Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Friday, August 16, 2013
Winding Down Our Orcas Stay . . . For Now
Tomorrow we reverse our epic journey, returning to Seattle towing our boat, with the added complication that we need to wash and wax it before hauling it to the ferry line. We had planned to take it out of the water this afternoon, which would've made sense if we were interested in having an easier time completing all our tasks, but it's been so satisfyingly delicious to be out on the boat on the living sea that we decided to eke out one last ride tomorrow morning.
Part of what has been difficult about this trip is that we decided, about a month ago, to begin the process of actually moving to Orcas full-time. We're ready to leave the city and become true island dwellers. This new direction has made all the things we love about being here--adventure boating, clear and dark night skies, sawing down little trees, quirky neighbors--all the more poignant and difficult to leave. "I want to stay!" my inner child cries. "I want to have my house here NOW!"
Part of what has been delightful about this trip, however, is that we decided to begin the process of actually moving to Orcas full-time. We've had dinner with two different sets of neighbors and discussed contractors with each (amongst other small-community gossip); we've had our fields mowed by a long-time islander who is a pillar of the community and a real nice down-to-earth guy; and we've had the owner of Island Excavating come down to look at our land and discuss timing for digging. Paul says July 5th is generally a good date--dryness-wise--to start major excavation projects, so I'm marking my calendar for next summer.
Some friends came up on the early ferry this morning. Two came out with us to do a tour to James Island (no room on the dock), and ice cream (plus five gallons of gas) at Blakely. We're all going over to Friday Harbor for the county fair this afternoon, which means we have even less interest in packing things up tonight.
But we'll be back in September to meet with a contractor and saw some more trees, and in the foreseeable future, our dream house (or an affordable facsimile) will be built, and we'll be in the much-anticipated counterpoint position of CHOOSING to leave Orcas for other climes, instead of HAVING to.
See you soon, Gma!
xox, Calin
one-fingered on my phone
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Sundry Notes from the Island
Dear Gma,
I didn't write yesterday because it was a very full day, full of all sorts of island delights, and by the time we got home and cooked dinner and settled down for the evening, I was floating on a sea of Amelia and unable to maintain coherent thoughts long enough to set them to email.
But, because I didn't write yesterday, experiences and observations have been piling up, so I'll have to do some (albeit lengthy) bullet points to get back on track.
--I saw at least 8 shooting stars on the 12th. The first, which happened before full dark, was the most dramatic I've ever seen. It tore like a comet with a long tail, through the sky from south to southeast, with three different periods where it appeared that afterburners were trying to slow it down, with more sparks and embers added to the tail. It appeared to burn out somewhere near Bellingham. Ian had time to say, 3 times, "Look at that! Look at that! Look at that!!!"
--Yesterday morning we stopped by Island Excavating to pick up our West Sound Water Association payment, which I had erroneously addressed to box 572 instead of 571. I was surprised the PO didn't just deliver it correctly, but the woman who had received it, who works in the office at the excavators, opened it up to call me when she couldn't find the correct address for the water association. At the PO, the clerk stuck a piece of tape on the envelope and put it in the right box. He also sold me an envelope so that I could pay an enthusiastic young man who's been doing mulching and yard work for us, and whose address is General Delivery, Deer Harbor. "Put it in the Out of Town box in the lobby," said the clerk.
--We visited Sucia yesterday, The Gem of the San Juans. The two smallish docks had lots of space on them, much to our delight, as our boat, tender-size to some of the bigger yachts touring the San Juans, does not have a dinghy of its own. We ate hamburger sandwiches using our leftover patties from the night before and freshly-baked olive/rosemary rolls that we'd picked up at Rose's in Eastsound after visiting the PO. We then trekked to Echo Bay where we watched a mother otter and two pups snacking and playing. We then went on to Shallow Bay where we admired the shoreline sandstone caves. We hightailed it back to our boat when we spotted--and heard--several kayaks full of 12-year-old campers from Orkila, heading in to land for a campout.
