Tag Archives: boats

The Great Loop

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I read a book about a trip I’d like to take.

Although it’s still very much winter here in North Central Washington State, my mind has been somewhat consumed with boating these days.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you may remember the post I did some years ago about an ill-fated trip to a friend’s house out in the San Juan Islands. (It was an ill-fated post, too. The friend I wrote about seemed to take great offense at what I’d said about him and another friend apparently read between the lines and thought I was blogging about her. My response to both: Really?) In the post, I mentioned my friend’s boat, which I really liked, and how I wanted to get a similar one.

Ranger Tug R-27
Spending four winters in a row in a truck camper has really prepared me for long-term living on a boat this size. It’s basically my camper on a boat.

Over time, I discovered the 27-foot Ranger Tug that I have my eye on. This boat has all the comforts of home — well, at least all the comforts of my truck camper — in a towable package. That means I could store it in my garage between long trips out on the Columbia River, Lake Chelan, Roosevelt Lake, the San Juan Islands, and the Inside Passage. I could even take it south for the winter — imagine spending December and January on Lake Havasu in Arizona?

I also began thinking of other adventures where I could take such a boat. I immediately thought of the Intracoastal Waterway up the east coast of the US. And then maybe up the Hudson River. And the Erie Canal to the Great Lakes. And wouldn’t it be amazing if I could find some way down the Mississippi back to the Gulf of Mexico and around the Florida Keys back to my starting place?

What I had just imagined was something that actually existed and had been accomplished by many people: the Great Loop.

The Great Loop

Per the America’s Great Loop Cruiser’s Association website,

The Great Loop is a circumnavigation of the eastern U.S., and part of Canada. The route includes the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the New York State Canals, the Canadian Canals, the Great Lakes, the inland rivers, and the Gulf of Mexico. “Loopers” take on this adventure of a lifetime aboard their own boat.

Great Loop Map
Here’s the map of the route. Note that there are two ways to get from the Hudson River to the Great Lakes, two ways to get through the Great Lakes, two ways to get from Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico, and two ways to navigate Florida. This makes it possible to do the trip a number of different ways.

The website has a wealth of information about this roughly 6,000 mile journey, including many resources for learning about the route and points of interest along the way. Honestly, the website can tell you a lot more about the Loop than I can; I’ve only begun exploring it.

A Challenge, An Adventure

If you know me well, you should know that I live for challenges. I’ve had three successful careers (so far) for a reason: I get bored easily. After an initial start in the business world as an auditor and financial analyst — what was I thinking? — my writing hobby turned into a career as a freelance writer. When that generated a bunch of fun money, I learned to fly helicopters, bought a helicopter, and turned that into a career as a helicopter pilot. These days, I’m keeping myself amused by learning jewelry skills and techniques, but I can’t really call that a new career — at least not yet. (Maybe in a few years?)

In each case, it was the challenge that drove me, even if I didn’t realize it. I always want to learn and do new things. I want to get good at them. When I can actually earn a living doing them, I’m rewarded and motivated to do and learn more.

Taking a boat on a 6,000 mile trip on rivers, oceans, canals, and lakes — now that’s a challenge.

I’ve always been a bit of an explorer. I bought a Jeep to explore the desert on the ground. I’ve used helicopters to explore the desert, mountains, canyons, lakes, rivers, coasts — you name it — from the air. In the past, I’d done boating trips with a focus on exploration: a rafting trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, a house boating trip on Lake Powell, small boat trips on the Hudson, East, Harlem, Colorado, and Columbia Rivers, a 12-day cruise up the inside passage on a small boat. Imagine how much I could explore on a Great Loop trip!

Of course, there are hurdles to jump. Getting the boat and learning to pilot it safely and effectively is the first big challenge. Learning what I need to know to plan and execute a long boat trip is another. This isn’t something I would do without proper preparation. But as I research the things I need to know, I realize that it’s definitely doable. A real goal for my post-retirement years.

Reading First Person Acounts

I started my research about six months ago, before I went south for the winter. I searched for books about the Great Loop. There are a lot of them. It seems that many people who do this journey like to write books about it.

There are different ways to do the trip and a lot of them depend on the size and style of the boat you’re doing it with. I wanted to read books written by people kind of like me — not super rich, motoring in a smallish boat. (Yes, 27 feet is considered small for this trip.) A lot of the books out there were by couples in giant yachts and I didn’t want to read those. Chances are, I’d have a budget for the trip, which meant I wouldn’t be able to spend every single night along the way at a full-service marina. I’d have to boondock (the RVing word) or lie at anchor (the boating phrase) for at least half the nights. So I wanted to read books by people who had similar experiences to what I might have.

I sampled a few books in Kindle format and wasn’t very impressed. One of the drawbacks of this age of self-publishing is that anyone can do it — even if they can’t write. One book sample read like an infomercial for the book, with lots of repetition and apparently no editing. Another was similarly uninteresting to me, although I can’t remember why. But a third…well, I thought that had promise. I bought it and read it yesterday.

A Book Review

Crossing The Wake
Here’s the book I read first about motoring the Great Loop.

Crossing the Wake: One Woman’s Great Loop Adventure by Tanya Binford is almost the kind of book you might expect. The subtitle tells you that the book is about a woman’s trip doing the Great Loop and hints that she’s doing it alone (which she mostly did). I tend to shy away from women’s books because I have trouble identifying with the themes they usually include: the trials of motherhood, dealing with sexual discrimination, and fighting male dominance. This book, fortunately, didn’t have much of that — although it certain had more than enough for me. Unfortunately, as I discovered while turning page after virtual page, it didn’t really have what I wanted to read, either.

You see, although the author wrote this book about her journey, it read more like a catalog of fears, challenges, and social activities than a travelog. With virtually no boating experience, she decided she wanted to do the trip. To prepare, she moved from the Arizona desert to the coast of South (I think) Carolina and bought her young adult son a boat. Over and over again, she tells the reader how little confidence she had in her skills while she let her son do the piloting. She shares many anecdotes about needing the help of a man to do one thing or another. Yet she buys one boat after another to learn what she needs to know and build her skills. That’s admirable, but I don’t believe she had the skills she needed when she finally started the trip.

