March 21, 2009

Winter settles in like an unwanted visitor – a friend of a friend who monopolizes all your attention.  There is no polite way out.  Just sit and listen to the same rainy, snowy story – over and over.  As Millie’s crew resigns themselves to this fate, dear friends call with an offer that can’t be refused.  Kurt and Peggy are going sailing in the British Virgin Islands and have room for two more – please come.  They ask so nicely.  It would be impolite to refuse.

Tortola is the largest of the BVI’s and is where most charter boats are located.  The taxi driver takes the scenic route down the island’s spine to the first night’s hotel.  Roads resemble roller-coaster rides, heading straight up inclines reminiscent of car chase scenes from movies set in San Francisco.  He tells of their highway planning/engineering system.

Step one is to release a goat to see where it goes.  Following this is a succession of a dog, a chicken, a boy, a man, and finally a bulldozer. 

Over time, routes with grand vistas are opened for travel by cars with good transmissions.

Millie, secured to her dock in Friday Harbor with doubled lines, is pelted by snow and lashed with a wet 30 mile-per-hour winter wind while her crew sails in shirt sleeves with a lovely 30 mile-per-hour tradewind breeze.  What a difference 85 degrees and sunny skies make.

Skipper Kurt is the vacationing sailor’s version of a steely-eyed-missile-man, always on the lookout for a good time.

Trellis Bay is an anchorage on the east end of Tortola famous for its full-moon festival.  Though still two weeks away, it is easy to imagine the blazing of sculpted metal fire boxes surrounded by water and the carnival atmosphere as people on 5-foot stilts race on the beach. 

For now, the cats and chickens control the speed of activity and seem to be interested in a more leisurely pace.

This area is the source of much sailing lore.  Across the channel from Tortola is the small islet where three pirates were put ashore by Captain Blackbeard with but one bottle of rum to share between them.  They were to contemplate the benefits of sharing their buried treasure with the good Captain and reach a decision by the time he came back to pick them up.  Not being chaps known for following directions and possibly aided by the contents of their bottle, they looked at the distance separating their islet from the much larger island.  The more they drank, the closer it looked until finally convinced the swim would be nothing.  Thus the derivation of the popular song, “Three Men Dead on Dead Man’s Chest, Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum.” 

These same waters are purported to be the inspiration for the book Treasure Island and the origin of two of the letters from the pirate alphabet – Arrgh and Aye.

Millie’s crew visited two areas on Virgin Gorda.  One is known as The Baths and is the eroded remnants of large rocks on the shoreline.  The namesake comes from the water filled grottos found beneath boulders as the trail snakes along.

Normally a crowded tourist spot with cruise ships hiring buses for their passengers, by arriving early in the morning, our crew has the place to themselves – only sharing with the sentinel-like crabs.

The other spot visited is the Bitter End Yacht Club – really more a collection of hotels and restaurants than a yacht club but it looks classy printed on a t-shirt. 

The major draw for Millie’s crew is the television in the open air bar.  Yes, this Inauguration Day is not to be missed.  A driver informed Alayne, “Don’t call for a taxi during the inauguration of Barack Obama.  There won’t be one available in all the BVI,” and indeed everyone seemed to stop and watch -

everyone except the red hyacinth eating iguana (only red please – no other color – no other variety) and the many pelicans. 

“A funny bird is the pelican.  His beak can hold more than his belly can.”

The warm temperature and the tradewinds of the Caribbean do attract a variety of sailors and sailboats.  Though Millie’s crew couldn’t afford a replacement winch drum on this boat, seeing a 100-foot sailboat beating into the harbor is an impressive sight.

Spending a couple weeks with Peggy a Kurt is a reminder of why they have come to feel like family.  But, if Millie is to sail north this spring, work must be done and since Alayne isn’t inclined to do it herself, she grabs Rich by the ear lobe and returns him to the land of rain and snow.

Few sailors are satisfied with everything on their boat.  There are always things that would make life better at sea.  This year’s desire involves solar panels and finally Captain Rich is able to convince the Admiral it’s a good idea – that or she agrees just to shut him up.  In either case, he scurries around designing, shopping, and installing.  There is no way to make an attractive installation of solar panels.  It is a search for the least ugly method.  In the end, they become attached and many people think they have always been there, so they must look natural.  Look – they are making 8 amps of power – how exciting.

In preparation for leaving Friday Harbor, great gifts are bestowed on Millie’s crew.  Willi, the mountain climber, sailor, and a good friend, visits from Alaska for a couple days.  Being with him is always a gift. 

Meghan and Brian hear that Rich is planning to buy a ukulele and since they have a spare one, they donate it in hopes that he will play and not sing.

Though she has a much better singing voice, Alayne decides she wants something to play also.  Her choice is a Kalimba.  Both instruments look classy hanging on the bulkhead and have transformed the crew into the traveling musicians. 

Diane and Dean know that Alayne loves fresh herbs and share some of their onboard garden to get her started.

Swiss sailing friends, Yvonne and Bruno, share the story of their boat’s name – Momo.  It comes from a fairy tale that Millie’s crew has not heard.  Momo is the name of a little girl in a town that is visited by a gray man who steals all the time.  Nobody has time to play with the children – only time for work.  Momo tricks the gray man and gets the time back.  Now, for all the years spent working, their sailing Momo gives Yvonne and Bruno the time to play again.

On this first full day of spring, Millie’s crew share the anniversary of being together 25 years – not married for 25 - that happens next spring.  Yet, together for a quarter century is a pretty big thing.  The Captain can think of no one he would rather have time to play with than this Admiral.

Inuit of the Canadian Arctic stack stones to resemble people as a sign in the vast wilderness.  These statues, called Inukok, indicate that mankind has been there.  On a small islet, not far across the U.S. border, two Inukok and one seagull welcome Millie J back to the North.

The wind and warm sun make the day’s voyage wonderful – even if the breeze has continued its tradition of being right on Millie’s nose.  This is not a problem for retired people, but just adds to the delight and to the length of the sailing day as the boat tacks back-and-forth up Trincomali Channel.

A string of small islands bisect the channel - the most southern being Wallace Island.  Last June, the crew stuck their noses into one of the coves only to find it overflowing with visiting boats resulting in a hasty retreat and hoping for better luck in the future.  Conover Cove is now nearly empty and as beautiful as described.