--We boated home the long way around Orcas, to the east, admiring Mt Baker presiding over the Salish Sea. We turned southwest around 5pm and headed directly into the path of the sun. The already-elemental colors around us--of sea, sky, and island--distilled another click from several hues to just three. The wind ripples turned to oily quicksilver, slate-gray and shiny. The sun glints, in a glittering path running before us, exploded into white-hot chrome sequins, like a billion bits of potassium diving into the sea and igniting the waves. The sky, in comparison, darkened to indigo. Everything else disappeared. I was already in a meditative state, simply from being out in the air and on the water, with no one around but the porpoises. Following the sun path mesmerized me completely: instead of being blinded by the glare, I was overcome by awed admiration for the exuberant fireworks show.
--We ate a delicious dinner of cous cous with raisins and almonds, plus mint and rosemary from the land, and basil and tomatoes from home; plus Idaho lamb chops. We've been eating really well and inventively, and were thinking it's because we're working with limited ingredients. We're thinking of imposing some limits at home.
--Charlie has almost finished mowing; he'll probably be done tonight. The resident turkey vultures love mowing time, and at least a dozen were hanging out behind the Dacha yesterday morning when we returned from town, lunching on the tasty bits that didn't manage to escape the mower's blades.
--Dinner two nights ago with our northern neighbors (onion tart, peach custard), delicious! Dinner tonight with our across-the-street neighbors, at the Lopez Islander Resort, by boat (our treat; they were the provenance of the Dacha).
--Intense works going on outside right now, with Ian sawing thin plywood for some unknown purpose, on a work bench fashioned from our picnic table, a clamp, and a large block of pressure-treated wood.
--Time for breakfast: buckwheat/blueberry pancakes, with lots of butter and syrup!
xox, Calin
one-fingered on my phone
Monday, August 12, 2013
Sin City, Finished.
Just to clarify, Friday Harbor, with all its crowds and "fashion" and fancy people and rental car agency and dry cleaner, is called "Sin City" by the rest of the islanders. It does give one the impression of fast, loose, high stakes, and lavish living, if one has been spending one's days mostly surrounded by sheep.
xox
one-fingered on my phone
Wouldn't you know it, the one time hitting send was accidental, the message went through first try.
Resuming:
A trip to Friday Harbor on your own boat can be an anxiety-inducing experience for anyone. It has a huge, popular marina full of large, fancy boats. There's a ferry dock, and a customs dock. You have to use your VHF radio to get a slip assignment, while you're milling about at idle speed with ferries, fishermen, and big fancy boats also trying to get slip assignments.
We rarely use our radio, and it's scary to ask for something in such a public forum, particularly of you don't remember the proper protocol. What do we call ourselves? How do we hail the marina? Our name first, or their name? I, literally, almost had a panic attack after my successful call (gotta get this anxiety under control!).
We were directed to a transient dock (free for four hours), and we managed to make landfall without injuring ourselves or anyone's boat. Shaky with relief and shock at the crowds and crowds of tourists (as if everyone from yesterday's Orcas ferry mayhem had simply gone to San Juan), we made our self-conscious way to a picnic table and had some lunch.
In the event, King's Market did *not* have sheets, although Ian bought a nice Patagonia shirt on sale. The Ace Hardware *did* have sheets, even in the right size, but they were Pepto Pink and polyester. Instead, we bought a soap dish and a 3-pack of fly swatters. We returned to the boat via a Lopez Island Creamery agent, accepted help leaving our moorage from a kindly stranger, and high-tailed it back to tranquil, mild West Sound.
Spotted today: a harbor seal and pup, fish jumping.
xox, Calin
one-fingered on my phone
On Aug 12, 2013 6:33 PM, "Calin Taylor" <nilact@gmail.com> wrote:
Sin City, Continued.
Wouldn't you know it, the one time hitting send was accidental, the message went through first try.
