birds. (Enroute, I normally use the autopilot’s Heading Hold feature to set a course that I can occasionally adjust with a push of a button, but when there’s serious steering to do, I take the wheel.) The minutes and miles ticked away. The water was calmer among the islands and it was more pleasant traveling.

I started seeing other Ranger Tugs going my way when I reached Spieden Island. I had been warmed to take the far pass into Roche Harbor, staying west of Pearl Island, so that’s what I did. Although I think I could have cleared the skinny water on the east side — my boat’s draft is only 2 1/2 feet — why take a chance? I discovered later in the week that a 43-foot Ranger Tug had gone the other way and had severely damaged one of its two pod engines.

Arriving at the Rendezvous

The purpose of the trip had been to attend the annual Ranger Tugs/Cutwater Rendezvous, which was the first held in more than two years (because of Covid). It was a huge event at Roche Harbor Resort and Marina which would eventually gather together more than 200 boats made by the same folks who made mine. There would be seminars and get togethers and a lot of fun — all of which I’d cover in another blog post.

For now, all I cared about was getting my boat into a slip.

The radio guidance was more like dealing with an air traffic controller than I’d likely ever experience again at a marina. One by one, a man apparently at the marina headquarters assigned slips to incoming boats and provided instructions on how to reach them. When it was my turn, I didn’t like his instructions at all. He wanted me to rig the boat to back into the dock. That meant removing my dinghy and bicycle and putting fenders back there. He didn’t seem to care that I was on board by myself and would have to reconfigure my setup while trying to prevent my boat from drifting into other traffic.

I tried. I really did. I got the dinghy down and on a rope tied behind me. And then I started struggling with my bicycle, which I’d fastened to the rails on the swim platform. And I said to myself, fuck no. I’m not dealing with this.

I went up to the command bridge, got on the radio, and told him I was by myself, I had too much to move around, and I just wanted a bow in starboard tie. Anywhere.

He sounded annoyed and told me to wait. Then he got back on and sent me to a slip on J dock. I was disappointed because I knew that’s not where everyone else was parking. I was being sent to the hinterlands because I didn’t want to back my boat into a slip on my second solo attempt to tock. (I’m counting the fuel dock here.) He assured me that other Ranger Tugs would be there.

By that point, I just didn’t care. I motored over to J dock where a dockhand waited to help me park. It wasn’t as smooth as my fuel dock parking job — possibly because I was pissed off and tired and people were watching — but I didn’t embarrass myself.


Do It Now docked at Roche Harbor.

I was very happy to shut down the engine. It had been a long day.


My first solo cruise was about 50 miles from Kingston to Roche Harbor.

You can read about the Rendezvous I went to Roche Harbor to attend in another blog post.

Planning My First Trip in Motor Vessel Do It Now

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I have big plans for my first boat outing.

A lot of stuff has been going on in my life over the past two weeks. One of them came to a conclusion yesterday: I closed on the purchase of my new boat, a 2019 Ranger Tug R-29 CB.

I wrote more about the purchase process in my Great Loop blog. The final chapter can be found here. It was a surprisingly easy transaction with the only glitch being Citibank’s wire transfer processing and unbelievably crappy customer service. At 11:22 AM on September 2, I was the owner of an amazing, near-new cruising trawler.


My still unnamed boat in a photo taken by the surveyor as we motored in to the lift for a bottom inspection.

Do It Now

Amazingly, although the boat was three years old, it had never been named. That was good for me since there are all kinds of superstitions about renaming a boat and I didn’t want to deal with any of the weird ceremonies involved in changing a boat’s name. It meant I could name it whatever I wanted to. I chose Do It Now with a home port of Malaga, WA, and during the closing process I made arrangements to document it with the Coast Guard instead of titling it in Washington State. That means I can take the registration numbers off the hull as soon as I get the name put on.

