Poulsbo Rendezvous

The last weekend in September, we went to our first Classic Yacht Association (CYA) event – the annual Rendezvous in Poulsbo. The CYA is a group of old boat owners (Nancy pointed out to me that although many of the boat owners might indeed be old, she is the owner of an old boat!) – in order to be a full member your boat has to be built before 1941, so it is a group of beautiful, mostly wooden boats, some built as early as 1910, and ranging in length from 26 to over 100 feet. The burgee has a C in a circle, that looks a lot like the symbol for the Chicago Cubs, so we get a lot of folks on the water letting us know that they are Cubs fans too!

Poulsbo is a small town across the Sound from Seattle. Every year the town of Poulsbo invites the CYA to hold their rendezvous there – and gives us all free moorage for the weekend. We in return open our boats and allow people to come on board and tour our boats. In addition we have a pot-luck dinner on Saturday night and a breakfast on Sunday morning. It was a great opportunity to show off the Guillemot and get to see some of the other old boats.

We had joined the CYA earlier in the summer. To be more exact, we had sent in our application and money. We were told at the time that it sometime took months to approve an application (hey, it’s a volunteer organization). We were confident that we would be accepted, since the boat had been a member under the previous owner, so we have been flying the burgee all summer. At Poulsbo, the current Commodore told us that he had just approved our application. We still haven’t heard anything official, but are assuming that we have been officially approved, and are behaving like full members.

We left for the Rendezvous on Friday afternoon. As we got in line for the Locks, we saw another wooden boat – Peaceful, A Richardson which is moored almost across from us at Stimson’s Marina. We got to talking while we were waiting for the locks and found out that they were on their way to the Rendezvous as well. Here’s a shot of Peaceful on the way to the Rendezvous (The images are courtesy of Rick Etsel, another CYA member who keeps a website of photos of the fleet).

After we got through the locks, we crossed the Sound together. It was a gorgeous warm fall day and the crossing took a little over 2 hours. We got to the marina in Poulsbo and radioed for our assigned spot. We were put next to our friend Martine Roudier on the Zella C, who did not arrive until Saturday, and she was moored next to her husband Ken Meyer on his boat the Patamar.

After we got the Guillemot docked (with lots of help from fellow CYA members on the dock) and tied down the sun had set, so we went up into Poulsbo and had dinner with Ken and his daughter, who had joined him for the weekend.

Saturday was spent on the boat, showing a few folks through, and visiting as many of the other 32 classics as we could. It was great, since this was the first time we had met most of the members, even though we had seen many of the boats on the water during the Summer. We also realized that almost half of the boats were from Stimson’s Marina – a veritable love-fest of old wooden boats! For example, we met the owners of the Hi’Ilani which is moored right behind us on D Dock at Stimson’s. They said they had been watching us practice backing into our slip all summer, and they were glad that we were practicing, since it meant we weren’t likely to hit them!

Saturday night was the Potluck Dinner, which has apparently become somewhat of a competition over the years as to who can bring the most exotic/best food. We contributed a salad of heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, which appeared to be hit – it all vanished fairly quickly.

Sunday was a Potluck Breakfast, with myriad variations on Omelets, followed by more open house tours until Noon. By then the wind was picking up, so we left just after Noon.

After an uneventful crossing, we got back to the Locks along with at least 10 other CYA boats.

Here is a picture that Rick Etsel took of us as we were headed back to Seattle:

Rhinoceros Auklet

Here's a shot of a Rhinoceros Auklet that Nan got on our Labor Day Cruise off of Vashon Island.

Duirng breeding season, these guys have a large vertical horn on the top of their beak (thus the name). By now the horn has (mostly) gone for the year.

Labor Day Cruise

Last weekend, we went out Saturday through Monday.

We wanted to leave early Saturday, but by the time we got all the food and things we needed it was 10 am before we got to the wall (The wall is where you tie up to wait your turn to go through the Locks out to the Puget Sound). On nice Summer weekends, the wait can be several hours. This was not a nice weekend weatherwise - it rained most of the time, so we got through fairly quickly.