Resuming:
A trip to Friday Harbor on your own boat can be an anxiety-inducing experience for anyone. It has a huge, popular marina full of large, fancy boats. There's a ferry dock, and a customs dock. You have to use your VHF radio to get a slip assignment, while you're milling about at idle speed with ferries, fishermen, and big fancy boats also trying to get slip assignments.
We rarely use our radio, and it's scary to ask for something in such a public forum, particularly of you don't remember the proper protocol. What do we call ourselves? How do we hail the marina? Our name first, or their name? I, literally, almost had a panic attack after my successful call (gotta get this anxiety under control!).
We were directed to a transient dock (free for four hours), and we managed to make landfall without injuring ourselves or anyone's boat. Shaky with relief and shock at the crowds and crowds of tourists (as if everyone from yesterday's Orcas ferry mayhem had simply gone to San Juan), we made our self-conscious way to a picnic table and had some lunch.
In the event, King's Market did *not* have sheets, although Ian bought a nice Patagonia shirt on sale. The Ace Hardware *did* have sheets, even in the right size, but they were Pepto Pink and polyester. Instead, we bought a soap dish and a 3-pack of fly swatters. We returned to the boat via a Lopez Island Creamery agent, accepted help leaving our moorage from a kindly stranger, and high-tailed it back to tranquil, mild West Sound.
Spotted today: a harbor seal and pup, fish jumping.
xox, Calin
one-fingered on my phone
Sin City
We have had some trouble working out the intricacies of a lengthy, restful night's sleep. I'm sure it's because the Dacha is too comfortable, rather than the other way around. If, to be up here on Orcas right now, I had to sleep in a tent on rocky ground with a punctured, 2/3-length Thermarest pad, as I have done in the past, I would be unhappy, but resigned. The Dacha loft, however, with its 5-inch foam mattress and 2-inch Memory Foam topper, is comparatively so much like sleeping in a real bed that one is disproportionately disappointed by how much better it could be.
One of the issues is size. Although we have a queen bed at home and this is only a full, the width is not really an issue. Counterintuitively, it seems at first (when one is perched six and a half feet above the floor), we actually use more of the width of the bed than we would at home. I sleep right up against the wall, and Ian has a guard rail.
The length of a full-sized bed is also less than a queen, however, plus our feet butt up against the 45° ceiling angle. I spend a lot of midnight hours dimly aware in my state of mostly-sleep that my size-eleven feet are growing numb against the end of the bed. Ian can angle himself very slightly so his feet lie under one of the mini-dormers, so he does better.
Another issue is temperature. We have a mattress cover on the bottom, then Ian's cotton flannel-lined Coleman sleeping bag unzipped on that, then my own much-frayed, but still quite warm, 25-year-old cotton flannel-lined Coleman sleeping bag unzipped on that. We have a couple Samburu blankets that we can use in the depths of winter after the Little Cod stove has burned out and the Dacha has cooled. We don't really have an opposite option for the summer, when the Dacha has heated up and the anticipated cooling, maritime cross-breeze between the Swedish air vent and the new porthole, has been a whisper rather than a wind.
The other night, we woke in the pitch dark bathed in sweat, our sleeping bags heavy with moisture. Panting, we threw off the top one (or rather, wedged it down into the triangle at our feet), and lay there, slowly evaporating, trying to come up with a solution.
"We have some kikoys," I remarked, thinking of the thin, cotton cloths we'd brought back from Kenya and which had many uses, including beach towels, wall hangings, and occasionally sheets.
Ian, always the gentleman in matters of the loft, found his headlamp and clambered down the ladder to dig them out.
The next night, which again threatened heat, I dug through our options. We have brought a lot of things, a lot of stuff, up to the island. We have said "Oh, wouldn't that be great in the Dacha!" about many things that we simply didn't want to get rid of. Very few of these things actually *have* been great in the Dacha; most have simply taken up precious space (and are currently stored in the tent Dan stayed in, waiting until we pack them back home next weekend).