Why Do It Now? If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you may know that I feel that I wasted too many years of my life in a dead-end relationship, waiting for a partner to get his head out of his ass and start enjoying life. With him out of the picture, I was finally free to do my own thing — and I have been. I expanded my business, built a home, and started traveling more. But I wanted one more big challenge and had pretty much set my heart on cruising in my own boat. With the years ticking by quickly I realized that, at some point, a lack of physical fitness would prevent me from doing what I wanted to do. So if I wanted to start a new chapter in my life, I had to do it now.

It’s become a philosophy. Heck, I almost had it tattooed on my left hand near my thumb so it would remind me every day. I think buying this boat was a better solution.

Planning the First Voyage

As the purchase started coming together, I realized that there was a good chance that I could complete it before an annual event I really wanted to attend: the Ranger Tugs Rendezvous at Roche Harbor Marina on San Juan Island. Although it had been cancelled for the previous two years due to Covid, it was on for the weekend of September 8 – 11. I bought an attendee ticket and, booked a slip at the marina for September 7 -12. (Yes, I was so confident that the sale would go through that I booked a slip for a boat I didn’t yet own.)

I also plotted the route from Zittel’s Marina in Olympia, WA to Roche Harbor using Aqua Map, my iPad chartplotter of choice. I was shocked when I learned it was over 100 nautical miles. Not the kind of trip you can do in one day when you’re cruising at 10-12 knots. That meant an overnight stay along the way.


My entire route as plotted on Aqua Map. It takes me from Olympia past Tacoma, Seattle, and Edmonds in Puget Sound and then into the San Juan Islands area.

I arranged for an experienced boat captain, Larry, to join me on the first day of this journey to provide some much-needed training and orientation. I’d meet him at Edmonds on Tuesday morning and finish the drive with him to Olympia. That’s where I’d take possession of the boat and its keys. We’d offload my truck into the boat — I have a ton of packing to do — and then, after some orientation at the marina, head out along my route. The goal is to get to Edmonds by just after 4 PM, which I think is pushing it. I’d drop off Larry in Edmonds and motor across the channel to Kingston where I’ve already booked a slip for the night. (There’s no transient parking in Edmonds.) In the morning, I’d head out alone to finish the trip to Roche Harbor.

It is an ambitious plan and, if I didn’t already have quite a bit of experience last summer at the helm of a 2017 Ranger Tug R-27, I wouldn’t even consider it. Yes, my boat is larger — both in length and beam — but it has basically the same helm setup, right down to the autopilot, chart plotter, throttle controls, and side thrusters. I’m more worried about my arrival at Kingston, which might be after hours, than leaving Kingston or arriving at Roche Harbor the next day. I guess time will tell.

Anyway, that’s the current plan. I’ll write more about it when the trip is over. Stay tuned. Some fun, challenging times are ahead and I’m looking forward to sharing them.

Wanderlust on a Boat Update

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A quick update to Tuesday’s post.

After writing Tuesday’s blog post about Wanderlust and my desire to buy a new boat, I broke down and made an offer on one of the boats I had been looking at online. My offer was accepted and I am now in the process of completing the sale. With luck, I’ll be cruising on it in about a month.

If you’d like some information about what went into the decision to buy this particular boat, you can find it on My Great Loop Adventure blog. That’s where I write only about things related to the Great Loop and my travels along it.

Dealing with Wanderlust — On a Boat

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I believe a cruising lifestyle is the answer to my current wanderlust needs.


The dictionary defines Wanderlust as a strong desire to travel. That sums it up perfectly.

I’ve suffered from Wanderlust my entire life. I blame my grandfather.

Inherited Wanderlust

My mother’s father had it bad, especially later in life when I knew him. Once he was retired to a life around his home, he used to do a lot of driving. I don’t know where he went, but I do remember him following us on vacation once. We were low budget vacationers and a typical family vacation would be a drive to a campground at a northeast US destination — we lived in northern New Jersey — where we’d set up camp and spend a week in The Great Outdoors. I don’t remember which trip we were on when my grandfather improbably turned up, hundreds of miles from home.