Soon a landing party is dispatched with Alayne seeking one of the few varieties of spring mushroom – the morel.  (Millie hopes she is not de-morel-ized if she doesn’t find any.)

The extreme southern end of the island is named Panther Point so great care is taken to watch for any signs of the great cats.  This tip of land, however, is named after the sailing ship being towed down the channel in January of 1874 with a load of coal from Naniamo bound for San Francisco.  A gale blew in and the tow line was cut leaving the Panther to arrive at this point – her final resting spot.

When viewing wilderness, one assumes it is being viewed for nearly the first time.  It’s easy to forget a great deal of history occurred in remote settings – just not as well documented as in big cities.  A retired tow-boat captain, sharing the park with Millie, tells of the great friendship between the cove’s namesake and the actress Marilyn Monroe.  She visited the island extensively, staying in one of the small cabins.

Another building, co-opted by visiting boaters, records their presence.  Driftwood, bearing their boats’ names either carved or painted, hangs from all available spots.  Some are familiar and Millie’s crew wonders if these signs were left by their friends or by others with the same name.

The pub in Garden Bay is a welcome sight.  It is the place where the crew watched the Pender Harbor Jazz Festival a year-and-a-half ago.  Alayne painted an exceptional watercolor of a festival performance and decides to donate it to the pub’s wall space.  The owner is thrilled.  He takes great pride in the caliber of performer his little place brings.

The weather turns stormy with heavy rain and 40-knot gusts of wind.  Even though the anchor holding ability of the harbor’s bottom in front of the pub is renowned for not being the best, Millie lets out extra anchor chain and attaches a newly acquired chunk of lead to the rode.  Called the Kiwi Anchor Buddy, it increases the holding power of the anchor and Millie rides the storm comfortably and in one place all night.

One of the other boats in the harbor has a more restless night and a stormy dawn finds them motoring around the anchorage trying to reset their anchor after dragging through-out the night.  Rich is suspicious, seeing them motor with their anchor invisible beneath the water’s surface, but assumes it is just slightly below – out of sight.  On their third pass by Millie’s bow, it is painfully obvious their anchor is considerably lower than the surface as they snag and become entangled with Millie’s chain.  Convinced they couldn’t possible be attached and are simply not moving because of the wind’s force, they add more power – slowly dragging Millie with them.

Finally, convincing them to stop, they drift along side, are tied to Millie, and the process of untangling their anchor begun.  It is volunteered that this is the first time they have ever anchored.
            “Say, how much chain do you let out?” the dragger asks.
            “Normally, five times the water depth,” responds Captain Rich, “but with the strong winds, it’s seven times.”
            “That much, huh,” and with that, when their anchor is free and secured (and visible on deck), they go to the far side of the anchorage, where Admiral Alayne assures them they will find superior bottom conditions for holding.  With Millie re-anchored, once again calm is restored to the stormy anchorage.

The adage states: Cruising is nothing more than performing boat maintenance in exotic locations.  Of course there are filters to change for fuel and oil at various time intervals and there is always something that needs cleaned (the gray-water sump builds up a gelatinous crud that is pretty disgusting to deal with), but the unexpected failures are the most tiresome.

This year’s trip begins with a speed-meter that acts up.  It starts the day reading the correct speed then the numbers wind down to zero – occasionally bouncing up to one or two knots before retreating once again to zero.  Boat speed is measured by a little water-wheel looking thing that sticks out the bottom of the boat’s hull, which connects by a bundle of wires to the display unit in the cockpit.  Diagnosis involves removing the wheel assembly and checking that a piece of seaweed or some barnacley sea-critter hasn’t wedged itself against the spinner.  There is a plug to stop the ocean from sinking the boat while the transducer is removed for inspection but Alayne can never watch the procedure as a little geyser always erupts during the exchange.

Everything cleaned and spinning freely, the part is re-installed.  The boat is run to see if it is fixed – not yet.  Maybe a mussel has grown just forward of the transducer and as the boat moves forward, the wheel bumps it.  It has happened on other boats.  To clean this area of the hull with a brush-on-a-pole requires putting the plug in place of the transducer again.  (It would be a shame to bash the speed-wheel with the brush and really break it.)  The job is completed – still not working.

Next on the diagnosis list, check the wire’s connection to the display unit.  Corrosion in electrical components is common in such a moist environment.  Remove the wires, use sand paper, and then spray electrical contact cleaner on the wire and the display terminals.  Reinstall the wires and run the boat to see if now it is repaired – not any better.

Factory tech-support is now required.  Since the cell phone coverage is limited and when available, the cost in a different country jumps to seventy-nine cents a minute, a pay phone is in order.  Public phones used to be common.  Now, between phones damaged by vandals trying to get coins and units removed by the phone company, it’s a 2 ½ mile walk to find a phone to learn the procedure to use a volt-ohm meter to test the transducer’s health – it is toast.

Of course, the chandlery is on the far side of town – 3 miles to find they do not carry the brand of speed-meter sought but, there is another store on the north side of town, just past where Millie is currently moored, that carries them.  (It is not a big deal.  Walking is all part of the lifestyle chosen.  It is just somehow comic as it plays out in life.  Rich has a past work-mate who claims this is proof there is a God and he has a sense of humor.)  3 ¼ miles to the north they have one in stock but it has a different part number because it is an updated version.  It looks almost the same so it is purchased.  Before installation, however, it’s 2 ¾ miles back to the payphone to call tech-support – just to be sure.  They say their manual says it should work and to their book’s credit, it does.

For years the crew has read about narrow passages with rapids creating “whirlpools of death,” although never encountering them by carefully timing transit to slack water between the tidal surges.  This year a stop at Egmont, British Columbia will position the crew for a 3 mile walk to the Sechelt Narrows to see the Skookumchuck Rapids.  Unfortunately, this is a different day which means a new maintenance issue.  This one is more easily diagnosed since the alternator’s external regulator let out smoke to show its displeasure.  Sometimes maintenance is simply a process of following your nose.

Fortunately, this town of 350 people does have a post office so a new regulator is ordered and shipped priority – express - non-stop – quick. 

Now there is time to view the water’s theatrics.

Sechelt Narrows has two areas that create rapids about ¼ mile apart.  The ebb tide, at the northern end, creates thirty-foot diameter whirlpools with four-foot height difference between the outer water and the center of the vortex.  It looks like the biggest-toilet-ever being flushed.