The first part of the book explains what she was doing for a living — she was a psychiatric registered nurse who was able to meet with patients through video calls (this was before the pandemic) — with side stories about some of her patients, co-workers, and bosses. It also covers some of her preparations, with lots of details of the (mostly) men who helped her and the (mostly) women who worried about her doing the trip on her own.

The second, longer part of the book was about the actual trip. Here’s where the definition of “solo” gets hazy. You see, although she was alone on her boat for most of the trip, she also traveled among other “Loopers” who she would see, on and off, throughout her trip. The book is one story after another about meeting this couple/boat here and that couple/boat there and having “docktails” and dinner and shore trips with all these people. It was a social report. There were very few details, especially in the first part of the trip, about navigation, points of interest, or the traveling itself. When she did try to give details, she fell short or used incorrect names. (It’s New York Harbor, not Hudson Bay (which is in Canada); the New York Thruway, not the New York Expressway and the Tappan Zee Bridge, not the Tappen Zee Bridge. These are the things I caught because I know them; how many other mistakes did she make?)

Along the way, she confirmed, over and over, that she was in way over her head on this trip, lacking either confidence or skills that she really should have had. And if that wasn’t bad enough, halfway through the book/trip she admits that the autopilot and radar don’t work properly. (I cannot, for a minute, imagine taking a boat on a 6,000-mile solo trip without an autopilot, let alone drive a boat in unfamiliar water in fog without radar yet the author did both.) Yes, she survived the trip, but I felt that she struggled with her own shortcomings to do so.

What did I want from the book? I guess I just wanted more details about the trip itself. More about navigation, overnight stops (other than to name them), unusual boating/navigation rules/situations. She did provide some of this, but not nearly as much as I wanted. Instead, I was treated to her stories about her bullying her mom on part of the trip, men who made passes at her, and her emotional turmoil when another boater she’d had a fling with found another non-boating woman and married her.

And frankly, I found her side story about a patient who had killed herself when she (the author) left her job to start the trip disturbing and unwelcome.

If the author happens upon this blog post and reads it, I’m sorry to be so brutal. But I’ve filed this book with most of the other “women’s books” I’ve come across. I probably should not have read it.

Did I get anything out of the book at all? Yes. I learned that a woman with very little experience driving a boat slight smaller but similar in style to what I want to buy completed the trip by herself.

If she could do it, so could I.

Making Plans

So I’ve set this up as a new goal for myself: motor the great loop before I turn 65. I have just over 5 years to:

  • Get back in shape. I’ve let myself go a bit and that’s causing aches and pains that I simply should not have at my age. Time to slim back down, get more exercise, and prep for being able to walk a very narrow gunwale.
  • Buy a suitable boat. That Ranger Tug is looking good, but I do have a friend trying to talk me into something else, so I’m not 100% sold on it yet.
  • Spend a lot of time on the boat to become an expert on handling it. This might sound weird, but to me, flying a helicopter in most conditions is like driving a car. I’d like to get like that behind the wheel of a boat. Practice — especially practice in challenging conditions like wind, currents, and rough water — makes perfect.
  • Spend some time with a boat mechanic. The goal is to learn the basics of what might break and how I can fix it — or at least enable to limp to a marina for a real fix.
  • Learn everything I need to know about navigation on the Great Loop’s waterways. There’s a lot to learn — including navigation on Canadian waterways.
  • Prepare the boat for a very long trip. That includes a last-minute tuneup of the engine and other systems and packing the gear I’ll need (and leaving behind the gear I won’t).
  • Get the boat to a starting point, launch it, and get under way. Whether I do this alone or with a travel companion depends on what’s going on in my life when the time comes to start.

Chapman Piloting & Seamanship
Chapman Piloting and Seamanship is the bible for learning about boating in the United States. I’ve got this book in print and in Kindle format and have been reading various chapters to immerse myself in boating information.

A lot of this actually ties in nicely with a related goal: getting my boat captain’s license. I’d like very much to be able to make a bit of income with this boat since it’ll cost so much to acquire and operate. (But still not as much as a helicopter.) Even if I make enough to cover my personal boating costs, I’ll be very happy. But to legally do that, I need the proper boat captain’s license, which requires experience on the water, training, and passing scores on a test. I’m already beginning to study for all that.

But whether I become a boat captain or not, motoring the Great Loop is a set goal. Let’s see if I can do it.

Early August Check In

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What I’ve been up to lately.

I know I haven’t been blogging much lately — other than to share my YouTube videos — and I apologize. I know a lot of folks come here to see what I’m up to and not necessarily to see big helicopters land in clouds of dust.

But regular readers should know why I’m not blogging: I’m keeping busy doing other things. Here’s a rundown of what I’ve been up to.

Cherry Drying

One thing I’m not doing lately is drying cherries with my helicopter. We haven’t had measurable rain here since June 28 and that’s the last day I flew.

This is both good and bad.

The good thing is that my helicopter is inching ever closer to the Hobbs meter number that will force me to bring it in for over haul. As I type this, I have 88 hours left until I must stop flying it.

If you watched my livestream video about helicopter operating costs, you’ll know that this required maintenance will cost about $250,000 (not a typo). I’ve been saving, but not that much. So I’ll have to go into debt to pay for that overhaul. (I hate being in debt.)

But because I’m hardly flying it at all, I realized that I can simply put the helicopter away for the winter and save those 80+ hours for next year’s cherry season, thus putting off the overhaul for a whole year. I should be able to save a bunch more money for it, thus reducing the loan I’ll need. It will also Eliminate the stress I’d feel trying to operate a helicopter tour/charter business when virus-related issues — social networking, the economy, etc. — might make it hard to bring in the extra cash I’ll need to keep up on the loan.

That’s the good side of this issue.

The bad side is that I like flying, especially when I can send someone an invoice when I’m done. Although I’ll get a few more flights in before I put the helicopter away — after all, I do have that YouTube channel to feed — it won’t be much.

Fortunately, all of my cherry drying contracts include a daily standby fee, so even if I don’t fly, I’m bringing in money to cover my personal and business costs.

