The shot above was snapped by my sister on a recent trip through the San Juan Islands of Washington state. She wrote, "I took the shot from the upper deck of our ferry. It just makes me want to become an islander!!" There are several thriving marinas in Friday Harbor. Check out the links below for more information about all the marinas and vacationing in the San Juan Islands.
Most of the boats in the photo above seem to be sailboats, though of course the vessel in the foreground is not a sailboat. Small boating is fun in any kind of craft, as long as you or your captain is skilled in handling it.
When I was growing up, my Dad enjoyed salmon fishing in Puget Sound. He liked catching his limit off the Pt. No Point Lighthouse. We stayed in our camper parked at the Hansville Boat House. Family and friends joined us and we had jolly times. It was quite a motley crew -- we had a collection of trailers, campers, station wagons, and cabins rented from the man who ran the boat house/restaurant/motel. And big parties in the evening after all the work was done. Some of the younger kids would fall asleep even with all the laughter and loud storytelling and raucous card games that went on every night til the wee hours.
The boats my Dad and my Uncle Howard rented were 16' open kicker boats. We had no shelter from the rain and "below decks" was just a funny saying if you had to crawl under the bow or a tarp. We never did, but it was available if we suddenly became ill or frightened.
And sometimes we would become frightened. The freighters and steamships that used the channel left huge wakes that could swamp us if we strayed too close to the middle of the channel.
Many times the Orca pods would swim through and that was a definite signal to head back to the boat house. In those days we didn't go whale watching! I always felt we were intruding on their habitat and heaven forbid they should take a dislike to our puny boat. We'd be upside down in the middle of Puget Sound faster than you could say HELP! We left them alone and gave them plenty of our respect -- and distance.
In those days a few yachts anchored off Hansville and the occupants would fish off the back end of their lower decks. We seldom saw sailboats in the crowd. The sailboats usually confined themselves to the other side of Foulweather Bluff on the Hood's Canal side of the Kitsap Peninsula.
For us kids, boating at the Point consisted of layering up in warm clothes and jumping into the boat and launching at the morning tide change, usually around daylight. Besides coffee, sandwiches, and candy bars, the men sipped from a pint of Canadian whiskey, and *ahem* used an "alternative facility" [i.e. coffee can] to relieve themselves and really didn't like having little girls around. We cramped their style but they were very careful to not use any foul language or do anything inappropriate -- perfect gentlemen! They would take us out, help us catch at least one salmon of legal size, then race us back to the float in front of one of the boat houses and drop us off with our catch [if we could carry it.] They'd come in later. Once the wind kicked up midday before the next tide change, they'd finish that session, come in, clean their catch, eat lunch, take a nap and go out again on the afternoon tide.
It's amazing to me now that they did all that in those small fishing boats, unprotected from the elements and at the mercy of nature and other much larger vessels. It was a miracle their outboard motors never failed and they were spared any life-threatening situations. [If they did experience true danger, I have put it out of my mind. Too scary! I shall have to ask my Aunt and cousin and sister if they recall anything out of the ordinary.]
Those days for me now are like old dreams, fleeting and faded, but not entirely forgotten.
For more information: Washington marina directory, marinas in Friday Harbor, Friday Harbor vacation guide, Washington State tourism, Hansville, WA.
Have fun exploring!
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