Each whirlpool is carried north by the current to dissipate in a boiling mass – replaced by a new one being spawned as water spins off the tip of a small island.  If the small island is thought of as the African Continent, the scene becomes analogous to hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean as small swirling pockets of air are spun off – some into small swirling air masses that shrink and are absorbed while others build into mighty storms that threaten land.  It is mesmerizing to stand on the shore and watch this microcosm created out of water.

When the tide floods, it meets different under-water topography and does not form whirlpools.  Instead, it creates large standing waves.  Each one stationary, relative to the shore, with the look of the flow of a mighty river as flat water accelerates into the first wave and changes into a multitude of shapes before it proceeds to the south.

At the very moment the power of this stream finally reinforces the lesson of waiting for slack water before transiting big rapids, northbound against the current comes an eighty-foot motorized scow.  Hugging the shore, out of the majority of the 13-knot current, she waits until the last moment then under full throttle, slowly cuts diagonally across the rapid’s flow until she claws her way into the relative calm of the far shore.  The lesson now seems to be: Time your transit for slack water or carry two big engines and someone with local knowledge who knows when to zig and when to zag.

A week later, the voltage regulator arrives after spending five days at the border in customs, where it is decided it isn’t a bomb, and that some more money should be paid.  (God bless NAFTA.)  It installs without argument and works correctly, but the alternator quickly overheats.  As it turns out, it too was damaged and had let some smoke out.

Millie’s second week in Egmont is wonderful.  There is no power on the dock so this maintenance stop-over is the first real test for the solar panels.  On rainy days there is not enough extra electricity to run the watermaker – there is no fresh water on the dock either, but on sunny days there is enough power for necessities and luxuries with power to spare.

The local residents are great.  One local man brings the crew 3-dozen freshly dug little-neck clams.  Fellow dock-mates, Heather and Ron, give a dozen large prawns - a very nice welcoming committee.

Friday Harbor friends, Dean and Diane, on their way to Princess Louisa Inlet, stop to visit Millie for a day.  Dean, the consummate hunter-gatherer, pokes along the shore with Rich until they come home with a couple limits of oysters.

It is a joint effort: Dean uses his long arm to reach into the shallows for dinner while Rich fights off the black bear along the shore, who thinks Dean looks like his dinner.

The local pub has Wi-Fi so checking e-mail is a great excuse for an occasional beer.  The hockey play-offs are on television non-stop.  The Provincial election is early next month and Ron thinks Millie’s crew should get registered to vote, being here long enough to be residents.  But the alternator is sure to show up before then – isn’t it?

Bill Bryson’s book, In A Sunburned Country, discusses the metaphysical conundrum of flying from California to Australia.  Paraphrasing, the argument goes like this: you leave Los Angeles on Wednesday, April 22 for a fourteen hour flight and arrive in Sydney on Friday, April 24.  For the entirety of Thursday, April 23, you did not exist – yet you depart the airplane with all

your atoms reassembled, no worse for wear.  He acknowledges that on the return flight this is somehow balanced out by arriving in Los Angeles before you actually left Sydney, but for those who stay in Australia, that day is never regained.

Millie’s crew has a theory which balances the time-equilibrium equation.  Simply stated, all those missing days are bestowed on people needing repair parts in remote locations.  Waiting for a replacement alternator, Millie’s crew stoically shoulders the burden of those lost days that would cause lesser crews to break.  Except for that occasional neck twitch suffered by the captain, this crew survives unscathed.

Computers, when connected to the internet, are a window to the world.  After walking ¾-mile to the pub (not for the reason you might be thinking but because it is Egmont’s free internet access site, although it does occasionally trick the crew into partaking of its wares) shipped packages can be tracked.  Like elk with radio collars, the daily shipment

migration is recorded.  The repair part sent last week, a voltage regulator, was shipped with the joint cooperation of the US Post Office and Canada Post.  It arrived as advertised but after a four day delay at the border while customs determined the package was not a bomb and calculated what additional charges could be added for tax and handling.

This shipment, the crew contacted a private carrier to avoid this delay by contracting for a broker through the shipping company and prepaying these fees.  The alternator would fly across the border like the big brown truck had wings – and it did.  Sipping tea in the pub, the admiral fixated on the computer screen.  She watched as the international boundary was cleared in less than a day.  The box was handed-off to the Canadian shipping company, Purolator, like a football quarterback slips the pigskin to the running-back.  It slowed for the weekend but with it arriving in Sechelt, an hours drive away, it looked like it would cross the goal-line a day ahead of schedule – then it didn’t, nor on the scheduled day, nor on the day after.  The running-back had fumbled the ball and somehow the package went back to Vancouver.

UPS didn’t know why and Purolator was not talking except to state, “Egmont is a remote location,” which the Purolator driver, who delivers to Egmont five days a week, thought was an odd statement.  The admiral’s beverage changed from tea to, let us say, strong tea as UPS sent e-mails to Purolator with assurances that they would respond to the crew, but they didn’t.

As so often happens, it is not following procedure that works – it is knowing somebody.  One of the several nice people at UPS’s New Brunswick call center took particular pity on Millie’s crew.  She spoke with her supervisor who had a personal friend who worked for Purolator in Vancouver.  After they made contact, the alternator began racing toward Egmont, once again scheduled for delivery, albeit two weeks delayed.

A popular boating magazine’s motto is: The difference between an ordeal and an adventure is your attitude.  Call them delusional, the crew is thoroughly enjoying their prolonged adventure in this end-of-the-road Egmont.  Head-of-the-dock general store owners, Doug and Vicky, offer their business as a shipping address and a phone contact.  Post Mistress Betty does her best to find the package by personally calling her Purolator contacts in Sechelt.

Alayne keeps the good will flowing by baking a batch of Millie’s namesake’s cinnamon rolls.  Complete strangers walk up and ask if the part is in yet, perhaps hoping there is a pastry left.  Dock mates, Ron and Heather, drive the crew to Pender Harbor, the “big town,” to re-provision fresh produce.  Heather bakes a loaf of bread for Millie.  Alayne makes cookies for them.  Ron and Rich keep their mouths shut, except to reap the benefits of this neighborliness.  Heather is fighting cancer and Ron is very worried and caring yet their laughter, whether they are talking to passers-by or to each other, echoes like sweet music through the cove.