When the best thing I could come up with was a shower curtain we'd thought might create a changing area, Ian suggested taking a trip to King's Market in Friday Harbor to see if they had an actual sheet set we could buy.
one-fingered on my phone
Perfect Afternoon
Me relaxing in the loft while someone else does the work :-)
one-fingered on my phone
Sunday, August 11, 2013
The Pleasures of Being In the Know
Dear Gma,
I woke up just before 7:00am this morning and pulled out my phone to check the webcam at the ferry dock here on Orcas. All 8 rows of the sizeable parking lot were full for the first boat, leaving at 7:15. Not all of those rows were going to fit on that boat. Except for in the dark, chill depths of winter, Sundays are busy for the Orcas-Anacortes ferry route. If you're a mere tourist, unaccustomed to the process, expect to miss the first boat you try for. And on summer Sundays, especially when there's been a 3-day music festival in Doe Bay, expect to miss the first several boats you try for. Five-hour waits are common; ten-hour waits are known to happen. Islanders rarely ever attempt to leave Orcas on a summer Sunday.
Mom and Marsh needed to get back home today, however, and they were taking Spackle with them, so we were as invested as them in their successful departure. Not wanting to still be on the road to Maple Valley in the wee smas, they hoped to get on the 12:05pm departure, which is a little like saying they hoped to win the Powerball jackpot.
On these few Superdeparture Sundays each summer, Washington State Ferries schedules virtually all its employees for overtime, most of whom are put to work not just Tetrising the boats, but Tetrising the islands as well. As previously mentioned, the 8 rows of cars that fit in the parking lot do not all fit on one ferry. The lucky waiters who DO fit into the lot can leave their cars and, if they are SUPER lucky and were visiting Islanders instead of just touring, after parking in line they can get in their children's car and go off to spend their waiting hours having a meal and taking a walk.
The unlucky ones who don't get packed into the lot are packed, an inch apart, into a couple lanes outside the toll booth, and then single file along the sides of the "highway" (Orcas's main road). Those folks have to stay with their cars, because as soon as the lot clears, they have to inch their way up the hill and into the holding pen. Not only do they not get breakfast and walks with kids; the ones on the road don't even get access to the cafes and gift shops clustered around Orcas Village, until several hours into their wait.
Mom and Marsh were SUPER lucky this morning. They won the Powerball jackpot.
Ian woke up around the same time I did today and pulled our top sleeping bag over us, as we had been very slightly too cold for much of the night, and we snuggled into the warmth and discussed our plan of attack for getting M, M, and S to the boat on time. I showed Ian the webcam picture. He immediately recognized the gravity of the image. We agreed to look at it again around 7:30, when the current boat would've loaded and the parking lot refilled with any off-screen waiters for the 8:50.
At 7:30, six of the eight lanes were full. There was the 8:50; the last two lanes, already at 7:30, were not going to make the boat. The next boat after 8:50 was the coveted 12:05. We called the parents and told them it was time to move their car--stop packing, don't drink any water, forget brushing your hair; just grab what you can and DRIVE.
In the event, because this is how life works out these days (regardless of any anxiety I may be feeling), Mom and Marsh arrived at the perfect time to get their car in line for the 12:05, and park it, and leave it. We picked them up in our car (it is a huge boon that we're only 4 miles from the dock) and brought them back to their inn for their 8:30 breakfast, to which Ian and I had kindly been invited. Afterwards, we had enough time back on the land for a leisurely trip to Erik's Nuts (all five of which, 3 chestnuts and 2 walnuts, are lush and healthy), a visit to the Copse, and a bit of a morning weed-whack (thanks, Marsh).
At 11:30 we drove back to the ferry landing, where the crowds, beginning more than a mile down the road, were like the crowds arriving at the Gorge for a Dave Matthews concert, except that the aura of breathless anticipation was replaced by hysterical disbelief.