After we got out of the locks we cruised across the Sound to Bainbridge Island, and then along the coast of Bainbridge to Blake Island. Blake Island is a State Park in the Sound. We can see it from our house. We decided to tie up to one of the mooring buoys that the Park provides - we wanted to improve our mooring skills and use the dinghy. We picked a buoy on the sound side and then we rowed into the Park marina. It was a long row. We went ashore and had lunch and a nice hike. Blake Island is great - there are deer and lots of birds, and not a lot of people. The Argosy Cruise boat comes out twice a day to deliver tourists for a salmon dinner and Native American show and folks camp in the park, but otherwise it is quiet.

While we were hiking, we saw that quite a few boats were moored on the west side of the island, but only we were moored on the North side. That night when we went to bed, we discovered why - we spent the night rocking and rolling from a combination of wind, waves and wakes. We were on the side of the open Sound, and got a lot more movement then the other folks who were in a narrower passage.

It rained most of the night. The sound of the rain on the boat was great, but the constant rocking and rolling was not. It wasn't the most restful night, so we got up early, emptied the rainwater out of the dinghy, and headed down to Gig Harbor, a small port town on the Olympic Peninsula across from Tacoma.

It was pouring when we got there. We found a spot on the community dock, put on our foul weather gear and sloshed to the Tides Tavern for breakfast. It rained on and off for most of the day. When we got home the next day, we learned there had been a tornado on the mainland!Late in the afternoon, several boats came in and docked just in front of us (one rafted to the other). They played guitar (admittedly very well) and carried on into the night. It made us pine for the secluded rocking and rolling on the buoy!

The next morning we got up, and motored back to Seattle. We had a strong current behind us, so we made the entire trip in just under 3 hours. We spent an hour or so waiting at the locks, and got home around 5:00 pm.

It was a blast.

One More Docking Story

This weekend (Labor Day) we went first to Blake Island and then down to Gig Harbor. Lots of rain, but the seas were mostly calm and we had a blast.

When we came home, it was my turn to dock the boat. I had to abort my first pass, but came in perfectly on the second, backed her right up into the slip, gave her a little burst of forward to bring her to exactly the right spot and hopped off the boat to grab a line.

And realized I had left the boat in forward, and she was leaving the dock!

Fortunately, I was able to jump back on the boat and put her in neutral.

Meanwhile, Nan had been in the stern of the boat, preparing to put one of the stern dock lines on when suddenly she found herself trying to stop the motion of a 9 ton vessel. Guess who won. She gave it a valiant effort. One of her arms is now significantly longer than the other.

Another picture perfect ending ruined by stupidity.

Nan asked me, "Are you going to put this story on the blog?" Here it is: warts and all

Terror on the High Seas - part 2

I never thought I would say this, but we hired a Personal Trainer. And although we are not noticeably more buff, nor are we likely to grace the cover of People, we have become better boaters.

Bob Meng runs a service called On Water Training. He is an ex- airline pilot and licensed ship captain. He comes and spends 2 days on your boat and takes you through docking, systems management, maintenance and emergencies. It was incredibly worth it.

We started off with docking (See Terror on the High Seas, Part 1 for an introduction to our docking experiences). We learned to do things we didn't think possible with a single screw. First we pivoted the boat in the marina. Then we moved on to docking - and the first thing he did was have us aim directly at the dock and swing at the last minute, using alternating forward and reverse to swing the stern into the dock. This is wildly different that anything we had done before (coming in at an angle), so we were both fairly certain he was crazed, but damn - it worked perfectly. After we had practiced docking for a few hours, we had both broken out in sweats and our adrenals were the size of grapefruits, so we moved on to boat systems - we went over the boat from bow to stern. We learned an incredible amount about how things worked, and what to look for, etc. Bob tends to be a bit dogmatic (This is my way to do things, and I don't care what else you may have read, my way is the right way), but for the most part, his advice has been right on.