Of course, the standby fee means I have to be on standby, available to fly 7 days a week during daylight hours. So since May 29, when my season started, I’ve been pretty much hanging around at home — or at least the Wenatchee area. (I guess a lot of folks are in the same boat with the virus running rampant throughout the country.)

During the busiest part of the season, when I had the most acreage to cover, I had four pilots helping me cover it. They left one-by-one as orchards were picked and there was less and less acreage to cover. The last one left about 2 weeks ago. Today I’m covering 34 acres by myself.

4 Helicopters
Here’s the view from my deck back on June 16; you can see four helicopters (including mine) parked in a cleared cherry orchard. The fifth helicopter was based in Quincy, covering one of my contracts there.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll have just one orchard of just 17 acres to cover until August 23. Even though the standby for just 17 acres is pretty low, I’ll stick around until all the cherries there are picked.

Cherry Driving

No, that’s not a typo. I spent a week driving cherries from an orchard to the packing house.

One of my clients was looking for someone to drive a pickup truck pulling a trailer full of cherry bins from their orchard to the packing house about 15 miles away. They knew I had experience pulling heavy trailers — after all, I lived near their orchard in my old 36-foot fifth wheel for several seasons in a row — so they offered me the job. I had nothing else that I had to do, I had to stay in the area, and I didn’t mind making a few bucks and learning about another part of the business. So I said yes.

The truck was a 2004 Ford F350 4WD diesel pickup remarkably like my old green truck (RIP). The trailer was a dual axel with 4 wheels per axel flatbed with a gooseneck hitch that had been customized to hold eight stacks of plastic cherry bins.

Cherry Trailer
Here’s the rig I drove, nearly loaded, parked at the orchard’s loading area. Shade and mist help keep the area cool. Each bin of cherries is hosed down and then covered with a water-soaked foam pad to help keep them cool.

Cherry bins measure roughly 4’w x 4’d x 1’h and hold about 300-340 pounds of cherries. For the first bunch of runs, they stacked the bins 5 high so I was carrying 40 bins or 13,000+ pounds of cherries. This turned out to be the challenge: controlling speed for the first 8 miles of the drive to the packing plant, all of which was downhill.

Of course, before I left I also had to strap down those bins, which required tossing coils of ratchet tie-down straps over the tops of the bins and fastening them on the other side. It would not be good if I took a curve too quickly and the bins tumbled off.

One off my clients went with me for the first run so I’d know how to do it. I almost immediately got into trouble. The roads in the orchard are narrow and twisting and there was a hairpin curve I had to negotiate. I was so focused on the curve that I didn’t register the loose gravel in the middle of it. When I braked to slow (from about 10 mph), the wheels locked up and I came very close to sliding off the road into someone else’s orchard.

Oops.

Backing up uphill with 13,000+ pounds behind me on loose gravel wasn’t easy. I threw it into 4WD and had to use a foot on the brake while I pressed the accelerator to actually start backing up. I only needed to go back about 5 feet and managed to do it. Then we made the curve and were on our way.

I did not make that mistake again.

It took 45 minutes to get to the packing plant and they were stressful minutes. The setup had the braking distance of a freight train so I had to go very slowly any time there was a chance I might have to stop.

But then I was pulling into the delivery entrance and stopping at the entrance check point. I unfastened the tie downs while they took sample cherries and did a bunch of paperwork. Then on to the offloading area, where a team of forklifts took those 40 cherry bins off in less than three minutes. (And no, that’s not an exaggeration.)

On most trips, I came straight back, but on a few trips I needed to pick up (and strap down) empty bins or bins full of the foam pads they use to help keep the cherries cool in transit. Either way, the trailer was so light that I was able to get back in 30 minutes.

I made three runs the first day and two runs each of the next six days. I started at 8 AM — three hours after the pickers started because it took that long for them to fill 40 bins of cherries — and was usually done by noon — two hours after the pickers had finished and gone home. (They can’t pick cherries when it gets hot out and that week was very hot.) Although most loads had 40 bins early in the week, by the end of the week I was taking 44 bins (4 stacks of 5 and 4 stacks of 6). That’s nearly an extra ton. I got pretty good at controlling speed and handling the load and had no mishaps.

Along the way, I learned a lot about packing cherries. I think that was the best part of the experience; learning new things.

Cherry & Blueberry Picking

Like every year I’ve been up here during the summer — including years before I actually moved here — I always manage to get out for some cherry and blueberry picking.

I pick cherries after the growers have picked, “gleaning” what the pickers missed. I actually picked a lot more this year than I usually do, starting early with rainier cherries in an orchard near my home and, more recently, at the same orchard where I did my cherry driving. The key is to get to the orchard within a few days of picking; if you wait too long, the cherries are so far past prime they’re not worth picking.

Blueberries
My first batch of blueberries.

I pick blueberries at the same orchard where I did my driving gig. The orchard owners have about 400 blueberry bushes that they don’t harvest commercially. Instead, they invite friends to come pick when they like. The season lasts well over a month — the blueberries on a bush don’t all ripen at the same time like cherries or other tree fruit do — so I can go weekly and bring home enough to freeze and still eat blueberries all week. I usually bring a friend and chat while we’re picking.

I bring my pups along on these outings. Like Penny, they enjoy running around the orchards, sniffing for mice and other rodents. It’s good to get them out someplace other than home where they don’t need to be on a leash.

Getting Out On the Water

Amazingly, I’ve only been out on the water three times so far this summer, but all three trips were real wins.

The first outing was in my own little boat with two friends. I blogged about that here, so I won’t repeat any details.

The second was paddling with my friend Cyndi and her dog. This was Lily and Rosie’s first time out on a kayak and, at first, they didn’t know what to make of it. I had life jackets on both of them and had them tethered to the kayak with expanding leashes and it’s a good thing I did! Lily took two dives into the water and Rosie took one. In both cases — their first times swimming! — their life jackets gave them plenty of floatation and I was able to reel them in with the leash as they swam back to me. We paddled around the estuary at the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia Rivers. The water was high so there were lots of channels to explore. We even got a chance to stop on a beach where Rosie surprised me by swimming out to my friend Cyndi who called her from the shallows.