I have to wait here HOW LONG?!?
xox, Calin
one-fingered on my phone
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Letters to Gma
Hi readers,
My 98-year-old grandmother is in rehab from a recent spine fracture. She has her iPad with her, so I'm sending her regular letters from Orcas. I thought I'd share with all my readers, Joel, too.
xox, Calin
one-fingered on my phone
Guests; Rains in the Night; Matia
Dear Gma,
Mom and Marsh arrived yesterday early afternoon, 24 hours after our arrival, having also managed to catch the 12:35 boat. Spackle greeted them with delirious, wagging joy--particularly when Mom started giving him crackers. *We* were all eating crackers; Spackle clearly needed to have crackers as well.
They admired Ian's handiwork of the morning, the most necessary part of which was yellow jacket eradication. We now have at least six traps, all teeming with swarms of dying killers. The numbers are unbelievable, and so vast that, as with the Passenger Pigeons in their heyday, we feel absolutely no compunction in killing as many as we can.
Ian's dad, Dan, arrived later in the afternoon from the 3:50 ferry, to a much less enthusiastic greeting from Spackle.
"WOOF," said Spackle firmly, alerting us that something out of the ordinary was going on. "WOOF. WOOF!", he said, and continued saying it, ignoring both our laughter and our admonishment. He woofed until helmeted Dan, riding his motor-assist bicycle up through the tall grass from the lane, got close enough for a contrite Spackle to sniff him and give him an apologetic lick on the hand. In our experience, dogs do not like wheeled people. Spackle has gotten used to bicycles in the city, but they are still a rare sight in a pasture.
All together, we decided to take an evening spin in the boat before looking for dinner, and all enjoyed our race out of West Sound and around Crane Island. We ended up eating--ravenously--at the "beach" (their seasonal outdoor seating area) at the Lower Tavern in Eastsound.
At 4am I awoke, and seconds after I checked the time, I heard the thunder that had been predicted. Seconds after that I heard rain pattering on the awning over the front door and on the extra awning material on a heap of junk on the ground under the porthole. I spared a moment to savor the fact that Dan was in the tent and I was under the roof, then I suddenly remember that I'd left the VHF radio on the boat, powered on, and plugged into the outlet, which draws from the boat's battery. I felt less smug about my roof.
In the event, I found this morning that the radio had not killed our boat battery (phew!). Ian had started a breakfast of bacon and eggs and coffee when I returned to our damp camp, radio in hand, and we listened dubiously to the weather report of scattered showers and light winds. We had hoped to go out to an island not reachable by ferry--one of the main attractions of having access to a boat in the San Juans.
Mom and Marsh arrived from the Blue Heron Inn where they also spent a night under a roof, and, undaunted by the occasional chill spattering, we all decided to make a lunch and hit the water.
Don't get me wrong, it started out cold. I, as skipper, like to have my face above the wind screen when I'm driving, and today pellets of icy water beat onto my cheeks and and ran across my glasses. A chill wind, only partly created by our speed, battered us. We pulled into the harbor at Jones Island to assess. The dock was full, the rain had almost ceased, and ignoring Dan, we decided to push on. By our next possible landing place at West Beach, around 10 minutes later, the clouds were lightening, the tide was slowing, and things were looking up.
Since a 19-foot ski boat travels comfortably at around 25 MPH (unlike the sailboats in which Ian's family cruised the San Juans when he was a child), Matia, off the north coast of Orcas, halfway around the island from our land, was suddenly considered to be a reasonable destination.
We headed there; we found a spot on the small dock; Spackle waded on the beach; we claimed a picnic table and brought out our lunch; we piddled in the composting toilet; the sun came out and suddenly, as northwesterners do, we were all complaining about the heat.
The trip back to West Sound, with the turn of the tide and the slight rising of the wind, was exhilarating rather than alarming, because the sun was out and the rips and eddies sparkled and glittered as the boat danced across them.
We saw porpoises, seals, bald eagles, and cormorants, and all agreed it had been a hugely successful outing.
