Author Archives: Michael Britt

Empty Key Chains….We are cruising now.

Cast off

It started last weekend with Kathy picking up Lisa’s Green VW beetle convertible “Margarita”. down to just one key. No house key only the key to the boat. Later that day I ask for the keys to run a short errand and oops, no Margarita.

I leave the key to the truck and the key to its shell in the glove box for my friend Doug who is taking over after 25 years of ownership. Only the boat key a beer opener and strangely a golf ball key card for Chuck Corrica Driving range are left. Monday morning we move out of our slip at Ballena Isle Marina and onto the fuel dock. 136 gallons and we are ready to go. Next tank will be in San Diego.

We motor in light air to Ayala cove on Angel Island and tie up to two mooring balls with minimum drama. As willi waws from the building breeze in the slot blow over Mount Livermore, we sit in silence, completely zoned out. We are exhausted, It’s been a non stop four years selling two houses and a business, getting married, a year and a half of full time boat work.

After a life time of wanting this moment, I sit in silence on a worn park bench looking out over the cove at our boat floating on its mooring. Will we be strong enough, smart enough, brave enough?

We are about to find out. One Day at a Time.

Fisher Poets in Astoria

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fisher16

David Densmore - Fisherman Welder Poet Biker

The Fisher Poet – David Densmore

In Astoria’s East Basin, It was a pretty long hike out to where the boat was docked. I think catamarans are always at the very end of the dock. As I walked back and forth on the long finger, I would pass an old fishing boat named Cold Stream. A rough looking man with long hair and a greasy work coat was busy MIG welding an aluminum bulwark onto the boat. Since I am interested in welding, I would stop to watch, and we struck up a conversation.

In the adjacent slip lay a huge 60’ Ferro-cement ketch. He told me he was planning to retire onto that boat and go cruising. David told me that he had lived on boats his whole life, but always on fishing boats mainly fishing in Alaska. He is looking forward to learning to sail and spending some time in warm water.

David is a burly man, with long hair, a loud Harley, huge hands, reddened and scarred from years of hard work. Having a lot of sailing books on Footloose to get rid of, I shyly asked if he learned by reading or if his learning style had more to do with hands on and practical application. Surprisingly to me, he confessed a love of books. I brought him my load including Adelard Coles heavy weather and the cruising encyclopedia.

David surprised me by offering me one of his books of poetry in exchange. It seems he has written several books of poetry. He told me the poems come to him spontaneously, and he would just write them down. I mentioned my surprise based on his appearance and he laughed, “wish I had a dollar for every time I heard that”. You can’t judge a book by the cover.

A few days later I was leaving for Alameda and as I wheeled my luggage down the dock he told me that I should plan to attend the annual fisher poets gathering at the end of February.

In February, Lisa and I took a few days to drive back up the coast. One of our stops was in Newport where my favorite restaurant Local Ocean Seafood was just as good as the last time I had eaten there 7 or 8 years previously.

Cold Stream – Open For Business

David Desmore – MC

When we got to Astoria we spent a couple of days at the boat, and went to the Fisher poets’ event. It was a held over the weekend with several venues, I started with coffee on Dave’s Boat where one of the attending poets began to sing with his guitar. The event was well attended with lots of people crowding into three venues to eat, drink and listen to 90 fisher poets. Highly recommended.

Fisher Poets

The Sea Lions of Astoria

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Sea lion deterrent

We arrived in Astoria, Oregon on the first of September to a harbor infested with sea lions. Several of the docks are sinking under the weight of thousands of huge animals. The first order of business was to build a visual deterrent to keep the beasties off the boat.