Paddling
Here we are, paddling in the estuary. By this point, the girls knew the drill and stayed on board.

Fish
Here I am with Cyndi, holding up the six fish we caught.

The third trip was with Cyndi and her husband Matt on their fishing boat. I woke up at 2:45 AM so I could meet them at 3:30 for the hour+ drive to Pateros. We were on line at the boat ramp at 4:45 AM and joined the crowd of salmon fishers near the mouth of the Okanogan River upriver from Brewster by 5. I can’t believe how close the boats were to each other, trolling along on silent motors, pulling one sockeye salmon after another out of the river. We hit our limit of two sockeyes each by 8 AM and spent some time trying for chinook, which requires a different line setup and technique. After a half hour with no luck, we called it quits. I was happy! I took my two fish home and filleted them, freezing three large fillets and leaving a fourth for dinner. I also cooked up the bones for fish broth and made myself a nice salmon chowder with garden veggies and the trimmings from my filleting work.

Gardening

My garden is bigger and more productive than ever this year. This spring, I finally pulled out the last pallet planter I’d built, replacing it with one of the plastic cherry bins I’d bought as raised garden beds. That brings the total count to 11. (I have one more bin to install, but I need to do some deconstruction on a flower bed to fit it in; that’s an autumn project.)

Veggies from my Garden
Here’s one evening’s side dish, brought in from the garden. I washed and chopped all of these, then roasted them with herbs in the oven. Delicious!

What did I plant? Let’s see. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, onions (2 kinds), beets, radishes, scallions, tomatoes (3 kinds), asparagus, potatoes (3 kinds), sweet potatoes (2 kinds), peppers (4 kinds), eggplant (2 kinds), horseradish, spinach, carrots, strawberries, zucchini (2 kinds), yellow squash, pattypan squash, cucumbers, delicata squash, cantaloupe, watermelon, pumpkins, corn (2 kinds), green beans. Well, I didn’t plant the green beans — they planted themselves and have been doing so for the past four years.

Potatoes
Have you ever seen a red potato this big? That’s my hand under it — and my hands aren’t small. I pulled it out of my garden last week.

I’ve been harvesting a little of almost everything and planting more beets, carrots, scallions, and radishes any time a bed empties and onions every time I pull a row. The only veggies I buy at the supermarket now is salad greens and broccoli (because it’s all done now). Everything else comes out of the garden and, frankly, I can’t keep up with production so I’m giving a ton away.

The 11 chicks I got in April are just getting ready to start laying. I just started an egg subscription service for neighbors: $10/month gets you a dozen eggs delivered to your doorstep once a week — if you give back the cartons. When I have all 16 chickens producing, I’ll be getting a dozen eggs a day and will need to do something with them. There’s only so much quiche a person can eat.

Cooking

Brisket
I finally found a brisket recipe I felt able to follow — with some modifications — and made this. Not bad for a first try.

Like most of the folks stuck at home this summer, I’ve been doing a lot of cooking. Some of it is an attempt to use up some of the produce coming from my garden or the orchards and blueberry patch where I pick fruit. Others are attempts to make something I’ve always wanted to try making.

Cake
The cake tasted even better than it looks, but what was I thinking?

When I make something that freezes well, I portion it out, vacuum seal it, and put it in my garage freezer so I always have a quick meal available on those days I don’t feel like cooking. I made a blueberry zucchini cake recently and wound up giving nearly all of it away to neighbors and friends. What was I thinking when I made a cake that big?

Other Stuff

I’ve also been making and selling jewelry, although not as much as I’d like. I think I’ll save that for another blog post.

I’ve also been doing a lot of video editing for my YouTube channel, but I’ll whine about that in another post, too.

But these are the main things I’ve been up to this summer. When the weather is nice, I’d rather do stuff outside than sit in front of a computer typing up a blog post and that explains why I haven’t blogged so much.

I will try harder to blog more in the future. I find that my blog posts are the best way I can remember the things that went on in my life years after these things happen. My blog is my journal and I really do need to stick with it.

Boating with Friends, 2020

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Another day out in the boat reminds me how much I like being out on the water.

Way back in the autumn of 2011, I bought a 1995 Sea Ray Sea Rayder. This is a 16-foot jet boat with a 130 HP engine that can get it up to the whopping speed of 30 MPH on smooth water. It has five seats, a canopy that shades the three back seats, and the ability to pull a water toy but not a water skier. It’s the third boat I’ve owned — the first two were WaveRunners that I owned for a while in Arizona — and I actually bought it in Washington when I still lived in Arizona. I spent so much time just sitting around during cherry season that I thought it might be fun to have a boat in the area to take out on the Columbia River.

Boat in Garage
Here’s my little boat, tucked into its spot in my exceedingly large garage.

Fast-forward nine years. I kept the boat all this time (despite a bizarre episode at one of my two divorce trial dates in 2013). When I built my home, I made sure that my garage would have space for it. I used it a few times every season — some would say not often enough to own a boat, but I didn’t pay much for it and it’s cheap to keep. I took it to Arizona with me for the winter back in 2016/17 and had some fun with it out on Lake Pleasant and the Colorado River. And I continue to use it a few times every summer.

I would have taken it out a lot sooner this season if it weren’t for the battery. I was having a heck of a time getting it charged and I was starting to wonder whether it needed replacement. Pulling the battery out of the boat while it was on the trailer was not something I could do alone and I never seemed to find time to get the boat into town so it could be checked. Eventually, I realized that the problem wasn’t the battery — it was my battery charger. I bought a new one the other day, hooked it up, and voila! The battery charged up to 100% in just a few hours and I was ready to take it out.

Boat on Jeep
The boat is a lot easier to launch from the Jeep, which is currently topless while I wait for the new top to arrive.

I made plans with a two friends to take it out on Wednesday morning. The weather has been awesome here — unless you’re a cherry drying pilot — and although it tended to get a bit warm and windy in the afternoon, it was pleasant enough in the morning. One of my friends is a neighbor and I picked her up at 9 AM in my Jeep with the boat in tow. (It’s a lot easier to launch with the Jeep than my truck.) After stopping to top it off with fresh fuel, we drove to the boat ramp in Wenatchee behind Pybus Public Market.