On our second day, we started with more docking, and then went out on Lake Washington. After going through the radar system with us, he suddenly put a pair of goggles over my face that had the top part opaqued, so that you could only look through the very bottom - enough to see your instruments and nothing else. It was very cool. We were in the middle of the lake in full sunlight, but we were effectively running in a thick fog. We really learned to use the radar, so that we knew where we were, and more importantly where the other boats were, and who was headed in our direction.

At the end of the day, we came back to the slip, and did the unthinkable - Nancy backed the Guillemot into her slip under power. It was beautiful, and she didn't hit anything!

Birding Extravagnaza

One of the main reasons we got the Guillemot was to search for birds on the water (commonly called Pelagic birding - although strictly speaking pelagic refers to the open ocean off shore, and we are mainly in Puget Sound). In any case there are birds who seldom if ever come on land, and the only way to see them is to be on the water. On our trip to Marrowstone last weekend, we saw lots of Pigeon Guillemots (our namesake bird), as well as several groups of Common Murres, just changing to their winter plumage. Nan got a nice shot of one:

But the best birds were the Jaegers.

On Saturday, as we came around Point-No-Point, we found a Parasitic Jaeger on the water. Although they occur with regularity off the coast during fall migration, it was the first time we had seen one in Washington. In fact, I have only seen them a handful of times, in places as far flung as Korea and Finland (one of their arctic breeding grounds). We got a good look and the bird flew off, but i spent the rest of the day going, "Oh Wow. A Parasitic Jaeger. How very cool!"

The next day in the same waters, we stopped to watch a mixed flock of Common Terns and Bonaparte's Gulls feeding. Nancy wanted pictures of the Terns fishing:



Even though the gulls are only slightly larger than the terns, they would often chase after them trying to get them to give up their fish. And that's when the Jaeger came through. Jaeger means hunter in German. and the Parasitic describes their hunting habits. They are (at least during migration) kleptoparasitic - they chase after smaller birds and force them to disgorge their fish. They are big and extremely agile.

The Jaeger came barreling through the flock of terns and gulls (themselves fast fliers) and chased them until they decided it made more sense to give up the fish than be harassed any more. This all happened at high speeds right over the boat. I think it's incredible that Nan manged to get any photographs. Then the Jaeger would go away, eat his prize and come back again. We watched 3 or 4 passes through the feeding flock, It was absolutely amazing.

Here's a new picture of the Guillemot - taken today on Lake Washington, with her new name emblazoned on the transom:

A Lovely Compliment

We wnet out on the salt (by ourselves)for the first time on Saturday (more on that later). As we were coming back through the Locks, the skipper of the boat next to us asked, "Is that a new boat made to look old, or a perfect old boat?" We told him it was an old boat. We have been beaming ever since.

Docking - Terror on the High Seas, Part 1

Docking a boat is exactly like parking a car, if….

1. Your car was 30 feet long
2. Your car didn’t have any brakes, and the only way to stop it was to give it gas in the opposite direction
3. When you spun the wheel, the back of the car moved in the opposite direction and the front followed
4. The turning point of the car was somewhere in the back seat

See they are exactly the same.

Oh to make it even more fun, when you stand at the wheel of the Guillemot, you cannot see the stern of the boat out the back of the wheelhouse, unless you walk out on the deck.
And you have to back the boat (blindly) into a slip that has at least 8 inches on each side.

We have been practicing docking for the last 2 weeks. I went out a couple of times with Cpt. Mark, the former owner of the Guillemot. I think, perhaps, he was a little concerned about handing his baby over to a novice like me, or perhaps he was having separation anxiety (he clearly loves the boat, probably more than the Nordic Tug he bought, but that’s another story). Anyway, after several sessions with Mark, I reached a point where, after numerous corrections and direction changes, I could get the boat close enough to the dock so that Nancy could jump off the boat and haul us into the slip. Well, most of the time; sometimes we had to abort and start over, since she seems unwilling to swim from the boat to the dock.

