Hold Everything!

View from the ferry dock

Nothing is as serious on a boat between ports than to go down below for something and discover the entire cabin is awash with water. There is only one thing I can think of that is worse. It's when you go down below, and the entire cabin is awash with black oil. 

If you should also be in a narrow channel between islands with a fleet of giant ferry boats passing by every thirty minutes, you not only begin to wonder what to do next, but what in the world it was that tempted you to be out there in the first place. I usually blame everything on the Captain and remind him that he is responsible for my life. Something I am not proud of, but I'm trying to be honest, here.

I felt something like this...
 but not as pretty

As usual, things always look worse than they really are (hmm… that almost sounds like sermon material). The oil was not new oil. It was the same stuff that had drained the engine when the hydraulic hose broke, last week. We hadn't pumped those eight quarts out of the bilge, yet, because it is against the law to do that. You have to pump it all into a bucket and dispose of it properly. Preferably at some official recycle center. But one doesn't run into a lot of those in the places we've been lately. Which is why we were waiting until we got to the next big place. 

Underneath those eight quarts, however, was about two hundred gallons of seawater. Which turned out not to be coming from a hole in the boat, but a malfunctioning pump that was letting water in instead of keeping it out. An easy fix if you don't count the hours it took to clean up the mess. 

Meanwhile, we are resting (literally) at anchor in Friday Harbor, in the San Juan Islands (a place where we actually used to live many years ago). It is our last stop before crossing over into Canada. I'm not sure how long we will be here. A couple days if all goes well, and a couple weeks if it doesn't. The nice thing is that it doesn't matter. 

Rowing back from town

Not even the fact that we are laying over in one of the most expensive tourist spots in the state at the busiest time of the season. Because we brought our own world with us. Our little home on the water is packed with everything we need for weeks on end. So, we live the same whether anchored in some deserted cove, or in the middle of a busy harbor. Not to mention we have the most "high dollar" view in town. 

Wow. More good sermon material.

An Unexpected Mishap...

It is the nature of  mishaps to arrive unexpected. If we could see them coming, we would do something to avoid them. Nobody can see them coming. And while one could spend a lot of time thinking up scenarios about what might go wrong and make provisions for that, a person could run out of courage dwelling on those things long before they ever covered all the bases. 

Things happen.

And, being human, we can't see into the future.

Too much sun this week, so I had to
 improvise (Hey, it worked for Katharine
Hepburn in the African Queen).

So it was as we set out one beautiful morning for our first crossing of real ocean, we felt things couldn't get any better. It was not a big crossing. Just a little stretch that would take maybe two hours at the most. A sort of “passing by the door” to the whole wide world before scurrying into protected harbors and bays of the northwest islands, again. The fact that our course cut directly through a major shipping lane should not be a problem. 

You could see those huge tankers coming a long way off so there would be plenty of time to steer out of the way. I have to admit I was a little jumpy about that because my depth perception is such that all distances look flat to me. It's the reason I don't drive. Not to mention the Captain has put up with my false alarms of eminent collision for so many years, he has highly trained and conditioned himself to ignore them. I've been a little slower at such conditioning, myself, since I've had to go the “beautiful mind” route and retrain my brain not to believe what I see. 

All of which could have made for big problems on an adventure like this, except that we  believe God has our lives in the center of his hand. As long as we can stay under His protective shadow in the daytime and that “pillar of fire by night.” Right? Not so easy when flitting around outside your comfort zone. The ocean is very big out there, even a little piece of it. And it actually feels alive the way swells undulate up and down in constant rhythm. Almost like breathing. 

That's how it seems to me, anyway, but I've got an active imagination. They say you get used to it. Much harder getting used to what happens when we end up in the “backwash” of one of those tankers going by. Or even a fishing boat if it passes close enough to us. 

We rock violently from side-to-side for a few minutes while things below begin to crash down from places you thought were secure. It's not as bad if you can turn the boat into the waves and meet them head-on, but that's not always an option. Especially when you are  busy arguing if they're far enough away to dissipate before they reach you. One reason I was feeling better the closer we got to the nearest island. 

Not close enough, however, because when the Captain suddenly announced, “We've lost oil pressure, I have to shut down the engine,” I had sort of a meltdown. 

“But one or two more minutes and we'll be out of the shipping lane!” I protested.

“You want to blow up the engine? There's oil spurting all over the place. Have to raise the sails.”

“Raise the sails—there's no wind—just fix it! Fix the engine!”

“It's going to take some time. I have to think about it.”

I am not going to document the rest of that conversation. What I do want to document is this. There wasn't a breath of wind out there and we were too deep to drop anchor. But there was a bit of a current in our favor that showed some possibility of pushing us toward shore some time before midnight. This necessitated me having to take the tiller so the Captain could work on the engine. 

As far as I could tell, we felt “dead in the water.” But I picked a point (I think I saw a house up on the cliff) and held steady, in case we should actually be moving. Or—better yet—in case a puff of wind should miraculously turn up. And please, Lord, don't let any more tankers pass by right now.