My dad, of course, had a case of Wanderlust, too. His case was a lot like mine in that it combined a need to travel and explore with a desire to do it in with a motor vehicle. (My family members were not fans of hiking or air travel; in fact, I probably do more hiking and air travel than my parents or siblings ever did.) When I was young, our family vacations took us up or down the Atlantic seaboard, from southern Maine to Virginia. Sometime along the way, my dad acquired the first of a handful of small motorboats for exploring the Hudson, East, and Harlem Rivers of the New York Metro area and toting along on family vacations to destinations with waterways. I can still remember the trip to Lake George in New York when a wheel came off the boat trailer and passed us on the highway, seriously delaying our arrival.


An unscheduled stop along the Columbia River near its mouth in 2018 gave me the opportunity to pick wild blackberries, which I enjoyed with my breakfast for the next few days.

For me, Wanderlust means exploring places I’ve never been before — and revisiting some of the places I have explored in the past and liked. I’ve done it in cars and on motorcycles and in helicopters and on boats. It usually starts with a map or a suggestion from someone else. A route is set down, plans and preparations are made, and a trip begins. But what makes my Wanderlust differ from most people I know is my need to change the plan and explore new things I take note of along the way. Driving with a plan of going from Point A to Point B and being led off the path by a sign pointing to a waterfall in a national forest or a date ranch in the middle of the desert or a hiking trail around a small mountain lake or a channel leading to a remote town known for good ice cream. Not having reservations so I don’t have to cancel reservations. Making it up as I go along. I can’t begin to describe the feeling I get when I discover a new place worth seeing, even if it’s just a nice place to have a picnic lunch.


Sometimes taking an unmarked trail through a coastal forest can put you on a private beach.

My Travels

I’ve dealt with my version of the Wanderlust my entire life. I’ve visited 49 of the 50 states — Minnesota eludes me — and a (rather disappointing) handful of international destinations, including Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, and numerous Caribbean Islands. And a trip to Germany when I was in my teens — don’t forget that. I traveled extensively for business during the last job of my corporate life (Career #1) and even more for business at the start of my freelance life (Career #2). In between I took numerous vacations with my future wasband that involved travel, often piggybacking a vacation onto one of my business trips. While the business travel involved metro areas and business hotels, the vacation travel often involved rental cars, camping gear, and national parks. I’ve seen a lot of America — and not just typical tourist destinations.

Understand that I am not a fan of packaged tours. While I like the concept of cruise ships — a hotel where you unpack once and visit a different city every day? Sign me up! — I don’t like the floating cities cruise ships are or the typical cruise ship mentality of the other passengers. (How many people on the Alaska cruise had booked their low-deck inside cabin just so they could tell people they’d “done” an Alaska cruise? The same people who didn’t get off the boat at port cities because they didn’t want to spend any money.) I can’t see making a trip overseas for just a week — if you’re going to go to Europe or Asia or Australia, you should stay at least a month to make that travel time worthwhile, no?

My Wanderlust needs were severely frustrated for a time when I lived in Arizona with my future wasband. I was a freelancer who, between projects, had a lot of free time on my hands. My future wasband was tied to a 9 to 5 job that left only weekends available for travel. (In the end, he spent much of his limited vacation time traveling back east to visit his family.)


Following a sign to a ghost town near Beatty NV back 2005 gave me a chance to see this building in Rhyolite before it was fenced off to prevent further damage.

I did a lot of travel on my own in those days. I made three long distance helicopter trips in my Robinson R22 helicopter in the early 2000s: around the Grand Canyon airspace, to Eagle CO, and to Placerville CA. In 2005, I took a 19-day solo road trip through the western states in my little Honda S2000. One of my publishers sent me to its locations in Ventura CA and Colorado Springs CO to work for them and I’d usually turn that trip into a mini solo vacation. In 2008, I started traveling seasonally to Washington State (where I now live) to do the agricultural work I now rely on to make a living — I traveled more around the area then than I do now.