I have to take a moment to rave about the free boat ramps and riverfront parks and trails we have in the Wenatchee area. The waterfront is managed by the local public utility district — the Chelan PUD — which manages the dams that give us most of our cheap, renewable power. As a public utility, they use our utility fees to maintain their systems and build/maintain a series of public parks along the river. There are two different boat ramps within 12 miles of my home and others farther away to access other dam-locked bodies of water on the Columbia River. The parks have paved biking/walking trails, softball fields, tennis courts, picnic shelters for group gatherings, volleyball courts, a swimming beach — the list goes on and on. The Apple Capital Loop Trail is an 11-mile paved walking/running/biking trail that loops on both sides of the Columbia River, with several access points on either side and extensions to other parks on the East Wenatchee side. All of this is free to use with plenty of free parking.

Anyway, I launched the boat while Teri watched over my pups. We tied up at the floating dock between the two lanes of the ramp and waited for Cyndi to arrive. Although there were a few cars with boat trailers in the parking lot, no one else was launching or coming in. While we were waiting, I cranked the engine until I got the boat started and let it idle for a while, which is something I don’t like to do, given that this jet boat doesn’t have a real idle. (When the engine is running, it is propelling the boat.) I shut down until Cyndi arrived, loaded everyone up, and after an iffy start due mostly to me not remembering if the button had to be IN or OUT for choke, putted out into the river.

My usual boat use in the area is to motor on up to the Rocky Reach Dam upriver from town, cut the engine, and drift back. I do this mostly because the boat can be loud under power and it’s no fun shouting back and forth to each other. It takes about 15 minutes to reach the dam and that day, we hit some mildly rough water in a windy spot along the way. As a jet boat with its weird rudderless steering, it operates best on glassy smooth water. This wasn’t a big deal and we motored right through it to more smooth water beyond. We didn’t get right up to the dam, but we did get close enough to see that they had multiple flood gates open. The water would really be churning at the base of the dam and we didn’t need any of that. So I cut the engine and welcomed the silence. We immediately started drifting back at a rate of about 3-4 miles per hour.

Motoring in my Boat
Cyndi took this photo of us just getting underway up the Columbia River. That’s Teri next to me, holding my pups. This was their first time in a boat and they didn’t know what the hell was going on.

The awning was up and Teri and I were under it. Cyndi sat in the bow, soaking up the sun. My pups, wearing their life jackets, walked around the boat for a while. Lily was a bit whiney and I held and comforted her for a while. When she realized that it was what it was, she finally settled down.

Pups on a Boat Pups on a Boat
Lily and Rosie were a little uneasy when we first stopped, but soon caught on that there was food to be had and begging to be done. Penny’s old yellow life jacket fit Lily perfectly; Rosie got the slightly larger one I bought for her in preparation for a kayak outing. (We still haven’t done that yet.)

We’d brought snacks and popped open the coolers. We chatted about all kinds of things: dogs, politics, the virus, fishing, camping, boating, traveling. Teri and Cyndi, who had never met before, seemed to hit it off well.

Repositioning the Boat
Cyndi took this shot of me holding both pups while gently guiding us away from shore and back into the main channel of the river.

All the time we drifted, we watched the scenery change around us. The air was cool in the shade. We saw bunches of buoys and, later, a police boat with a few guys on board tending to some others. We never figured out what that was all about. There were some other boats on the river — mostly the big aluminum fishing boats that are so popular around here. The salmon are running and although we weren’t there at the best time of day for salmon fishing, some folks were apparently trying anyway. A few times we drifted so close to the east shore that the boat got caught in a calm spot and stopped drifting. One time, it even headed back upriver. Each time, I’d push the button to start the engine, shift into forward gear, and move back toward the middle of the flow.

I know none of this sounds very exciting and it wasn’t. But it was restful and pleasant. It was nice to get out with friends someplace other than one of our patios or decks. It was nice to be on the water, which is something I’ve always enjoyed.

Columbia River
Cyndi took this shot looking back up the Columbia toward the Wenatchee River confluence. It was a perfect day for boating.

Cyndi had to be back by 12:30 for an appointment that afternoon, so at 12:15, I started up the engine again and pointed us back toward the launch. By that time, we were less than a mile away and I kept to a slower speed, which is not like me at all. I had a little bit of trouble getting the boat pointed into the launch area with the current pushing us so hard past it; jet boats don’t steer well at slow speeds, especially when fighting wind or a current. I have the boat rigged so I can bring it into a dock by myself and was pleased that neither passenger tried to “help” when I didn’t need help. I pulled up next to the dock, tied off from my seat, and killed the engine. Smooth. After a year, I still had it!

Cyndi left right away and Teri and I took care of the boat and pups. I did a great job backing the trailer in (if I do say so myself) — the Jeep is a lot easier to back up without a roof and rear window. Soon I had the boat on the trailer and, when I pulled out slowly, the boat positioned itself properly between the two fenders. I parked it in the shade of a tree in the parking area and pulled everything out, closed up the top, and put the cover on it. Teri tracked down my pups who had wandered off to find a place to pee. We all climbed into the Jeep and headed home.

Pushing the Boat
It’s a lot easier to push the boat into the garage than back it in. Why work harder than you have to?

I dropped off Teri and her cooler at her house, then went home. It was already getting hot and I wanted the boat put away before it got too hot. I unhitched the boat in my big driveway apron, turned the Jeep around, and re-hitched it using the front tow ball on the Jeep. With a little maneuvering, I pushed the boat into the end garage bay where it lives, unhitched it again, and backed my Jeep into the garage bay at the other end.

When I checked my watch, I was very pleased to see that I’d been able to get the boat out of the water, drive it 12 miles to get home, and put it away in less than an hour.

I need to take it out more often.

Snowbirding 2020 Postcards: Paddling with Penny

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We take the boats out into the backwater.