They are also great story tellers.  Ron, raised in Egmont, tells of his friend Bruce – an elderly native man who lives just around the point towards the rapids.  Bruce operated a scow and fished for herring.  After a haul, he would partially flood his boat, release the fish inside, and then sell them as bait to the fishing fleet.  Apparently, herring are filthy fish and after awhile scum and algae covered the inside of the scow.  Bruce’s solution was to catch a mess of crab and release them into the messy boat.  Being bottom scavengers, they quickly took care of the mess and Bruce could eat crab for weeks.

Ron used to commercial fish with Leonard, brother to Bruce and husband to Post Mistress Betty.  Leonard contracted with the Department of Fisheries to make test sets with his nets to see what kind and what numbers of fish were running in the channel.  They made the haul, counted the fish, and then they were allowed to keep them.  Ron said they usually got a few but one time they made a haul that filled the boat.  He remembered coming to the town dock with Leonard passing out fish to everyone in town.  All Egmont smelled of salmon that night as fish were being smoked and canned.

Leonard, now 76, was retired a few weeks ago from the job he had running the water taxi between town and the gravel pit across the narrows – he was too old.  Today he is back running a boat for a different company making his first run with a magazine photographer wanting photos of Princess Louisa Inlet – proving you are too old when you say you are too old.

Each summer 80,000 people come to see or play in the rapids with their kayaks and the Back Eddy Pub is gearing up to feed and water them.  Countries in the British Commonwealth participate in a wonderful program that lets citizens easily get work visas – thus encouraging travel and a greater understanding of different cultures.  Two of the Back Eddy staff are from New Zealand, another has work experience in Australia, and a fourth has lived in Korea (having absolutely nothing to do with this program but being worldly non-the-less.)

Emily, from Wellington, New Zealand, is a sailor.  The parents of her past boyfriend are good friends with sailing icons Lin and Larry Pardey.  When the Pardey’s needed crew for a local race, Emily was only too happy to volunteer and sure enough, they won.  First prize was a four day sail on a Volvo Ocean Race boat (the round-the-world race that is currently in Boston.)  Lin and Larry passed the prize on to Emily – who loved it.  Four storm-tossed days left her wanting more.

For those interested, particularly friend Dean, the hamburger of unusual size is back on the Back Eddy’s menu this spring after taking the winter off.  It seems none of the locals will eat such a big burger, just tourists.  Welcome back Skookum Burger and the men who eat them.

Outside the Egmont Heritage Center, among the display of rusting aged logging equipment, and resting under a white tarp tent, is a cedar log about 3-feet in diameter.  Eventually to be erected at the museum, it is slowly being transformed into a totem pole by self-taught native artist, Arnold “Kwatamus” Jones.  (Millie’s crew didn’t know Arnold by name until they saw his photo by the totem then recognizing him as one of the unknowns who knew all about

Millie’s woes and asked, “Is your part in yet?”)  Now the crew learns Arnold has carved several totems.  When working on this project, school children are brought to watch and learn as a part of their heritage is passed on.

Inside, the museum is filled with, in the words of the staff, wonderful old junk.  In a part of the world with no garbage collection or even a road until 1956, much of what was collected for the museum really did start as junk that was rescued from piles in the woods behind houses.  The displays tell a story of local fishing and logging – the mainstay of coastal existence.

The day dawns gray and rainy yet a catchy tune from the play Music Man keeps running through the captain’s head: “Oh – oh, the Wells Fargo wagon is a comin’ down the street…Hope it’s got somethin’ really special, for me,” and the image is not far from reality as the unmarked white Ford van turns the corner making its once daily delivery to the post office carrying the mail as well as Purolator freight.  Fifteen days after shipment with a four day guarantee – twenty-two days since the beginning of the maintenance layover – here sits the answer to Millie’s ailment.  It is a wonderful gift on the same day as grandson Forrest’s birthday.  Happy ninth cinco de mayo Forrest – happy alternator Millie.

Egmontsters, as they especially like to be called on Easter, are a little surprised to see the crew at the pub.  They assumed Millie would leave the minute she could.  But, the company is good, there is always room for one more Stuffed Back Eddy Burger and besides, it’s Hockey Night in Canada and our Canucks are Canada’s best chance to win the Stanley Cup.  Perhaps Millie needs to move on now.

They work.  They continue to work.  The new alternator and regulator are making electricity without overheating and letting the smoke out of their cases.  The possible cause of the old units’ failure may have slipped from the lips of the alternator manufacturer’s technical representative, who mentioned as an aside, that solar panels should not be turned on when the engine is running.  The Captain hasn’t quite figured why this makes a difference except in the general terms of two regulators are one too many, but will abide the new instructions wishing, if this is such an important point, builders of both alternator and solar panels would put the information in their manuals.  Now, Sandy and Paul’s Harley Motorcycle Freedom Bell gift is clipped to Millie’s key ring whenever the solar panels are on.  If the bell is on the key, don’t start the engine.

Much of this summer’s north-bound lollygagging time was spent in Egmont waiting for parts, so Millie takes advantage of the favorable winds and a following tidal current to make progress.  Black and while Dall’s porpoises show their approval by zooming across the bow wave – playing back and forth.  Swimming alongside the boat then accelerating across the front with a little leap-at-the-end celebration and a quick breath of air – a good omen as Millie passes through Desolation Sound and on to Yuculta Rapids in a perfectly unplanned time to catch the slack tide.

In the land of strong currents in narrow channels, the saying, Time and tide wait for no man, is especially true.  Dent Rapid’s current is seven knots today – Millie travels at five.  Catching the slack current at high tide so the ensuing ebb current will give a push all the way to the Broughton Islands is important – more important even than the lack of daylight.  At 3:30 am Millie makes way with the last hint of moonlight making the cloudy sky one shade lighter than the surrounding mountains. 

The Admiral positions herself on the companionway steps in front of the electronic chart with a seat cushion propped between the screen and the Captain’s eyes – protecting what little night vision he has.  Slowly, five degrees left – now ten right, Millie follows Alayne’s guidance until in wider water downstream from the rapids.  As dawn arrives, the benefit of the ebb allows swift progress on an almost calm day – unusual for Johnstone Strait.