But it certainly is not a comfortable situation. Nancy has more experience than I with a single screw boat (she owned one in a former life); but all I can get out of her is that at some point she hit a dock, hard, in her boat. So she tends to visibly panic and hands me the wheel. I, on the other hand (and this probably has to do with that Y chromosome) will blunder on, safe in the belief that it will all work out in the end, and that I won’t crash the boat and all will be well.

I’m not sure if one approach is better than the other, but I do know that docking has been tense, and that we often go out and spend 2 hours doing docking approaches and nothing else, and by the end of it, both of us are soaked in sweat and have adrenals the size of grapefruits.

A long time ago in Maryland, Nancy hired a skipper who spent a day with her on her boat teaching her to dock. She felt much more confident after that. She found a trainer here in Seattle. After some grumbling on my part (“I don’t see why we need him. We can figure this out on our own, blah, blah, blah), I realized she was not going to be comfortable on the boat without help, and that training was a fantastic idea. Enter Capt. Bob.

Corrigendum

In the past several days, several European friends have pointed out that I "misremembered" the differences in the names of Guillemots and Murres in Europe and the United States/

In Europe they have Guillemots only. The Common Guillemot in Europe is the bird we call the Common Murre. The European Brünnich’s Guillemot is known in the States as the Thick Billed Murre. The Black Guillemot is the same on both sides of the pond. The Pigeon Guillemot, which is a common bird in the Pacific Northwest (and the bird after which we named the Guillemot), resembles the Black Guillemot, but is only found on the Pacific side, while the Black Guillemot is found on the Atlantic side (and the Arctic ocean shore of Alaska), but not in the Pacific Northwest.

Got it? If you are in Europe, think Guillemots. Here in the States, it could be either Guillemots or Murres.

To make all this sweeter, we were out on the Puget Sound this afternoon and saw 10 Common Murres - which of course were Guillemots to our friend Martine who is from France and was out with us today.

Thanks to Mark S and Martine R for reminding me about the differences between here and Europe.

The Joys of Reseach

A Group of Guillemots is collectively known as a "bazaar" or a "loomery" of guillemots. Perhaps we can name the dinghy the Bazaar?

What's In a Name?

What the Hell is a Guillemot anyway? And why name your boat after something that no one has ever heard of much less can pronounce?

To begin, it is considered bad luck to rename a boat. There are involved ceremonies, involving large amounts of alcohol (and perhaps a few virgins) to evade the bad luck (See: http://boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/rename.htm for a complete description). We thought that if the boat had always been called Edimir, we would have to keep the name. We discovered that she has been renamed by every owner, so we decided that the bad luck had already been used up. First she was Duchess, then Santa Paula, then Edimir. Edimir was the last owner's grandmother. , We decided we could continue the tradition and change the name.

Our last boat was the Lutra - Latin for the Genus of the river otter. We had thought about bird names then, but decided that Anas (duck) would surely be misunderstood, Haliaeetus (Bald Eagle) sounded like a disease, and Pandion (Osprey) didn't quite make it either. Boat names should have some snap and be easily understood over the radio!

While we were at the boat show on July 4, we saw a number of boats on which the dinghy had a name related to the boat - for example there was the Winifred, whose dinghy was "Lil Fred". We started thinking birds again, since we planned to use the boat in the winter to look at migrating waterfowl. We considered Scoter, since Surf Scoters are one of the common winter sea ducks, but Nancy vetoed that since she said it sounded too much like scrotum. For a while we considered Auk (the dinghy could be the Auklet) except that the Auk is extinct and that seemed like a bad omen! We seemed to be hovering around various seabirds that occur in the Pacific Northwest. Next was Murre since there is also a bird called a Murrelet (which would work for the dinghy). But Murre didn't strike the right tone for using on the radio.

And then we thought of Guillemot. The pigeon guillemot is a common seabird in the Puget Sound in the winter. It is an attractive black bird with bright white wing patches (in the winter) with garish red feet and mouth.