 
A trip around the Grand Canyon’s restricted airspace in the early 2000s in my R22 had me spending a night at Marble Canyon near Page AZ and remote Bar 10 Ranch 85 miles south of St George UT.

Getting divorced freed me to do more travel. I no longer had a whining, needy man child at home to hold me back. I visited family and friends all over the country. I did cruises. I did road trips. I enjoyed traveling more than ever.

But gradually, over time, I fell into a rut: stay at home all summer where I was on paid standby for my agricultural work and then travel south with my RV, usually to Arizona and California, to escape the winter dreariness of central Washington State. Sure, I did other trips once in a while, but I was definitely feeling the restraints of a routine — the one thing I just can’t tolerate in my life.

Cruising

I started thinking seriously about cruising — no, not the kind you do in huge floating cities — back in 2017 when I went to stay with a friend out at Lopez Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington. The trip didn’t go the way I’d hoped, but I discovered a lot about myself and other people and began to realize what I really wanted to do with my time: small boat cruising.

Of course, back then it was just an inkling of an idea. Since then I’ve done a lot of homework and taken a handful of trips. The homework taught me more about what was possible in a boat to cure my Wanderlust. I learned about the Great Loop, for example, which I saw as a lengthy exploration of waterways on the east coast without having to double back to a starting point.


Sunset from the dock at a state park marina in North Carolina, Spring 2022.

You need to experience it to understand it

There’s something about being out on the water on a quiet morning, watching birds and water animals while the day is born. There’s something about motoring slowly up a channel, rounding a bend to see something unexpected, waving at other cruisers you pass, watching dolphins play in your wake. There’s something about pulling a trap full of crabs out of the water and cooking them for lunch, or catching a salmon you’ll have for dinner. There’s something about meeting other travelers for “docktails” in the evening at a marina and sharing stories about the places you’ve been and the people you’ve met along the water. There’s something about watching the sun sink down into the horizon, hearing the clanking of pulleys and creaking of boats against fenders when a gentle wave comes by from a passing boat.

The trips taught me other things:

  • The 12-day Learn to Navigate the Inside Passage cruise with Northwest Navigation taught me all kinds of things about cruising slowly up the inside passage from Bellingham to Ketchikan: navigating waterways (of course), dealing with severe tidal currents, using autopilot and AIS, anchoring out, using tenders to reach shore, handling customs and immigration when crossing borders, etc, etc. I cannot say enough good things about this cruise and I hope to do it again one day, perhaps when my own cruising days have ended.
  • A 5-week crew member gig on a 27′ Ranger Tug on the Great Loop from Jersey City NJ to Alpena MI showed me the Hudson River, Erie Canal, Lake Erie, and Lake Huron, with many points of interest along the way. I also learned how the Great Loop could be done at a quicker pace, with few stops longer than a day. It was also my first taste of marinas and public docks for overnight moorage and the challenges of ground transportation at destinations. And finally, I learned that not all adults act like adults — which is why I didn’t stay on board beyond Alpena when I was supposed to be on board three more weeks and depart in Chicago.
  • A 5-week crew member gig on a 36′ Aft Cabin Carver on the Great Loop from Charleston SC to New Bern NC showed me how the Great Loop could be done in slow motion, with lengthy stops at marinas along the way. I learned a lot about navigating the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), the kinds of conditions I could expect with its tides and inlets, and how pleasant it was to drive a boat from up on a fly bridge. It was just me and the captain on board and we got along well, but I have to admit that the slow pace we kept was agonizing to me — I was really hoping to see more and get farther along the Loop.

David B at Garrison Bay
The David B at anchor in Garrison Bay. I was one of only four passengers on a 12-day trip in this 90-year-old wooden boat from Bellingham to Ketchikan.


A stretch of the ICW from the flybridge on a 36′ Carver.

These three trips helped me come up with a plan for my own travels: spend two to three years cruising on the east coast, mostly along the Great Loop, and then bring the boat back to Washington to explore waterways closer to home: Lake Chelan, the Columbia and Snake Rivers, Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands, and the Inside Passage. By the time I’m done with all that, I should have the cruising thing worked out of my system — or be too old and crotchety to enjoy it.