Backwaters
Here’s a Google Maps image of the backwaters in the area. Keep in mind that not all of the channels actually go as far as they appear to on the map due to the growth of tall reeds and bamboo along the shore. We’re at the blue dot.

One of the things I like most about our campsite this year is that it’s right on one of the longest backwater channels off the Colorado River. Last year I’d camped near this site, which has its own boat ramp, and had launched my inflatable Hobie pedal/paddle kayak into it, so I was already familiar with the waterway. I knew that I could go at least two miles north with very little current in either direction. It was perfect for a casual afternoon out in the kayak.

My friend Janet, who is sharing the same site, also brought her fishing boat along. It’s an inflatable one-seat affair — I’ll have to get a picture for a future post — designed for fishing. We both inflated our boats Tuesday afternoon and launched them, despite the chill in the air and a pretty stiff wind from the north.

Penny came along, of course, I prepped the boat by securing her fleece blanket on the bow so she’d have some traction when she stood or sat there. I also put her life jacket on so I wouldn’t have to worry about her trying to swim if she fell in. Because the water had virtually no current, I didn’t bother tethering her to the boat. She’s only fallen in once and that was a long time ago in my old kayak. I didn’t expect her to fall in today, but if she did, I knew she wouldn’t get swept away.

We headed out around 2 PM, with me pedaling and Janet rowing against the breeze. Penny soon settled down on the bow, which is when I got this photo.

Tiny dog on bow of kayak
Penny the Tiny Dog settled down on the bow and remained in place for most of the trip.

We were out a lot longer than I think we expected to be. Janet’s boat goes fastest when she rows backwards, but that’s not always enjoyable so she kept switching. Also, her boat seemed to have a bit more trouble battling the wind than mine did. My boat, on the other hand, rode very well yesterday, with its speed wholly dependent on how fast I pedaled. It didn’t take much to get it moving at a decent clip. But I was cold when moving into the wind and I suspect I’ll suffer for that later this week.

We got nearly to the end — Janet wanted to see a fishing spot she calls “the walk in” from the water — and then turned around and headed back. Although we were looking forward to the wind at our backs, the wind didn’t cooperate. Instead, it died down. We didn’t get back until nearly 5 PM.

More pictures to come; we’ll be here for the next two weeks and I’m sure we’ll do a lot more boating.

My Inside Passage Cruise, Part 1: Bellingham to Nanaimo

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A summary, with photos, of my spring vacation.

Greetings, Cruisers!

If you’ve found this blog post while Googling for information about big cruise ships in the inside passage, I’m sorry to disappoint you. My cruise was on a 65-foot historic wooden boat. But don’t click away! Read a little more about it or at least look at the photos. And then consider a trip on the David B or another small ship like it instead of an impersonal floating city. It’ll be a trip you remember for the rest of your life.

The past nine or so months has been a crazy travel time for me. A 4-day trip to the Washington coast and Tacoma for a jewelry class in September. An 18-day trip to New York, Washington DC, and Vermont in September and October to visit family and friends and see the sights. A 3+-month trip to Arizona and California in December through March. And then a real vacation: 12 days aboard a small, historic ship called the David B as it cruised slowly up the Inside Passage from Bellingham, WA to Ketchikan, AK at the end of April and into May.

(A side note here: all this travel would not be possible if I were still married. Once again, I have to thank my wasband for freeing me from a boring life in his rut, waiting for him to get his shit together and start enjoying life. Thanks, honey!)

I’ve mentioned elsewhere why I booked Northwest Navigation‘s “Learn to Cruise – The Canadian Inside Passage to Alaska” trip late last year for this spring. It would be a learning experience, and I’ve come to realize that learning experiences are the best experiences because they stay with you the longest and can change your life.

And this trip did not disappoint me in the least. I learned a ton about navigation, small boat cruising, tidal impacts, salt water boat maintenance, customs requirements, and “camping” on the water — which is basically what we did. I see small boats like the David B and the Ranger Tug R-27 I’m considering for my own use to be seaworthy RVs — recreational vehicles for use on the water. Like a motorhome, a boat with living space is a vehicle you can use to travel from place to place with a degree of flexibility, privacy, and comfort. What makes the boat I want different from the David B (other than size: 65 feet vs. 27 feet) is that mine can be easily trailered from place to place giving it almost unlimited options for exploration in fresh and salt water. What I learned on the David B can easily be applied to any serious boating I do in the future.

Anyway, although I brought my old laptop with me on that trip with the idea of blogging daily, that didn’t happen. Who wants to bury their head in a computer when there’s so much going on outside and around you? So I’ll try to share some of my experiences now, along with photos and charts of where we went.

And don’t worry; I’ve split this into multiple parts. I hope you read them all. Lots of photos!

Getting to Bellingham

I won’t bore you with details of my pre-trip travel. The short version is that it involved a flight from Wenatchee to Seattle to Bellingham. I saw no reason to make the 4-hour drive to Bellingham when the trip wasn’t going to finish there. Instead, I bought plane tickets from Wenatchee to my starting point in Bellingham with return flights from my ending point in Ketchikan to Wenatchee.

I spent the night in an AirBnB room that was cheap and walking distance (barely) from the marina where I’d get the boat the next day. It was also the smallest room I’d ever slept in (which turned out to be good preparation for my cabin on the David B). I did a lot of walking on that Tuesday, making the trek down to Anthony’s restaurant where I ate oysters two ways and had wine and dessert — entirely too much food. I then walked along the marina until I found where the David B was parked before walking back to my lodging.

Bellingham Marina
Bellingham’s marina was absolutely gorgeous that late April day.

Day 1: Bellingham to San Juan Island

David B at the Dock
The David B when I arrived on Wednesday morning.

The next day, I took a Lyft to Bellingham’s art district with my giant rolling bag, had coffee in one restaurant, and breakfast in another. I then took a short walk, dragging the bag behind me, visiting a few antique stores to buy old sterling silver and silver plate tableware that I thought might be turned into nice rings. Finally, as the time to board got closer, I called another Lyft to take me the mile or so to the pier. If my bag wasn’t so damn big, I probably would have walked.