Called a pigeon guillemot because they resemble pigeons as they bob in the waves, the name probably comes from the French Guilliame, (meaning Little William) because of the call made by juvenile guillemots. To make things more confusing, in Europe, the birds that we call guillemots are known as Murres.

We didn't have a good name for the dinghy yet, but Guillemot sounded better each time we said it.

So when we went to register the boat, we officially changed her name - the Edimir is now officially the Guillemot. And we can spend the next few years explaining that it is the small black seabird, and not a native American chief or some kind of fishing gear

The Lutra is Sold

A day I thought would never arrive has come at last. We have sold the Lutra. I didn't want to say anything to anyone, since we have been left at the altar several times in the last couple of years, but we have finally sold the boat.

After the last potential buyer decided to go in "a different direction" one day before he was supposed to come and pick up the boat, I called a guy who had inquired the week before and seemed moderately interested.

I told him that we were "motivated sellers". This was before we had seen the Guillemot - I was just tired of having a boat sit in a barn in Maryland, when we were in Seattle.

Todd came back with a series of questions. By the time he was ready to make an offer, we had already bought the Guillemot, so we were now really motivated.

He eventually made an offer that was several thousand less than we were hoping for. We negotiated over the phone and ended up a thousand or so less than I wanted and a thousand more than he had initially offered.

At first I was upset that I couldn't get my price, but then I realized that I had gotten a great deal on the Guillemot, and he was getting a great deal on the Lutra, and that each of us was very happy with our new boat. Life is too short to bear grudges over money.

After Todd made his offer, he went down to Maryland and spent several hours inspecting the boat. I was afraid he was going to find issues and reopen the price discussion, but he came away satisfied. Our friend John Vail, who has been showing the boat for us, called and said, "You owe me big time. I just spent 2 hours at the farm while Todd and his buddy crawled all over the boat. He seemed really excited about the boat. I think you have a live one this time."

I called Todd. He said the boat needed some TLC, but that he still wanted to buy it. I asked him for a deposit to hold the boat, since he didn't want to come and pick it up for several weeks. He said he would send one. The next day he called back and said his wife didn't want him to send a deposit, but to pick the boat up earlier. I wasn't ecstatic about that since there still was a week or so before the pickup, but I decided to play it out.

Todd arrived today on schedule with a friend with a large SUV, and the Lutra left the barn for the last time.

John called me to say the check is in the mail!

Halleluah.

Falling in love all over again (A Boat Story)

When we moved to Seattle two years ago, we left our boat behind. The Lutra was a perfect boat for gunkholing in the Chesapeake, but because she had a flat bottom with little keel, we were concerned that she would not handle well in the wilder waters of the Puget Sound. So we decided to sell her, and left her in the barn on our farm in Maryland.

They say that the two best days of one’s life are the day you buy a boat and the day you sell it. We had trouble even getting on board with the sale part of the equation. First the economy tanked and boats became a luxury. We had an airline pilot make us an offer and then pull out because he was afraid that he was going to lose his job. Then another guy offered us $25,000 for the boat and I turned him down – I was insulted by the offer. A year passed with no serious offers. Then another offer appeared for $21,000. Nancy pointed out to me that if we had accepted the earlier offer of $25,000, we would have put the money into our savings, and by now it would have been worth less than $20,000, so that we were actually ahead of the game! I liked that logic. In any case, the guy really wanted the boat, and gave us $1,000 non-refundable deposit to hold the boat. Then 2 days before he was supposed to come and get it, he emailed me and said that he had fallen in love with a lady in Alaska, and that since he was moving there and the boat wasn’t right for the Alaskan waters, he was going to have to back out.

We were beginning to feel like that boat was going to be with us forever. I suggested to Nancy that perhaps I could be buried in the Lutra, in some sort of Neo-Viking ritual. She was unimpressed, as she often is with many of my wilder solutions.

