By Erik Dolson
For a sedentary soul, this last week has felt a little frenetic.
With a warm but sad farewell, I headed north to the boat. We’d found each other during COVID. I’d helped her relocate to Bend. We lived within a caring and giving, loving and supportive, albeit insulated bubble.
But then COVID closures lifted and when I said I was going to head to the boat for I don’t know how long, she said “You know I can’t go. Neither of us likes to be alone. You are going back to your old life. I need to build a new life here.”
At least, that’s what I heard. I’m sure it sounded differently through her filters. Despite our love, and more words from each of us, there was nothing to disagree with, there.
Roy had sent a video of the new dinghy he’d designed and welded together, with flotation sides that would keep it afloat even if full of water and provide a soft surface. I’d asked to buy it. He liked the way it handled with a five HP motor, thought 10 HP would be perfect, and was worried about me putting my 15 HP on the back. He was not reassured by “It’s what I do.”
After I got to his place in the Skagit Valley, Roy took me to “Whiskey Night” (a far more sedate gathering than it sounds) at a magical barn in soft green hills buffering the Cascades. Inside, from the rafters hung a myriad of fantasies: a mobile that spanned 20 or 30 feet, an actual space suit. Industrial items repurposed into art.
There was an astronomy teaching tool that looked like a sextant, but taller than a man and that could not be used to find the north star during a teaching day so the builders would adapt. And toys: In one dusty corner sat a Red Flyer Wagon powered by a motor driving an unprotected fan, so obviously lethal that the absurdity of it just made me laugh out loud.
In the center of the room sat a nearly complete, full-sized and finely crafted Gypsy Wagon, blacksmithed iron work curling about and carrying the tradition of Gypsy joy in industrial-size metal filigree supporting braces and side boards. It was being cooperatively built to blue prints no longer available.
It was art, all of it. And those present were artists, in one form or another. Many of them had also spent years sailing; our host had done two circumnavigations of the world “backwards” in a 40 foot sailboat. Tales were told of races and wrecks and personalities as large as the barn in which 20 of us or so sat on hard chairs in a giant circle, remembering friends who had passed, hugging friends who were about to move on, and sharing stories.
The talent in the room of artists, and their camaraderie, was humbling to someone of middling accomplishment and used to solo endeavors. Even Rex, a German Shepherd and former junk-yard dog, seemed suffused with mellow.
It was still light when Roy and I went back to his place, loaded the new dinghy in the back of his pickup truck and headed down to the Skagit River. I clambered aboard and fired her up. He was right about horsepower: the 5 hp was adequate, a 10 HP motor would be perfect. I couldn’t wait to try my 15 HP two cycle that weighed about the same.
I finally put that first day of this trip away and fell asleep in his living room while Roy went down to greet people arriving from San Diego for a week-long rendezvous that Roy would co-host with Ullman Sails.
The next morning we took the dinghy down to Roy’s boat, Blackbird, moored in La Conner. We’d decided to meet out in the San Juan Islands some place, he’d tow the new dinghy out, we’d put my motor on it and he’d tow my old one back to a new sailor who couldn’t afford much more.
I took the ferry across Rosario Strait and through the islands to Friday Harbor, anxious to see Foxy. It had been more than a month, maybe two, since I’d been on board and I was worried about what condition she’d be in.
But the dinghy motor started on the first pull, not a small part of the reason I love that motor. Out on the mooring ball, Foxy was dry inside and all was secure. Though the solar panels carried a bit of seagull poop, it’s been worse. After a dinner of a can of soup with meat from a chicken, I hit the rack.
I’d planned to stop the next day at the marina to wash the boat with their power, fill up with water and fuel. That idea was abandoned after learning there was no place available for a boat of Foxy’s length. Truth is, I had enough fuel for a month and enough water for a few weeks, and washing the boat could wait. It was time to cast off.
Foxy motored through the channel on the south end of the Wasp Islands to Blind Bay on Shaw Island. That’s my “warm up” anchorage, where I know the bottom and the water.
While still outside the channel I tipped the anchor over the bow and ready for deployment. I was nervous, having not been on the boat for so long and then only on the mooring buoy or the dock for almost a year.
A couple of years previously, when I found my “spot” I would go up to the bow, release the brake on the windlass and drop the anchor fast to the bottom with a speeding and rattling chain, then reset the brake.
I had to remain at the bow while powering chain out with a hand control wired into the forward hold. Eventually enough chain would be put out for proper “scope” and I’d head back to the throttle and wheel in the cockpit. To avoid being blown into a bad position, there was always a temptation to rush.
“Be deliberate,” was Roy’s advice to me years ago when I asked how I would single-hand this 57 foot sailboat.
So I pieced together a remote windlass control out of a wireless industrial door module. Instead of the splash and rush, I was back at the helm with power and steering while chain spooled out at one foot per second, controlled by the tiny remote hanging from my belt. The windlass changed voice and sounded easy when the anchor found the bottom. Then I put out scope while being pushed backward by the wind, and finally gave the chain a good tug in reverse to be sure the hook was set.
By text Roy and I agreed to meet the next day at Spencer Spit where his group would spend the night. I headed over early and anchored, but then pulled the hook back up and motored over to the more sheltered Swifts Bay just to the north. After the group arrived, Roy and Doug from the rendezvous towed the new dinghy over. We put my motor on it, fired it up and …
Well, if you hit full throttle from a standing start, the little boat jumps up and out of the water then falls forward onto a full plane like a gymnast leaping onto the mat, at high speed in about an instant. Just right. And the little boat is incredibly maneuverable, Roy’s hull design forgiving and responsive with no tendency to “hook” or turn suddenly.
“Watch out for chine walk” he did caution, if the boat started to bounce from one side to the other. He said it would be uncontrolled after about three oscillations, which meant I only had two beats to figure out what was happening. Yeah, right.
I had no idea what to name the new dinghy, but settled on “Bug,” after water bugs or water striders, those incredibly fast critters that skitter across the top of the water on ponds, eating mosquito larvae. It’s only eight feet long and as plain as could be: utilitarian but with capability, a lot like the BMW 2002 I drove for decades then raced for another few years.
The next morning, Roy and his gang set off, Blackbird flying a beautiful blue and white Genoa that Roy said “looks like the sky” on a furler he designed that uses a stiff and thick Amsteel cable as a stay that the sail wraps around when not used. I think Roy could design just about anything, given enough time. He’s an “old school” engineer who knows how things work.
I headed up Eastsound on Orcas where there’s a cute if touristy village, a lot like Sisters, my Oregon home. As it had last time I was here, a strong wind came out of the south during the afternoon. After a couple of hours, a fairly large power boat retrieved their smallish anchor and set out for a moorage, or at least a more sheltered spot, just as the afternoon was growing dark.
Foxy stretched out her chain, and once triggered my set-too-close anchor alarm, but the anchor held as I knew it would. I had an early dinner of fish tacos and decided to spend the next day, today, catching up with the writing. I pick up my daughter tomorrow evening in Anacortes, where I’ll also fuel up, top off the water tanks, wash the boat and do some laundry.