The Broughton Islands are as welcoming as they were two years ago.  The secluded bays and signature float homes bring happy memories.  Millie notices an increase in the variety and number of animals encountered.

Orca whales are known to travel up Johnstone Strait a short distance to partially beach themselves at Robson Bight – a way of scratching that itch that has been bothering them for 10-months.  This year, two are encountered as they head that way.

Steller sea lions find feasts along the shore.  Their size is impressive to eyes used to harbor seals.

What the Admiral believes to be Minke whales are seen in the distance.

Eagles seem particularly fat this spring – especially in Port Hardy where, with three fish processing plants, life is easy.

Fledged youngsters are in eagle-school - they are taught life lessons as they chase each other throughout the marina.

Unexplained mechanical failures often occur to electronic components aboard a boat.  Wind direction and speed instruments are notorious for failing.  In Port Hardy, the eagles make no secret of their contribution to this problem.

In one of the more courageous (stupid) displays of behavior, with thirty eagles within one-quarter mile, two geese decide this is the perfect spot to raise a family.  To her credit, momma goose seems quite up to the task of shooing the more aggressive eagles – a credit to mothers everywhere.

In the last daylight, a small heron begins a night’s fishing – a good time to do it if he is to keep his catch from the voracious eagles.  In the low light, his image is transformed into an impressionistic painting.

God’s Pocket is a rustic resort in a small cove on Hurst Island.  Started as a fishing camp, it changed owners several years ago and now Bill and Anne run a very popular dive camp.  With each slack tide, they take several divers to some of the premier spots in the northern hemisphere, as photos adorning the dinning hall walls attest.

Winter care-takers, Ron and Julia, are still on the island with Julia filling in as the spring-time cook.  After feeding the divers their dinner, an evening visit to Millie – bringing dessert – is proof she is one of the all-time best rhubarb pie makers.  As most of the known-world is aware, rhubarb is one of the Captain’s all time favorites and it is a wonder Alayne successfully defends her piece from thievery.

Millie is at Hurst Island as a departure point for crossing Queen Charlotte Sound.  Exposed to the open North Pacific, it is wise not to depart into an approaching storm.  Weather forecasts and current conditions are monitored closely – paying particular attention to wind reports given from various lighthouses and automated data collection sites.  Somewhere in Ottawa, the bureaucrat responsible for choosing the location of these automated sites sits with a contented smirk.  Millie also grins each time the Fanny Island winds are reported.  At night, sometimes the Admiral asks the Captain if he is making a Fanny Island wind report as she tightens the covers around her neck.  Friend Gary theorized, as he trained future Japan Air Lines pilots, a fart is funny in all cultures and as he’s traveled the world, he has not been contradicted.  It is one of the things that binds us together – as human.

The timing for crossing the sound is perfect as 15-knots of quartering tale-wind and a gentle low ocean swell from the opposite aft quarter propel Millie northwestward.

Such good time is made that a favorite anchorage, Fury Cove, is passed.

In Kwakumut Cove, the crew is rewarded for their perseverance with a private evening show of four feeding orcas about 50-yards from the anchored boat.

The animal’s rapid breath of air echoes through the cove, at first sounding like the report of a distant gunshot.  Ga-laup, ga-laup, then pishooo – they feed for almost an hour.  Life is good.

Alayne started an herb garden in a flower pot.  Supplementing the limited supply of fresh produce seems a good plan – chives, garlic, cilantro, tarragon, and basil will surely spice up a meal.  The Captain believes she is becoming too attached, however.  They are brought inside most evenings, several have first names, and she has made promises to the basil (the rooted left-over from the grocery store that somehow seems to cling to life), “Rathbone, if you survive, I promise I won’t let him eat you.”  The Captain believes she is going a bit too far when, as the plants get too big for their night time allotted space, she looks at Rich like he should spend the night outside so the plants can have his half of the bed.

As if each section of the journey has a theme, whales and porpoises are replaced by waterfalls, though falling water can come in various forms.  Millie spends a day resting in Goat Cove waiting the passage of a weather system.  A few miles away, the wind is blowing 50-knots, yet here the rain falls vertically throughout the day – the boat is only occasionally buffeted by minor gusts.  And rain it is.  Except for a Midwest thunderstorm, imagine the heaviest continuous downpour you have seen – that’s what falls on Goat Cove.

In addition to the rain, this anchorage heralds the transition to waterfalls using the voice of a demented demon duck.  Probably not really a duck (the alliteration just sounded too good), but some other freakishly voiced waterfowl.  This 12-inch long critter with a call somewhere between a kingfisher, a surprised heron, and the squeaking of the gates-of-hell, calls out the count of each raindrop – his voice echoing off the cove’s high walls.

With clearing skies, Millie continues into the land of waterfalls proper.  The extra rainfall transforms the mountainsides into lacy veils.  Per capita, Graham Reach has as many waterfalls as anywhere on earth – a safe statement since the crew has seen no village, cabin, or tent making it totally void of population.

These cascades are like a never ending supply of chocolate malts.  The first one is spectacular, and the next few are great, but after a hundred, you don’t see the specialness in each.  Yet, taken as a group this is an impressive display.

Continuing northwest, the journey’s theme once again modulates from falling water in narrow channels to bigger vistas, wider waters, and a bigger town.

Prince Rupert is the principle city on the western Canadian coast.

Founded as the terminus for the transcontinental Grand Trunk Pacific railway, grain, coal, lumber, minerals, and pulp are loaded on ships in this third deepest natural harbor in the world.

Millie feels strange being around so many boats at once, but the crew wastes no time taking long hot showers ashore.  Doing laundry and restocking the groceries completes the day’s tasks.  The evening is rounded-out with a seafood dinner at a restaurant – a good Captain keeps a happy Admiral.

Before Millie continues north, she has one more stop in Prince Rupert.  Up the hill into town, catty-corner from the Provincial Government Building, is the Museum of Northern British Columbia.  Built with massive post and beam construction, the modern looking structure looks like it should be a small convention center but instead houses a tastefully displayed exhibit: native artifacts (mostly historic but with some representation of modern), an assortment of antiques from the European era, a gallery exhibiting paintings, and a small darkened room with a television monitor showing various subjects of interest.