Not ten minutes later, there was a little whisper-breath of a breeze.

Little by little we began to move out of the shipping lane. By the time we were close enough to drop the anchor, I could see there was a path zig-zagging up the cliff to the house, and not too far beyond the beach, some kind of road. There were even a few hikers walking along the top of the cliff, as if there might be a trail up there. Plenty of options should we need to get parts. But we didn't need to. 

Because while I was busy going over our options, not caring how we rocked when the tankers passed anymore since we were finally well enough away, the Captain discovered a hole in some oil hose. Which he put a temporary patch on, poured more oil back into the engine, and we were on our way, again. 

We finally anchored in Fidalgo Bay,
 off the town of Anacortes.

I breathed a prayer of thanks, prayed forgiveness for my little faith, and marveled at what horrors could have come on us if all that had happened even five minutes sooner. Or if we had left ten minutes later and intersected with that last tanker instead of slipping safely toward shore. What if—but what if-- 

What if God knows so exactly how to get us from point A to point B we can stop worrying about missing any more divine appointments?

Goodbye Liberty...

Leaving Liberty Bay

Our 2013 Mystery Tour started quietly one morning, as we untied from the dock, pointed the GLORY B north,  and chugged out of Liberty Bay. It was a beautiful spot, and we were blessed in so many ways during our stay in that historical little waterfront town of Poulsbo. It's where we finally found the GLORY B, and decided to follow our dreams.

View from the deck of the GLORY B

No wind made for an uneventful first passage except for lovely things like the sun finally breaking through after days and days of rain, and a pod of young dolphins that popped up several times next to the boat for a quick look as they passed by. Too fast to get the camera out, so I'll have to be better prepared next time.

Getting ready to go under
Agate Pass Bridge

So far, all systems are working beautifully. We have our own hot shower, an oven to bake anything we want in, and my Internet connection works as flawlessly at anchor somewhere as it did tied up to the docks back in Poulsbo. It even works while traveling, but I've been enjoying the sights too much to get down to business, yet. Maybe tomorrow!

Tonight, we are anchored out in the bay at Port Townsend, where we will take the GLORY B, TOO (our dinghy) ashore for a few last minute items, before spending an enjoyable evening plotting our course to the next stop. Where will that be? Not quite sure, yet, because there are so many choices. But I know one thing.

We will definitely be looking for divine appointments! And while the Captain is busy plotting our course north, I will be plotting the next "Stella Madison Capers," which happen to be taking Stella and her friends up this very same route. Of course, I haven't forgotten Meg Jennings, from my novel GOLD TRAP, either. 

Did you know you can go anywhere
 in the world from here?

In fact, I've got my gold pan handy for the first pretty river I come across along the Gold Rush trail. Not to mention a lot of people with gold fever have been there before me, and, I'll be on the lookout for some of their stories and legends, too. So, I hope you'll stop by often to join us!

Long Time Gone...

It has been a long time since I left on my Mystery Tour. This time, last year, we had only a few weeks left till departure time, and a mountain of household effects to get into storage. After ten years of living on the farm we were pretty well entrenched. But it was all very exciting. And what an itinerary we had planned!

We were looking for gold.

Up hills, down hills, off the beaten path to out-of-the-way places… some where only ghosts visited anymore. Did we find any gold? Yes. And to this day, I carry it around in the bottom of my purse to remind me of that fact. Did I slake my thirst for prospecting? Not hardly. Once you're hooked, you're hooked. But we also found gold of a very different sort, that turned out to be a lot more valuable for us than the other kind.

It has to do with our search for divine appointments (do they really exist?), and what might happen if our dreams somehow collided with God's plan for our lives (is there one of those for everybody?). Not only are these fascinating subjects, but to actually encounter such things could turn a person's entire life on its ear. Which it did. And I told exactly how that happened in the wonderful anthology 21 STORIES OF FAITH by Shelley Hitz. 

In company with twenty other stories of people bumping into the same kind of stuff. How encouraging is that? Enough to keep us going on, instead of going home, that's for sure. Because it has also occurred to the Captain and I that if God provided us with this boat in such a miraculous way, He just might have somewhere He would like to take us in it. Right?

So, we will be leaving Liberty Bay on June first. Heading north. That's all we know so far. But considering how things went last year, that's plenty! Here's hoping you will all come along for the ride. To keep us on track, give us your advice (this time, we'll be doing a lot of stuff we've never done before. Yikes!), and maybe even help us to feel not so alone in some of the wilderness places we will be traveling through. At the moment, I'm thinking about bears.

But I guess I'll talk about that next time.

Glory B. Too...

There are several important things we need before we start our journey north. One of which is a dinghy. This because there are times we will be “on the hook” (at anchor) and will need some way of getting ashore. We were thinking this would be a fairly major expense since we had been watching the classifieds for several months, and nothing came up that seemed a good fit. 