I was a half hour early but they let me board anyway. I wasn’t the first passenger to arrive. I met Sarah, who is in charge of reservations and other office stuff in Bellingham briefly before she left. Captain Jeffrey introduced himself and helped me wrestle my bag down the stairs to where the cabins were. There were five of them, including a crew cabin, and they were tiny. Mine had a queen sized bed, a head with toilet and sink, two portholes (one of which was in the head), and enough space for me to stand next to the bed. There was space under the bed for my bag, but about a third of it was occupied with manufactured logs, which I later learned were for the wood burning stove in the galley. They bring up a whole summer’s supply of logs and one of the other cabins was full of them. I had enough space, but it would have been challenging if I was a very large person or was traveling with a friend. Other cabins had different configurations and were better suited to couples. Mine was fine for me.

My Cabin
My cabin on the David B, as seen from the doorway with a panoramic photo. It was cosy!

Stairs The Head
The stairs were steep and winding. The first door at the bottom was a spacious bathroom (head) with shower that we shared. My tiny head was so small that when I sat on the toilet seat, I had to put my left arm on the sink counter.

I went back upstairs to the saloon (not salon, as we later learned) and met co-captain/cook Christine, who was Jeffrey’s wife. We chatted for a while in the saloon and I told them about the boat I wanted to buy and what I hoped to learn. (They must have thought I was nuts.) Then I learned about the David B and a little about our trip.

The Saloon
The saloon was our central gathering and lounging place on the David B. The snacks set out on that first afternoon should have warned me of the food to come.

Before long, I met my fellow passengers: Graeme from Australia and David and Leslie from Kettle Falls. Graeme was a wooden boat fan who had made the trip the centerpiece of a visit to the American northwest and Alaska. David and Leslie had just purchased a C-Dory 22 — coincidentally, the same boat my ex-friend at Lopez Island had that got me interested in small boat cruising two years before — and David was very interested in learning more about navigation since they’d just bought a home in Bellingham and I suspect he planned to move the boat there.

And that was it: only four passengers and two crew. I expected to be one of seven passengers, so this was a pleasant surprise.

We left port that afternoon.

I followed Captain Jeffrey down a ladder to the engine room and stood out of the way while he squirted oil into more places than I could count before doing a bunch of other things and then finally bringing the engine to life. I had questions but didn’t want to ask. He reminded me of a pilot preflighting an aircraft and if there’s one thing a serious pilot hates, it’s being interrupted doing a preflight. Then we both climbed back up and I told him I’d watch again, which I did the next morning.

Engine
The David B’s three-cylinder engine.

Backing the David B out of its slip was probably the most challenging job; those of us who wanted to help were given big bumpers to separate the boat from other boats or dock parts if we drifted too close to something. But Captain Jeffrey had it covered. Backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards, he inched the 65 feet of wooden boat out and into the space between the slips. Then we were on our way while various friends and family members waved us off from the dock.

Smoke Stack
The Washington Iron Works logo adorns the David B’s smokestack atop the ship. The boat was built in 1929 and had just celebrated its 90th birthday.

The day had started to cloud over and get a bit chilly, but there wasn’t much wind and the San Juan Islands area we wound through was only a bit choppy. (I had my Sea Bands on for a while, just in case.) We were all excited about starting off and, after a lunch of hearty chicken soup and salad, spent a lot of time out on the deck or in the pilot house watching the San Juan Islands drift by and chatting about the homes we saw on shore. The David B literally chugged along under the power of its 90-year-old 3 cylinder engine, averaging about 6 to 7 knots of speed. We saw a few other boats, including some large tankers and freighters when we crossed the Rosario Strait. And there were ferry boats, of course.

Pilot House
The pilot house is a neat compilation of early 20th century and 21st century technology. For example, the computer ran a navigation application that actually turned the big wooden steering wheel. We all spent a lot of time in this room, which had enough seating for all four passengers.

I’d prepared for the trip by downloading, installing, and subscribing to an iPad app called Time Zero (TZ) iBoat. Throughout the trip, I had tracking turned on so it kept track of our exact route. (Yes, I know I’m a geek.) Looking back at that track now, I can tell you that we passed south of Eliza, Lummi, and Sinclair Islands; between Obstruction and Cypress Island through Peavine Pass; between Orcas and Shaw Islands in Harney Channel; north of Crane Island; south of Jones Island; and then into Roche Harbor on San Juan Island. We passed the main harbor and wound through some channels before finally settling for the night at the mouth of Garrison Bay, which was named for nearby English Camp.

Day 1 on a Chart
Here’s the view of our first day’s track as it appeared zoom-to-view on my iPad.

Captain Jeffrey slowed the boat until it was almost stopped and Christine worked some equipment on the bow to drop one of the two large anchors with enough chain to hold us in place. Then he shut down the engine and the sound we’d been listening to for the past few hours stopped.

The Stove
A fully-functional replica wood-burning stove was the centerpiece of Christine’s galley.

By this time, Christine was cooking dinner in the amazing galley. I say “amazing” because she was using a wood-fired stove and I personally can’t imagine dealing with the intricacies of such a device after a lifetime of gas, electric, and microwave cooking power. Because the boat had a generator and inverter, she had all the usual appliances — mixer, blender, ice cream maker. There were several refrigerators and freezers. The only thing she didn’t have was a dishwasher, but we all took turns washing the dishes after meals.

Galley
David B’s galley.

Dining Area
Here’s where we sat for meals. Although Christine plated dinners, breakfast and lunch was usually family style.

We had baked salmon, asparagus, and black rice for dinner. The “bread course” — which became a sort of running joke because every meal had some kind of freshly baked bread — was sourdough. I ate more bread on that trip than I had eaten in the previous year but I simply couldn’t resist.

After dinner, we spent some time discussing the next day’s cruise, which would take us into Canada. Part of the trip was a passage through Dodd Narrows, a narrow space between Mudge and Vancouver Islands that was well known for dangerous eddies during tidal flows. We had to plan our arrival at slack tide, a narrow window when the eddies were minimized. If we arrived too early or late, we’d have to wait on the south side of the narrows. An early arrival wasn’t a big deal but a late one would have us waiting for hours until the next safe time to pass through. This was my first introduction to the concept of tidal currents and it came with a lesson on how to use various reference guides to calculate when slack tide would occur.