Millie’s crew watches short films about totem carving, petroglyphs, and a wonderful piece filmed in the early 1900’s showing work crews as they lay track during the construction of the Grand Trunk Trans-Canada Railroad – Prince Rupert being the western terminus and the reason for the city’s creation.  A flatcar carrying new rails and ties, looks like a non-engineered piece of equipment i.e., modified when any new idea came to the foreman, with scaffolding, bracing, and observation platforms scattered everywhere.  This car is pushed well ahead of a steam engine.  Two men grab a wooden tie from the flatcar and flop it down at the front of the procession on a pre-laid bed of crushed rock.  They are followed by another ten pair of men doing the same thing.  A different crew straightens and spaces the ties.  Still another group grabs rail sections off the car and lays them on the just straightened ties.  With five foot-long wrenches, other men install and tighten bolts connecting the pieces of rail.  The flatcar, with special wheels, spaces the tracks evenly apart and the final crew spikes the rail to the ties.  Steadily, the laying process makes forward progress – fascinating.

Placed in modern glass-sided display cases, many of the museum’s native artifacts collection look like contemporary sculptures.

Basket weaving so fine, it is easy to believe the promise of water tight integrity.  Using spruce root, some are constructed so they could sit, full of water, next to fires to make hot soup.

Clothing and blankets are woven from animal hair and cedar bark and are of such fine quality that for years they were traded and sold to eager customers throughout Europe.

Coastal tribes have a strong tradition of keeping history alive through spoken stories, during which the orators wear wooden masks.

Many of the masks contain mechanisms which allow eyes to blink and mouths to open and through these symbols, allow the speaker to become his character.

Argillite is a type of shale found only on the Queen Charlotte Islands, home of the Haida natives.  Their artistry in this material is treasured worldwide.  (This smoking pipe design makes the Captain think of reconsidering his quitting – smoking.)

Living in the Charlotte’s required longer open-water voyages for trading.  Haida boats were hollowed from massive trees totaling 70 feet in length.  After initial hollowing, the boat was filled with water and fire-heated stones until the water boiled creating enough elasticity to allow the log to be stretched wider at the opening and the ends to be flared upwards.  These large craft could accommodate 60 people.

The artwork of the coastal cultures was being created long before Europeans arrived.  Copper and iron were already in use, though not using the same technologies as the explorers.  But, like all thoughtful people, when the natives saw new materials and different tools, they quickly adopted and modified them to fit their existing cultural needs – Chinese coins decorate a garment where shells traditionally hung.

The exhibits make Prince Rupert’s museum definitely worth the climb up the hill.

Ketchikan is the first city encountered in Alaska when traveling north – reason enough to use it for the town’s motto.  It is the first one with the opportunity to sell the Alaska mystique to crowded cruise ships as they dock, sometimes five-at-a-time, dwarfing the downtown.  Millie’s initial reaction is disdain for the thousands of passengers crowding the streets but, after contemplation, formed a different opinion.

The once Canned Salmon Capital turned First City does a good job catering to people longing to have an “Alaska Experience.”  (This cruise is the most desired vacation trip in the United States.)  Without roads or rail to connect it to the outside world, tourists have no real choice but the big ships. 

Averaging twenty different ship visits a week with a thousand people per ship, if the passengers instead all traveled by small Millie-sized sailboats, the Inside Passage would look like the Interstate on a holiday weekend.

While the downtown merchants certainly cater with cheap crafts (two inch tall totems and toothpick animals using moose droppings for bodies and heads) there are also galleries with fine sculpture, paintings, and prints providing an outlet for local artists.  Artisans sell jewelry made with Alaska gold and other local minerals.  Tours are offered to Saxman Park where native heritage is on display along with artisans carving new totems.

Floatplanes fly tourists into Misty Fiords National Monument, a part of the Tongass National Forest, for a glimpse of beauty they would have no other chance to see except by small boat.

Ketchikan does a great job hosting these great throngs and yet insulating much of the town from the commotion.  This gives other local interests room to thrive – fishing, mining and timber products all play important parts in the town’s economy.  With tourism and fishing slowing to a trickle during the winter, the town’s population shrinks from 18,000 to 8,000 – the 160 inches (13 feet) of annual rain may also be an incidental factor in this decrease.

Even though Ketchikanarians contend with an abundance of tourists in summer and raindrops in winter, Millie finds the locals friendly and eager for conversation.  They share stories easily.

Their town’s history - Creek Street had nothing but whore houses and a mill until 1954.  There was a log flume running by there to the mill.  That’s where the trail used by all the married men wanting to visit the Street was – the flume hid them.

Their personal history - I’ve been here twenty-two years.  Just missing the credit for defending my dissertation to get my Master’s but then I got married, moved here, got divorced, and I’m still here.

The best places to eat inexpensively - Believe-it-or-not, it’s the Mexican, Greek, Italian restaurant.  It is far enough away from downtown to attract few cruise ship patrons but is always filled with locals enjoying superb food.

And, the best sights to see - Take the free city bus north to Totem Bite Park where you can see totems and a clan house for free.

Next door is Potlatch Park where you can see totem carvers and a recreated native village, a gun collection, and a car collection – again for free.

Alayne’s sister, Wendy, looks at a new totem being carved.  She brings sunshine during her visit.

It’s much better than the organized tours where they charge you for almost everything - helpful advice to the crew of a small boat on a pension.

West of Ketchikan, across Clarence Strait, is Prince of Wales Island.  The southern part of the island was settled by the Tlingit Indians who were displaced by the Haida from the Queen Charlotte Islands.  In 1911, the Bureau of Indian Affairs relocated the villagers of Howkan to two new places – Hydaburg and Kasaan.

Kasaan has an exposed state dock which floats so low that any kind of southerly breeze causes waves to fetch up and over the public moorage section.  Though shoe wetting, it is a secure float and offers entrance to the small community of about fifty people.

The preserved Haida clan house and totems are located a short walk along the shore, through the town, and a little ways into the woods.  As it is approached, totems that are almost hidden by the trees surprise the walker and then seem to appear everywhere.  Millie’s crew feels like they have been snuck-up on by a carved tree.  For people who think they are aware of their surroundings, not a comforting experience.

The building was constructed of massive beams with an opening in the center that acted like a chimney for the central fire.  The surrounding platform provided living space for the different families.  Large cedar bent-wood boxes held blankets and ceremonial wear while smaller ones provided food and household implement storage.

Even though built during a period when the builders had metal tools, it is the same type of structure that was built hundreds of years ago.