Then, one Saturday, we had a sudden urge to drive to nearby Port Townsend (love it when that happens), and see if there might be any for sale there. Imagine our surprise to find that the used marine equipment store was going out of business that week, and they did have a couple to choose from. One of which was a traditional little sailing dinghy, complete with mast, sail, centerboard, teak seats, and grates for the bottom (so your things don't get wet should she take on a bit of water). Not to mention the cutest little anchor and fenders, too. All for about one third the price of what a simple dinghy with no extras was going for in the papers. Is God good, or what?

Considering the fact that we also got several other items on our “to go” list—like a bosun's chair in case the Captain might have to get to the top of the masts for any reason—we decided that little jaunt wasn't anything less than another divine appointment for us. So, we brought our new little treasure home and christened her the “GLORY B. TOO.” She will get a new coat of paint and some trim inside and out when we go to dry dock, same as the GLORY B. 

But that didn't stop us from trying her out on an overnight campout to a place called Blake Island. A small island, only accessible by boat, that has a unique view of the Seattle skyline from the campsites. So, we rounded up another “family crew” and decided to explore. Details are in my newsletter, along with a few other things. Like how you can get a free advanced copy of my soon-to-be-released, new inspirational adventure novel called THE PANDORA BOX.

Meanwhile, the GLORY B. TOO behaved beautifully, and is officially a member of the family, now. Of course, she immediately got taken over by the younger set, but hey...

You have to keep building those dreams!

Man Overboard!

Changing dreams into reality is hard work. Of course, anything worthwhile usually is. Between all the interruptions of holidays, computer crashes, and unscheduled trips that had to be made to take care of emergencies, we finally came to that momentous occasion for all boaters... the shakedown cruise. It's the first time you actually take a new boat out onto the water. Or, an old one you're trying to restore to its former glory, like we are.

The GLORY B. passed with flying colors. Along with the wonderful family crew the Captain put together for the occasion. Personally, I only had one bit of a meltdown. It happened when my son (who happens to be in the Coast Guard and takes these things seriously) decided to surprise everyone with a “man overboard drill.” Because that's how they happen in real life. By surprise. Believe me, one never plans to lose anyone over the side.

Before I go any further, I should explain that as a writer I get very attached to certain things. Odd things, mostly, that have to do with my sense of atmosphere. Shells, rocks with gold veins running through, a particular tea kettle, and the Captain's mustache (which he has had for all the years I've known him). One of my favorite things aboard the GLORY B, other than the mermaid hooks to hang things on, is the life ring that frames the porthole on deck. For some reason, I love that old thing. So, imagine the horror when my son suddenly flings it out to sea when we are clipping along quite nicely and hollers, “Man overboard!”

The exercise being to see how long it takes to get the boat turned around, and come up alongside close enough to recover it, again. Just keeping it in sight all that time was nerve-wracking. Especially when it would disappear for a few seconds in the trough of some little swell of sea. Not that I couldn't replace it with a brand new one if we should happen to fail the test. It's just that it was one of the boat's original items, older than our crew, and one of those magical things that had gained a bit of life “by reason of use.” Sort of a touchstone, you might say.

It took us five minutes to recover. Due partially to being slowed down by about a foot of sea-growth trailing from our bottom that we haven't scraped off, yet. Which is not good enough (if it had actually been a human), but we will get better at it, I'm sure. At least we got it back! Alas, I have no film of it, since the last thing on my mind during all the excitement was pushing the button on the camera. Something else I learned about myself, and will have to adjust to, or there will never be any truly exciting shots of our adventures.

I did get a few pictures, though. So that you wonderful armchair travelers could get a bit of a sense of what it's like to come aboard...

Not Going Home This Year...

A long time ago (when I was quite young), I had an opportunity to travel across the United States and stop at any place I would like to see. Being an avid lover of history, such an opportunity felt like Christmas, to me, and I got busy making spectacular plans. 

I wanted to follow the Santa Fe Trail, visit ghost towns and gold mines (yes, I had gold fever even way back then), canoe through the Everglades, touch the crack in the Liberty Bell with my own hands, put flowers at the feet of the Stature of Liberty, and eat lobster, fresh off a fishing boat, in Maine.

I bought a U.S. road atlas, and spent many enjoyable hours planning that trip. When I finally turned it over to the Captain (who had said we could go anywhere, and do anything I wanted), he was a bit shocked. Which was somewhat devastating to me, because I had been so sure we liked the same things. “Oh, it isn't that,” he said. “It's just that a trip like this would take at least three years.” We didn't have three years. We were simply going across country to attend college. Many years later, we did do that trip (it was an anniversary present), and it took us six.

A very wonderful six years.

Now, it seems we are on the verge of doing something of the same thing, only this time, by boat. A wonderful boat, that is turning out to be so much more than we originally believed. And, once again, I have scheduled way too much in too short a time. Starting with the fact that during the five months I scheduled for my MYSTERY TOUR, we have only made it to half the destinations, so far. Which the Captain says is quite all right, because who would want to hurry through the “adventure of a lifetime,” anyway?

So, we are not going home this year.

We are going on...