Not long afterward, we all turned in for the night. I quickly realized that the walls were paper thin and I could hear everything Leslie and David said to each other. They didn’t say anything embarrassing, but I made some noise so they knew how thin the walls were. I suspect they figured it out — probably from hearing me snore! — because they didn’t talk much on subsequent nights.

Day 2: Bellingham to Nanaimo

I woke up early, as I usually do, but with a very sore throat that got me very worried. I’ve been on two vacations where I was sick with a cold and it really sucks. If I was taken down with a cold on this trip, I’d be very upset.

I spent some time lounging in bed with my iPad, which is what I do at home, too. I still had Internet access — heck, we were in the San Juan Islands. Around 5:30, I heard movement upstairs and went up in my pajamas to see what was going on. Christine had stoked up the stove and made coffee. I hung around in the kitchen for a while with my coffee, then went down to put real clothes on. The other passengers appeared one by one. Christine made us a frittata with asparagus (leftover from the previous night), fruit, granola, and yogurt. (The last three would be at every breakfast.) She didn’t have any orange juice, but I did have an orange to start pumping Vitamin C into my system.

The day was beautiful and the water was glassy smooth. I launched my drone for the first time to get some aerial views of the boat. I was a little skittish about flying it over water after my Lopez Island crash, but I faced my fears. There was a big clear area on the roof of the saloon and that’s where I launched from. I did not rely on auto-land to bring it back.

David B at Garrison Bay
The David B at anchor in Garrison Bay.

Afterwards, I went back down into the engine room to get a narrated view of the engine start. I tweeted it.

Captain Jeffrey engaged the windlass and Christine started pulling up the anchor. Once it was stowed, we were ready to go. It was about 9 AM.

We left San Juan Island behind and headed out into Haro Strait. Somewhere northwest of Stuart Island, we crossed into Canada. I spent some time trying to find a good place to sit outside while cruising. The two lounge chairs above the pilot house were windy and chilly. I finally settled — at least for a while — into one of the back facing seats on the stern which was sheltered and in the sun.

It wasn’t long before I realized that the David B was cruising slowly because the David B cruises slow. The engine, which required oiling and other attention every two hours while it was running, was set to a six knot cruise speed. We were going to cruise over 700 nautical miles at 6 knots.

No wonder the trip took 12 days.

My notes for the second day mention a lot of boats on the water in Canada, including a Canadian Coast Guard boat, tug boats, and a tug boat pulling a barge of oddly loaded logs. I took some pictures, but not many. Everything was big and far away and didn’t look very impressive in photos.

Log Barge
I guess this is one way to load logs on a barge. What’s interesting to me is that in the Pacific Northwest they use chain to attach the tug to the barge and the chain dips way down into the water. This is very different from the barges I remember on the Hudson River when I was a kid; they used cables that were taught when the barge was being towed.

Dodd Narrows
The chart for Dodd Narrows. The red line is our path through it.

We arrived at Dodd Narrows about 30 minutes early. During our slow approach, we could see several boats waiting to enter the narrows, including a tugboat towing a bunch of floating logs tied together. Captain Jeffrey liked the way it looked so he didn’t wait and kept going. A sailboat under engine power pulled in behind us. There was current in there, but it wasn’t bad enough to cause any problems for us. I was glad there weren’t any boats coming through from the opposite direction.

We got into Nanaimo, a port city that’s commonly used by American on private boats to clear Customs into Canada, at about 4 PM. Captain Jeffrey went to shore to deal with the paperwork for himself, Christine, and their four passengers.

Day 2
Day 2’s track from San Juan Island to Nanaimo in British Columbia.

Canadian Club
When in Canada, drink Canadian Club.

I was told that there was a supermarket nearby, so I set off alone in search of orange juice and vitamin C tablets. I had $40 in Canadian money with me and the goal of not being identified as an American. I found the supermarket and accomplished my mission with a credit card so I could save the cash for someplace that didn’t take credit cards, also returning to the boat with a bottle of Canadian Club whiskey and a reusable shopping bag.

Christine made us another amazing dinner with fresh bread. She was feeding us very well. Too well, I think. I’d brought along some snacks in case I got hungry between meals but (1) I didn’t get hungry and (2) there were always snacks available (which is probably why I didn’t get hungry).

Nanaimo Sunset
Mother nature treated us to an amazing sunset.

Day 3: Nanaimo

The wind kicked up overnight and was blowing hard by 8 AM. Captain Jeffrey decided to delay departure by 2 hours. When that time had gone by, he delayed departure again. After lunch, he announced another delay.

I really couldn’t blame him. The wind was howling and the seas that we could see through a gap in the islands nearby was full of whitecaps. A big cargo ship anchored there drifted 90° or more at anchor. Even the seaplanes based near us at the harbor weren’t flying most of the day.

I spent most of the day reading and wasting time on Twitter. I wanted to go see Avengers Endgame at a theater in town, but the only showing I could see was at 3 PM and we might leave.

In the afternoon there was some excitement when a kayaker capsized about 30 feet from the boat. He couldn’t right the boat and he was hanging on in water that had to be icy cold. We got a line to throw to him while Christine called the coast guard. One of his companions paddled back and helped him to the dock in front of the boat. Fortunately, he’d been wearing a wet suit so he wasn’t that cold. But they went into a panic when they realized another kayaker was missing. They later found him back at their starting point at a nearby island; he’d turned around when he realized the seas were too rough for him.

At 4 PM, Captain Jeffrey announced that we’d be spending another night. He went ashore to pay for our space on the dock.

I walked into town with Leslie. We stopped at a tea shop where she had him make a custom blend of Earl Grey and lavender. We also went into a very nice gift shop. I would have visited more shops — including a chart shop Jeffrey had told us about — but I think Leslie was done so I walked back with her.

Back at the boat, we did more waiting. Then dinner. I think all of us were ready to move on.

The wind started to let up before bedtime.

(More to come…)