Plans in Motion

To that end, I’ve begun making plans to acquire a suitable boat. After a lot of research, I’ve settled on a Ranger Tug R-29 CB, a 29′ tug/trawler style boat with a command bridge. The boat has all the features I need to handle something that size on my own — GPS navigation, auto pilot, fore and aft side thrusters, and command from indoor and outdoor stations — as well as the kind of amenities that will make cruising comfortable — full galley, head with shower, comfortable walk-around bed, accommodations for guests, large aft deck, solar panel. And did I mention the wine fridge?


This is one of the boats currently available. I like its price and its low engine hours, but it’s missing a lot of little amenities that I need or want: a Bimini top for the command bridge, screen enclosure for the rear cockpit, generator, air conditioning, and trailer.

You can see a new version of the boat on the Ranger website. But no, I’m not buying a new one. (My budget is large, but not that large.) I’m looking at model years 2018 to 2021. The 2017 models have a Volvo D4 260 HP engine; Ranger went to the Valve D4 300 HP engine in 2018. Right now, there are 5 boats available and, as the market softens — mostly because of inflation and higher interest rates — I expect more boats to join them and prices to go down accordingly. The market was crazy tight back in the spring with boats selling nearly as quickly as they were listed.

(If you’re paying attention and have been reading my blog, you may recall my preference for 27′ Ranger Tug. I’ve gotten over that. After being on a 2017 R-27 with two other people last summer, I’ve decided that it’s simply too small. I know the R-29 sounds like it’s only 2 feet longer but it’s also 1 1/2 feet wider (8 1/2 foot beam vs 10 foot beam) and it has the command bridge space up top. Combined with that is the fact that the 2018 and later R-27s have an outboard motor, which limits living amenities such as hot water and battery charging. It’s designed as more of a day tripping or weekend boat than a serious cruising boat — something that was brought to my attention by the captain of the 2017 R-27 I was on last summer.)

I’m currently planning to make my purchase in September, so I’m trying hard not to dwell on the boats that are currently available; chances are, they’ll be gone when I’m ready to buy. I’ll spend the month of October getting it settled at a marina on the east coast, probably in Florida, where I hope to get some hands on training with a qualified instructor. Or, if I buy it in Washington, maybe I’ll get that training here in Puget Sound before having the boat moved to the east coast. This boat is trailerable and I do have a truck big enough to pull it. What I don’t have is a boat trailer big enough to carry it. I need to figure that — or the cost of having it moved — into the purchase price if I buy on the west coast and need to get it across the country.

The ultimate goal for this coming winter is to cruise long enough to get the experience days I need for my boat captain’s license. I’ll sit through a classroom course on the east coast, take (and pass!) the test, and submit all my paperwork to the Coast Guard. Then back home in spring for another summer of cherry drying standby service to earn a living. Then, in August, back to the boat and possibly take on paying passengers or crew members as I continue along the Loop. I’d love to spend August though October along the New York State and Canadian canal systems.

On the Water

I’ve created a brand new Category (or Topic) for this blog: On the Water. That’s where you’ll find posts about my boating activities. As I write this, this is the only post there, but I’ll try to go back to previous blog posts related to boating and add them to this category.

And if you’re interested only in Great Loop related posts, I hope you’ll check out the My Great Loop Adventure blog. That’s where I share day-by-day accounts with photos of my travels on the Great Loop.

There’s more to report — like new relationships with publishers that will help me fund my travels — but I’d rather save that for when it becomes a reality. Right now, it’s just a solid lead with a great outlook.

Making It Happen

There’s a lot to juggle here but challenges in logistics that require thinking outside the box really appeal to me. So I’m treating it all like a challenge with a specific, well-thought-out goal. And I’m going through the steps to make it happen.

I hope you’ll come along for the ride. Maybe you’ll discover your Wanderlust, too.