Belly of the Whale

PORT TOWNSEND

Tuesday I had a beautiful story in my mind of the last week. Granted, it was 2:30 in the am on a plane to Chicago - always the time for lucid stories. But now I am back home and the euphoria of the last week has slowly leeched out of veins.
Wow!
In Columbia, as ever, I have felt out of place. No one ever calls me. I feel as though I have gone too long. I have lost what place, or no one keeps up the facade that I had one. ( I think it is likely my insecurity that has crreated this reality.) ((I am a little down on Cola.)) I have been a hermit and not called a sole. I have been questioned and doubted. I don't think anyone believes me or in me.
So when I arrived in Bellingham, there to look at a beautiful schooner, I was warmed and pleased to be taken in so kindly, first by my friend Megan and her boyfriend Mica, a stranger until then, and their roommate Nate - a good mountain man. they made me feel so welcome in there house and went out of their way time and time again. bellingham was beautiful. But the greatest surprise came from the sailors on the docks. Everyday I went down and walked the docks. It was refreshing to be out again - I remembered Palma and Antigua - places where I had been so close to my dream. Bellingham smelled like a sea port: salt and musk; the gulls laughed and the waves gently lapped against the wharves. It seemed to me that I was greated as a prince by every stranger along the way. Everyone had a story or a tip for me, and always their encouragement: "just get a ship and go son, trust me, just go; you'll learn along the way." A man working on his jib sail saw me slowing easing up the dock staring at each boat along the way. "What boat are you looking for?" he asked. "My dream boat," I replied. He called me over and explained how he had seen a family of four living well enough in a thirty-footer like that one across the slipe from us. "You can do it."
I was looking at a steel replica of the Spray, the first boat to make a solo circumnavigations. A man came up and asked me if I were buying or selling. Somewhere in between, I said. He was a shipwright living on a boat next door. He told me all he new about the ship, a lot more than I had been told, and a great deal I didn't know about steel hulls in general. He asked me to come aboard his boat when I was finished up.
We talked for several hours. He explained how he had bought his boat and built it up, the genius of the various systems he used - all as he prepared a mixed salad to take to a yacht club pot luck. This sort of thing became my standard day while I was in Bellingham.
Eventually, all the boats I was interested in fell through: prices too high, not the right boat, or what I was learning day to day newly shaped the idea of what I wanted to sail. Now I wanted a strong fiberglass sloop. But it looked like me boat shopping was about through, and I planned to go with Megan and Mica up to Squamish to climb a classic line called "the Grand Wall," a seven to seventeen pitch route, but supposedly spectacular (one of the fifty classic climbs).
Sitting at home alone, ever dillegent, I picked up the brand new 48 North magazine and started looking for 34" sloops for under thirty grand. I was again starting from scratch. After half an hour I had a good list and realized that more than a couple were quite nearby. Hey, it's worth a try.
I got out the calling card and went back to work. Too much renivation. Wooden hull. No answer. No answer. Then I got Jim in Port Townsend. A real salesmen this one, but a hell of a nice guy. He was a shipwright, young, engauged, wants to buy some land. We laughed alot and he gave me intricate info on his sloop. What I couldn't understand was why he was dropping it so cheap. He said it had significant electrical issues - old basically - needing a complete refit, and that it still was unfinished in spots - but totally sailable as is.
Port Townsed wasn't far off. Robin told me I had to go there - I hadn't. But I was going climbing the next day. But that was for fun; this is business. It was Sunday afternoon and I was flying out Tuesday night. Maybe I would run to the bus, bus to another bus, hitchh-hike to the ferry, and ferry to Port Townsend. I'd see the boat, not be sure, talk to Jim some more, then hope on the afternoon ferry back toward Bellingham and hopefully be back in time to climb.