Meyers Chuck is a magical place.  Picturesque houses dot the rocky shores with most being summer homes – just six people wintered over last year. 

It is also a special place because just north of the chuck’s entrance is where the Captain finds he is not just a fisherman but also a catcher-person.  Sure, it’s a rockfish and not the 80 pound halibut he was trying for but still, it is a fish.  Now he has that never catches a fish monkey off his back.  Millie thinks he should add this trophy to his collection of crab and shrimp awards, which he does by consuming the fish too.

Wrangell is identified in the distance the same way as Ketchikan, by spotting the cruise ship, but there is only one-at-a-time here and the town has done very little in preparation for its arrival. 

There are few curio shops and no expensive galleries but there is the Chief Shakes Clan House which is home to several unusual totems.

Between Wrangell and Petersburg is a narrow connecting channel called Wrangell Narrows.  Filled with rocks, ledges, flats, and places where the current exceeds five knots, the safe path is quite serpentine and requires the use of over 60 navigation buoys in its 21 mile length. 

It has claimed its share of ships as they attempted the transit including the steamer Corona in 1889, the City of Topeka in 1899, the Amur in 1910, the Cordova in 1913, and the passenger liner Northwestern in 1919, though she was refloated – one of eighteen such experiences she had in her career.  Millie slips through unscathed not wanting to match records with any of these ships.

Sumdum Glacier is the name given by natives who had a village near its base – the name derived from the sounds made as it groaned its way to the sea.  In 1879, naturalist John Muir camped here and visited a dozen gold miners working the stream with shovels and sluice boxes.  He also visited the remaining 30 members of the Sumdum Tribe whose numbers had been greatly reduced by smallpox. 

Millie glides past the now hanging glacier to enter the ice pocked waters of Tracy Arm.

Fed by the calving tidal glaciers, North and South Sawyer, a steady collection of slow moving blue ice exits the channel.  Ice from these and other local glaciers found its way to cities, like San Francisco, as cargo aboard ice ships as early as 1853.

Now that the never catches a fish curse is broken, the Captain easily catches fish, even when he doesn’t mean to.  A raised crab trap yields a sculpin along with the crab.  Most fishermen settle for the common salmon or halibut, but Rich advances directly to the more exotic species.  (Hey, wait a minute; I thought it was supposed to be a dungeness crab and not a hermit.)

Whales and porpoises continue to visit Millie.  The whales from a greater distance than in the past, but whenever porpoises are in the area, they are somehow compelled to swoop up and dash across the bow.

In Stephens Passage, the whale species changes from orca to humpback and gray.  While they occasionally breach, the Captain’s camera shutter pushing finger only manages to catch the after-splash or the subsequent feeding lope.  One passing humpback, however, does invite Millie to come visit it at its winter home in Hawaii.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

According to Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Café Diaries, a book given to Millie’s crew by Egmonster friend Heather, “Change, important life-altering change, seldom comes in by the front door.  Change – be it a change of circumstance or even monumental, ground-shaking change in the landscape – tends to creep up on you.  Change doesn’t often stand on the stoop and ring the front bell, looking around and tapping its foot impatiently while it waits for you.  Change, more likely than not, slips in when you are not at home, or when you are there but too preoccupied to notice, when you are busy trying to remember some difficult thing like whether this week is garbage and recycling or just garbage.  Change is a sneak.”

Regarding the change that occurred to Millie’s Captain, Rich believes change is a matter of perspective – are you the agent of change or the one being changed.  When the Admiral announced she was not going out on the ocean in Millie J, for her it was the culmination of a slow evolution, but for Rich, unlike Stuart McLean’s description, it was a door abruptly slammed in his face – a trap door into which he and fourteen years of work and planning fell.

A life altering situation like this, causes some soul searching – what do you love more?  Is there a compromise?  Is a compromise financially affordable?  After spending a month going through the standard eight steps of grief: anger, denial, bargaining, anger, bargaining, denial, bargaining, and finally acceptance, the Captain reaffirms that he loves Alayne more than the sea – a happy thing for any relationship to rediscover.

However, Millie is designed, built, and equipped to cross oceans, not to sit at the dock acting like a houseboat.  She is worth too much to be a stay-at-home boat.  Because of this, and much to the heartache of the Captain, Millie J is for sale.  There is no financial imperative forcing a sale, so she will not be sold at a give-away price.  Instead, considering she is newly equipped and in condition to leave immediately on a world cruise, she will be sold for a very fair price.

If you dream of going to exotic south-sea destinations in a boat that was designed for ocean sailing and is an amazing head-turner at the dock, you owe it to yourself to take a serious look at this boat.  She is designed and built requiring a minimal effort to maintain and minimal cost to replace equipment, when required.  (For example: a turning block, appropriate for a 40-foot sailboat, is about twice as

expensive as one for the 35-foot Millie J.)  If interested in the specifications and the extensive equipment list, please click the link below.  If not, please continue reading Millie’s journeys.

Juneau, like Ketchikan, hosts a plethora of cruise ships – up to seven at-a-time.  With a population of 32,000, the third largest city in Alaska accepts this 10,000 person boost in population by abandoning the downtown core to them and withdrawing either up the hillside or several miles northwest to an area known as the valley.  In the off-season, a majority of downtown merchants repay the favor by closing their doors and traveling south to spend the winter in a drier clime.

The State Capitol building is located in the first tier above the tourist section with the old town residences farther up the hill, as the city melds into its Swiss alpine-like setting.  No other state capital can boast a glacier within its boundary.  It is also the only capital located on the mainland that has no roads leading to it.  All the cars around

town arrived on a ferry or a barge.  (I realize Honolulu is almost a similar case, except for the being on the mainland part, but at least you can drive to the city from anywhere on the island.)

It is hard to walk in any direction from downtown without bumping into an old gold mine – there are 32 of them – with the Last Chance and Treadwell mines being the most famous.  There are museums commemorating each, displaying, what was at-the-time, state of the art hard rock mining equipment.

Millie is moored on Douglas Island, across the narrow Gastineau Channel from Juneau.  Douglas is home of the long closed Treadwell mine.  At one time, the infrastructure for this mine helped Douglas be a much larger town than Juneau – a situation now reversed.  On a walk through the woods along the shore, many abandoned mine relics emerge.