Anyway, last week we were in Maryland, and went out to the farm to check on the boat. She was a little dusty, but looked great. And we got to talking. We came to the realization (sometimes for smart people, we can be fairly dense) that it might make sense to ship to boat to Seattle. After all it was a great boat for Lake Washington if not out on the sound. We checked and the shipping costs weren’t exorbitant. And somebody might see it and buy it from us. And we would be back on the water – an itch that nothing but a boat can satisfy. So it looked like we had a plan.
That same trip to Maryland, I went out on the Bay with our friends John and Ellyn. They have a nice 25 foot bowrider. But as we were cruising, I had an epiphany: I don’t like fiberglass boats. They are devoid of character, and all come (literally) from the same mold. My next boat was going to be wooden.

Last year we had seen a small steamboat on Lake Washington – it was maybe 15 feet and looked like the boat in the African Queen. I thought wouldn’t it be cool to own that boat. So I googled “Seattle Steam Boat for sale”. The little steam boat didn’t come up, but there was a 60 foot World War II boat available on Ebay. I was excited until I read a little further and realized that it was a total restoration project at best. The ad noted that they hoped to sell all the parts in one lot – I knew that this would be a lifetime project, so I passed. Anyway, Nancy would never go for a 60 foot boat.

But while I was searching for steamboats, I noticed that the Seattle Center for Wooden Boats was having their annual festival the coming weekend, so I mentioned to Nan, in all innocence, that it would be fun to go. Her mother was going to be in town, and I thought they might enjoy taking photographs of some of the classics at the show.

We went to the show early Saturday morning. Sure enough the little “African Queen” boat was there – it is actually named the Alien Queen. Alas, it was not for sale, but it was nice to see it.

There were lots of classic wooden boats on the piers, and some of them were for sale. The fourth boat we came across was the Edimir.

She was built in 1939. She has been extensively restored in the past 10 years. The last owners had put 70 to $80,000 in her – new planking, new diesel (it only has 678 hours), new cabin, radar, GPS chart plotter, refrigerator, stove, tanks, and on and on. She sleeps 4 people – 2 in the forward v-berth, and 2 in the main cabin. She has her own 9 foot sailing dingy. And did you notice – she looks a lot like the Lutra. Except that she has a deep keel, so she is suited to cruising in the inland waters in Puget Sound and the San Juans. The current owner was selling her because they had moved up to a Nordic Tug for more room. And as we had already learned, it is a terrible time to sell a boat, but a fantastic time to be buying – so the price was very reasonable.

I spent a half hour poring over the boat, talking to Steve Hansen, the listing agent who had brought the boat to the show, and salivating over all the amenities. I told Steve that I really wanted the boat, but I was going to have to convince Nancy – after all we still had the Lutra on the East Coast.

I caught up with Nan and her mother down the dock. Nancy could tell that I was in love from my glassy looking eyes and silly grin, but bless her; she wasn’t even jealous. She reminded me that we really needed to sell the Lutra first, since we didn’t need 2 boats. (Does anyone really need a boat)? We both agreed that this boat was perfect for us and Seattle. Nancy’s mother said that as soon as she saw me sitting at the wheel of the Edimir, she knew it was a perfect match. In addition, the boat came with the option of taking over the covered slip in Ballard, about 10 minutes from the house. The planets were aligning – this was looking like a great day to buy a boat. Nancy said that the Lutra had really been her choice – she had seen it at a show in Baltimore, and was smitten—and allowed as how the next boat choice should be mine. After a few minutes of discussion, we decided we should make an offer, so that no one would buy the boat out from under us.

I went back to the boat and told Steve that we were ready to make an offer. He said, “it didn’t take you long to convince your wife.” I told him that sometimes you get lucky. We made an offer, it was accepted, and we are now the proud owners of a 30 foot classic wooden trawler. Edimir was a family name from the prior owner – he has already changed the name and thus gotten the bad luck associated with a name change: We will call the boat the Guillemot. Look for us on the water.