Captain
Jim in the cockpit of his beautiful Crealock 34 "Miracle Girl", ready
to chow down on lunch. This was on Friday as we crossed the Strait of Juan de
Fuca heading from our morning stay at Port Townsend to our destination in the
San Juan Islands. Due to a British sailing tradition / superstition that says
a voyage should not start on a Friday, we actually left Seattle's Elliott Bay
Marina at 11:30 pm Thursday night and sailed / motored through most of the night
until Jim anchored us off of Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula. It was a
beautiful weekend, and an excellent excuse to take a Friday off work!
Miracle
Girl anchored at our destination: Mail Bay on the eastern shore of Waldron Island,
with Mt. Baker barely visible in the distance over Orcas Island. We used Miracle
Girl as our "roving hotel", sleeping and eating there between our trips
onto Waldron Island via dinghy.
Jim
standing in the fairy land wooded part of his 5 acre waterfront lot (named "Radix")
on Waldron Island. The small pond is fed by a spring that comes out of the ground
above, collects here, and then flows over the bank and down to the sandy beach
below. We worked on several back-to-basics projects, including placement of more
cattle fencing to help this area recover from trampling and cow plops. Jim has
lots of plans for his waterfront retreat: the long term cabin will likely go behind
the woods in the picture up by the well, and a path will wind from the pond down
to the sandy beach.
The
new well on Jim's land, looking west as the sun sets over the pasture portion
of his lot. We spent quite a bit of time the next day working with the friendly
neighbors on testing the quality and flow rate of his water, running overflow
water through piping, and hooking up a loud generator to the pump to get out the
initial post-drilling bad tasting stuff. The well water can be obtained by an
electric pump (if electricity is available, which has to be handled by each Waldron
property owner individually via solar or generator power), but right now the old-fashioned
hand pump action is the way to go!
Looking
behind Miracle Girl as we towed the dinghy in a leisurely under-power evening
circumnavigation of Waldron Island. We ended up on the west side here in Cowlitz
Bay, and actually turned off the motor to just let the boat drift with the currents
for a long time as we sat in the cockpit talking. We were visited by dall's porpoise
and seals as the sun set behind us, and then we completed the day's trip by heading
over to Orcas Island at night. While under way, we showered in the cockpit under
brilliant moonlight to wash off the dust from a day of working on Jim's land.
To
return to work Monday, I left Jim on Orcas Island that morning and was picked
up by a floatplane. It was a gorgeous clear blue sky day, and I had wonderful
views as we skimmed over the San Juan Islands, flew out into the Strait of Juan
de Fuca, and traveled south over Puget Sound. The Cascades were to my left, the
Olympics were to my right, and Seattle was straight ahead with Mt. Rainier looming
large behind it. We circled over the city and the Space Needle, and then came
in for a landing on Lake Union. The pilot let me off on a dock, and it was only
a couple blocks walk to work at Tangis. Gotta love the commute!