Mining is an honored tradition here.  In the Independence Day parade, several entrants are provided by the nearby Kennecott mine – one favorite being a large balloon-tired dump truck that turns its wheels hard to one side then pumps its brakes repeatedly causing a hopping dancing motion that thrills kids and Rich alike.

This 4th of July coincides with Alaska’s 50th anniversary of statehood.  The parade’s grand marshal is the woman who was the first Miss Alaska in 1959.  Alayne finds her charming but really loves the Coast Guard’s overheated Kids Don’t Float beaver.

Juneau is Millie’s homeport for a month-and-a-half as the crew is visited by loved ones and for a flight to Anchorage for more visits with family and friends, as well as some touring.

Son, Justin, and his inamorata, Alicia, are first.  Both are beautifully tall and are quite gracious as they attempt to fit into Millie’s “designed for someone 6-foot or less” space.

Visiting the glaciers in Tracy Arm and kayaking keep them happily entertained.

It is wonderful getting to know Alicia and Justin is always a joy to be around.

Son-in-law Jason is next on the visiting schedule.  He is generally quite bright yet what does it say about a man whose goal is to catch fish and comes to see Rich.  It is a lot like a thirsty man walking into the desert in search of a glass of water.

In spite of the ignominy of not catching a fish from the dinghy with salmon jumping all around and, with millions of little bugs trying to set up residence in their noses, a good time is had.

Later, Rich does share his prowess as Jason fishes for the common halibut but instead lands six sculpin that fight like sacks of pudding.  Hard as it is to turn down this delicious tasting fish, Jason shows his true sporting nature and practices catch-and-release.

The crew buttons Millie up and flies to Anchorage.  Daughter Jessica, her husband Eric, and children, Quin and Gretchen, live there and are very gracious in providing a base for Rich and Alayne.  They are exceptional parents who have made a wonderful life together.  Though they recently moved into a new home on the hillside above town, they cannot see Russia from their door.

Millie’s crew are delighted that Illinois daughter Alyssa, her Brian, and son, Forrest, are also visiting Alaska.  Though they too own a beautiful home, it is not on a hillside (there are no real hills in Illinois) and, also being quite bright, realize if they built a tall tower on their porch to have a view, it would only be of Indiana.

Adult children are wonderful but grandchildren are the best.  They are the ones who understand you for the kid you are.  Who else would spend the afternoon with you watching water roll down the hill from a garden hose?

Who else would mimic a giant wooden bear holding a fish?

Brian and Eric show that the child is not entirely out of them either as they join in jumping on a giant orange inflated-rubber-thingy.  While fatherhood has its ups and downs, this is definitely an up.  The women show the greatest intelligence, as wives often do, by escaping the fray to go shopping.

Friends Willi and Ellie, of course, never were grown-ups.  A serious portrait opportunity degenerates into an electric-paddle mosquito-hunt right before our eyes.  Hunting mosquitoes in Talkeetna is not all that hard since there are about a billion in the front yard alone.

Towns are famous for various things - one has the world’s largest ball of string, another a giant statue of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, and yet another, a giant pink plastic elephant with spraying nose advertising a car wash – so Captain Rich is unsure what to expect from the Homer Spit.  Fortunately, it is not a giant glob of saliva but a piece of land jutting into Kachemak Bay.

The view across the bay from town is spectacular – scenes of glaciers through the ever present fireweed are awe inspiring.  Homer is also famous as the setting for author Tom Bodett’s End of the Road stories.  It is fun to see the fire hall that houses the lime green, not red, fire engines.

While the great view is looking from Homer, the best view around Seward is of the town.  Mountains climb from the water’s edge with the city clinging to shore.  Cruise ships dock here but they are at the end of their journey, as-well-as at the end of town.  To a large extent, Seward is not a tourist destination but used as a place where passengers transition to buses or to the Alaska Railroad to continue their

tours inland, though this little town does have the Alaska Sealife Center, a research facility funded by settlement money from the Exxon Valdez oil spill.  It also has world class glacier tours that head out each day on several vessels that can carry you and fifty of your closest friends.

Seward doesn’t have the largest ball of string but it is famous for its Mount Marathon Race.  As part of the Independence Day celebrations, crazed people bent on personal injury under the guise of an athletic event, race to the top of Mount Marathon and back – first one over the finish line alive wins.  This rule negates people from throwing themselves off the top hoping for gravity to propel them to a win, though this year a runner had to be rescued by helicopter when they miss-stepped and inadvertently tried this technique.  If the Captain ran to the top of this mountain, he would consider throwing himself off just to end the pain.

Millie, meanwhile, waits patiently in Juneau accumulating barnacles and algae on her bottomside at an astonishing rate.  She does not have her normal speed and agility until they are removed but then spritely picks up her heels again.

Tenakee Springs is a small town on Chichagof Island notable for its hot spring baths -   artist Rie Munoz used this as the setting for her painting, The Bathers.

Spread along the shore, this one street deep town hosts 100 people during the height of summer.  The road is so short there are no cars – just a few four wheelers for those who prefer not to walk.  Relying heavily on subsistence hunting and fishing, the residents carve a picturesque existence.

As Millie begins her southbound journey, whales salute her using the ever popular tale flip and the whale version of a high-five, the high-one.

The pink salmon are returning to Ketchikan.  Not just a few fish, but thousands.  Staring into the water, a steady stream of 20-inch fish is seen swimming by - shoulder-to-shoulder, or fin-to-fin, as the case may be.  The surface of the water is broken continuously as individual fish leap two-feet out of the water, twist onto their side, and splash back down.

In one more attempt to describe the salmon catching abilities of Millie’s Captain - expressed in terms of who in the neighborhood is catching fish and who is not - the dock that Millie is tied to catches a salmon that leaped in the wrong direction and landed on the pavement.  The score is: inanimate objects one, Rich zero.

One last fish story:
In Bill Bryson’s book, In a Sunburned Country, he tells about a joke he authored and drew on a napkin.  As the Captain watches all these salmon bunch up at the mouth of Ketchikan Creek, preparing for their slog up the stream to mate and die, he remembers the joke as quite amusing.  (Wording is paraphrased.  The drawing is an Admiral Alayne original.)

Millie J finds herself in the San Juan Islands after a quick trip south. Time is spent getting her clean and ready for new sailing adventures.

With luck, she will be sailing off soon.