Oh, but no; this isn't how it would be. It was here that things went totally out of control, when fate, destiny, inevitability - take over and you just follow and try to keep up.
It was 4:10 (I thought). I had an hour to catch the bus which was at least 3 miles away. I would have to run. I packed only a light pack and switched my flip-flops for sneakers. I started running through the neighborhoods with my thumb out. It didn't take long to catch a ride. "It looked like you were in a hurry," the girl said. The bus stop wasn't far out of her way. She said she would take me there. Yea, I'll be early (I thought). In the back of her car I saw two sets of extending tele poles. "Are you a tele skier?" I asked. "No, I don't even know whose those are. I went up to Whistler once....yadda, yadda.....You can have them if you want." I've skied with bent and mangled poles for years (though I just bought a good pair, these were far nicer, $80-90). "Yeah I'll take um." Holy Shit!
So now I am at the bus stop with a backpack and two compacted ski poles. Instead of being forty-five minutes early, I am fifteen minutes late. Don't know how. It was 5:15, not 4:15. There would be another bus.
I caught it. Then another. I was the only passenger. The driver and I talked about Kerry and Bush, his personal experience in Vietnam - it was the first in depth conversation I've ever had with a vet of Vietnam. What he saw was moving and terrible. He knew I still had fifteen miles to go past the last stop and that I would have to hitch or get a cab. Insteed he said he was getting off and he lived that way and wouldn't mind giving me a lift to the ferry. It was against policy, of course, but he didn't mind. The conversation continued late. I was just going to catch the 10:15 ferry, the last.
Nope. The last was at 9:15. the terminal was dark and deserted. What now? There was a hotel and bar a few miles back. Jon, the driver, said there was a free bus to the terminal in the morning. He dropped me at he hotel and wished me well.
To the bar.
Rooms were $78. Just a hair out of my pricerange. I was thinking $35. Wishful dreaming. I guess I will have yet another urban bivoac. I figured on closing the bar down then huddling up in the woods until dawn.
If I was gonna sit in the bar and shoot pool, I might as well have one drink. A white russian. I lost my pool game, damnit. Open very well, lost it down the stretch. Oh well. But the atmostphere was hilarious. I felt like a cultural anthropologist. This was the middle of nowhere. I made friends. Laughed. Some guy offered me his couch. I checked him out. I was armed with a knife and two ski poles. He lived only a few miles from here.
His house was a royal shithole. A dirty bachelor (sp), but a nice guy. Doesn't drink. I looked around for any possible threats, moved a giant pair of scizzors, and kept a weapon in hand under my blanket. The humid night air was cold, low fifties; I was glad for the blanket. I slept for a few hours until five, put on my shoes in the dark, and headed for the door.
It was still dark and cold. It was a good thing I was stone sober last night so I could follow the directions we came so I could get back.
Of course it didn't work anyhow.
I did well for a little while. I walked through the dark. I couldn't read my watch and decided to run again. I didn't want to miss the first ferry and I didn't know what time it was anymore. Maybe it was six? When the sky started to show color, I knew I needed to take a left. i thought it was the first one, which I took. I felt great. The air was still cool, but I was running and felt the cool air in my lungs. Until the road came to a dead end.
So maybe it was the second left (or the third); I was a little hazy there. Bold as ever, as I backtracked east, there was a left turn, north, that I thought would be a short cut; it would take me up to the next road with out all the backtracking. So what. It looked like a pretty road.
The sun was coming up in earnest. The chickens were going off. The hills and cut fields were lovely, no cars or noise, only a bit far off.
I ran for miles, never really hitting the road I needed, but I felt that I was heading right all the same.
And then I could see it, I thought. There it was, on the point, I had been there the night before. Another half mile and there was the road, no the road I had been trying to get on, but the next road after that, the last road, the ferry road. My short cut had taken me straight there. Normally my shortcuts take me to some beautiful, however unrelated and distant place, where something profoundly strange happens. But this wasn't the case this time. I had about 35 minutes to wait for the ferry.

On arrival I stopped in a dinner, ordered a pancake and called Jim. I hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday and, unfortunately for me, Jim was already in his truck and "would be there in just a minute." He arrived at the same time as my pancake. Oh well, the oj was good.
What a guy. Hilarious. Drives a sixty-seven (I think) Chevy pickup. Thirty five years old. We weren't all that different.
And there it was.
The hull glowed navy. It was up on blocks in the boat yard, surrounded by giant old schooners and junk - a little of anything and everything. People worked and hustled everywhere, sanding, painting, hammering, moving boats to and from the water. I was like a kid staring a "moo-cows in the lard" (family joke, sorry).
Everything was right. A fiberglass sloop, built in '68 before they really trusted fiberglass, so they layed it thick. It was thick enough when a .45 cal pistol wouldn't penetrate. Much of the rig was new, and strong. Jim himself was a shipwright and had put $8000 in hardware alone into the boat in the last year, not counting his labor. Yet there was still plenty to be done. the cabin was still unfinished enough that I would have the freedom to design and build it to my own specifications.
I looked for a way out. I looked for a flaw. Half of me, the rational, or trained half, thought that I should weigh - look at fifty boats before you buy. But the stronger part of myself, my intuitive half, knew that one looks at fifty boats only to learn what to look for, and the goal was only to know it when you see it. There is no guarentee to whether it will be the second boat, fifty-first boat, or no boat thereafter. If you want a good deal, a good boat - you have to act immediately when that time comes - just like everything else in life. Take your oportunities now. Again, I looked for a flaw, weaknesses, problems. They were all manageable. What was more, was the situation in which I would find myself in Port Townsend. Everyone I met supported me, taught me, and wanted to teach me more. Everyone was behind me. If I bought this boat in Charleston or elsewhere the deal wouldn't have been so sweet. Port Townsend has everything I need.
That night I stayed with Jim and his fiance, Nicole. We suped and talked thinks over and over. He took me to his shop; I met his partner and talked with him a long while. Jim gathered a bunch of tools he had bought newer models of and gave them to me. He offered me his boat-builders discount at the marine supply store for a month or so. And he wants to help me get started. He loves the boat and had just refused to sell it to a man because he was basically an asshole.
Jim had numerous appointments that coming weekend. Port Townsend was having their annual Wooden Boat Festival. Jim had just put his boat up a week ago and the calls were coming in. I new it. I knew it was a steal. I took it.
The next day we went to the bank and finalized everything. I talked to Bob, a diesel mechanic, about teaching me engines while rebuilding it. He said he wouldn't have it any other way. Jim knw Eric, a friend of Robin's, and had already shown him the electric work that needs to be done. That would be my next task.
The list goes on.

In short, I bought a boat and I am moving into the shipyard in Port Townsend. I am going to rebuild the boat and learn that process before launching it and learning how to sail her. I promised Jim and Nicole a sail to the San Juan Island's between here and Victoria.
Nicole drove me to the ferry that would take me to Seatle. I called Megan and Mica and asked them to please stow the rest of my gear in Bellingham until I got back, probably about a month. They said the climbing trip didn't go all that great. Nagging injuries.
Now I'm back, after an all night flight to Charlotte. Need to see the eye doctor and get in order, pack the Dancer and drive west once again. I always think it is the last time. I'm always wrong.
This one, at least, should be a great deal more powerful than all but the first.
The land ends at Port Townsend.