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The 2022 Ranger Tugs/Cutwater Rendezvous

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

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

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

New Friends

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

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

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

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

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


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

The Others

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


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


The Home Screen of the Rendezvous app.

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

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


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

The Seminars

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

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

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

Sponsor Tables

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

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

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

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

Social Activities


Cindy took this photo of me and my girls sitting in front of my boat. The “Do It Now” sign was the only way I could provide the name of my boat for people who might be looking for it; I still did not have its name anywhere on it.

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

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

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

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


Roche Harbor Resort at night.


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

One-on-One Training

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

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

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

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

Departure Day

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

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

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


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

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

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


I grilled up some halibut for dinner and ate it in the window seat facing out back.

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


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

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


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

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

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.