And then we had naps.
xox, Calin
P.S. I remembered to take the radio off the boat today.
one-fingered on my phone
Friday, August 09, 2013
On the Island
Dear Gma,
We woke up in the middle of the night in our loft in the Dacha, once sweating, then once freezing. It's not exactly like camping on the ground . . . but it's definitely still like camping.
The middle of the night here in the summer is stunningly beautiful. At 3:30am you could see a hint of dawn to the north, but instead of erasing the stars, it seemed to enhance them. I'm sure there are more stars than there used to be. When we go to bed at 10 or 11 Scorpio, our sign, is scuttling across the sky to the south of us. In Seattle, the city blocks our southern sky. At 3:30am here, the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper jump out at you from the northern horizon, bold against the glittering blue-black. We've bought an inexpensive "child's first telescope", and I was tempted to set it up last night at 11pm, even though our day began at 6:15 in Seattle.
I had collected our boat trailer from Mom and Marsh's Wednesday night (Marsh had done hours of rehab on it: checking the tires, greasing joints, scraping away corrosion, using the old air tools to remove frozen-on nuts; Mom had spray-painted, in fluorescent pink paint, four bits of dowling that she'd zip-tied to the four corners of the trailer, with Mylar flags to warn other drivers of the low-slung, boat-free Shorelander.)
We slept fitfully and not long enough Wednesday night, and then hit the road around 8 am.
Using the Mini, Ian dropped me at the boat and helped me take off, then he raced back up to our house and collected the 4-Runner and the trailer, to meet me at Sunnyside boat launch. We're lucky to have a ramp so convenient to home. Just as I left the marina, still at idle speed, I saw something in the water. A bird? Floating trash? I couldn't identify it, and turned a little closer. It was a small otter, sucking in a long piece of lake weed as if it were spaghetti! A good omen at the beginning of our trip, for fun and play.
Aside from the anxiety I've been feeling lately about all the possible things that could go wrong with absolutely everything that I choose to do, everything worked perfectly. We managed to use the launch ramp before all the WWII-era landing crafts (repurposed as land-and-lake tour boats--kitschy, noisy, and dangerous on land because of their high, plow-like bows and attendant forward 20-foot blind spots [a cyclist was killed last year because the driver of the Duck simply couldn't see him]--and annoying at the public boat ramp because there is one every 7 minutes during the high season), and Ian drove our rig safely and steadily up I-5 through morning traffic.
Our original "plan" had been to leave our house to collect the boat at six and make the 10:20 sailing from Anacortes. In the event, we left the house at 8 and arrived at the ferry terminal just before 11, where we paid $260 for the privilege of being cars 9 and 10 in stand-by for the 12:35.
We took a stroll on the beach at the ferry terminal with Spackle--the tide was way out and he happily cooled his paws in rank, clingy sea-slime--then returned hopefully to our car at the announcement of the 12:35 boat.
We were stopped at first, numbers 1 through 8 having been allowed into the boat, but after some minutes and some masterful high-level Tetris by the ferry loaders, we were two of the last 3 cars allowed on. We were parked precariously (but well-chocked) on one of the upward ramps to the second floor.
After a painfully careful exit from the ferry (cars boarding on Lopez had come up the opposite ramp facing us and had to inch past us to go down, turn around, and drive off at Orcas), we at last arrived at our land, where we parked the boat at the road, hauled as many bags as we could carry down the hill, and collapsed for a 3-hour nap under the gentle breeze through our porthole.
Groggy but somewhat recovered, we did a half-hearted scrub of the lake weed pasted to the bottom of the boat, then launched it flawlessly at the unofficial West Sound log dump. I took several gloriously fast spins around the bay while Ian returned the car and trailer to the land, then I picked him up at the county dock, let him drive a couple spins, and we slid into the West Sound marina and moored for the night.
Dinner in town, back at the Dacha just after 10, sleeps, sweats, wakes, shivers, sleeps, and here we are: on VACATION!
xox, Calin
one-fingered on my phone