When we arrived a large sailboat, a few slips down, had three sea lions on her coach roof which was sagging under their weight. They had climbed from the dock onto the boat.
The sea lions bark constantly, 24/7, the only way to sleep on your boat is with construction earplugs. Lying awake you can almost hear the words. Their voices seem to consist of about 6 notes, the notes are “barked” in a series of up to about 5. In my mind the notes are letters and each series of barks a word. I imagine the conversation to be something like. Hey you are lying on me fatso. I was here first. Make room. I’m bigger than you. Arp aarp urp. They make up for content with constancy.
Imagine the shock of finding a 5 foot tall sea lion standing in your path on the head float at night. Intimidating to say the least. They do eventually give way by jumping into the water. Interestingly a barrier of construction ribbon on a wooden stake about 18 inches high was enough to keep a thousand pound sea lion from coming onto the dock. As soon as a stake is knocked over however, all bets are off and they scramble to make themselves comfortable.
The sea lions are a hot topic in Astoria. There is a Sea Lion Preservation committee that wants the port to abandon the Marina to the creatures. They post “observers” on the causeway every day to watch for wrong doing against the sea lions. On weekends depending on the weather, as many as 100 tourists come to view the sea lions. The port tries to charge them $5.00 for parking, but most do not pay.
Pro sea lion forces want the port to abandon the marina including its est. $100M sea wall. They claim that any damage to the fishery is more than offset by the vast increase in tourist revenue brought by the sea lion “attraction.”
Anti-sea lion forces claim that sea lions have decimated the salmon runs killing salmon by biting out just the belly of the fish, apparently the best part. A man who dove on our boat to inspect our zincs told me he used to be a commercial fisher and had enjoyed killing “hundreds” of sea lions, sometimes leaving them draped on navigation buoys where they had hauled out.
Both sides of the issue are rabid in their beliefs. Meanwhile the government brands the sea lions as they appear and have a program to cull the greedy ones. Pro sea lion forces claim a relentless slaughter but I read somewhere that the program had killed a total of 50 sea lions in the life of the program….years.

Big ones are Stellars, Sleek ones are California

The tide never gets us if we sleep on a dock

My Dock

Sucia Island

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Hiking on her honeymoon

After a long hike….Yumm

Visitors

Madrone

Sucia Anchorage

Rough rocky night on the boat. The boat would point parallel to the swell instead of into the wind.

The next morning the weather continued. We decided to stay at Sucia and work on the boat, but began to feel barfy from looking down in the wallowing boat. We decided to move to the south side of Echo bay which was more protected. As soon as we got anchored the weather cleared and we enjoyed a beautiful afternoon. We walked down most of the north side of echo bay with spectacular views. Back at the boat we prepared Margaritas with the blender given to us as a Wedding gift by Doug and Kathy Logan. Then a fabulous feast.. ribeye, shrimps asparagus sautéed mushrooms. YUMM.

Honey Moon in the Pacific Northwest

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After a summer working on the boat, I left for our wedding in Santa fe New Mexico. Lisa and I had been apart for most of two months. Talk about a hard way to plan a wedding. Everything went smoothly and we returned to the boat for our honeymoon in the San Juans

We sta DriversEd rted with a little training on Docking with our instructor Tim Hoving. Tim is a certified catamaran instructor with San Juan Sailing. We hired him to work on our docking skills. He emphasizes getting attached to the dock without getting off of the boat.

The big lesson of the day was throw the line on both sides of the cleat buy having the coil split between the two hands. Then pull in the unattached side to connect to the dock.. We did the practice with our head phones on.

Maiden voyage with the MCYC

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The first Bachelor Party

Marconi Cove…. A dirt pullout on Highway one North of Point Reyes Station has been a favorite launch spot for many sailing adventures. Starting in the late eighty’s, I would launch my Hobie 18 there for trips up and down the bay. In the dirt lot other sailors were doing the same thing. In typical fashion we would help each other with mast raising and share our tips and tricks, all while laughing at Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers on KQED’s Car talk. Some of these relationships stuck and the Marconi Cove yacht club was born.

The club has an exclusive membership. Doug Buescher, Mark Peters, Dennis Olson, and myself. We hold elections with the absent parties nominated for offices like commodore for life, or eel grass patrol. Meetings are held several times a year at undisclosed locations.

Live Music

Early in the club’s history, member Buescher got married and a bachelor party preceded the nuptials. The guests boated by whatever means to Marshall Beach on the west side of Tomales bay and an extravagant meal was enjoyed by all in attendance. Cooked on an open fire, the meal featured chicken, steak, corn on the cob, veggies cooked in foil, salad, pie cooked on the beach and ice cream. Substantial amounts of Redtail ale were consumed, there was live music and a great time was had by all.

While it was obvious that the “bachelor party” would be a great “club” event, we had a problem… our only remaining bachelor was sticking to his guns. We decided to have the bachelor party anyway and made it an annual event.

Fast forward 25 years. My Hobie cat has become a Catana 471, we are all older and greyer, but these are still the guys I would rather sail with. Experienced, intuitive, I wanted them on my team as I tried to learn this huge new boat.

I was getting married again, and new wife Lisa and I planned to spend part of our honeymoon on our new boat cruising the San Juan Islands.

The 21^st bachelor party was to be held in the Pacific North West, the first time away from Tomales Bay.

The boat stayed in Tacoma Washington for the first 6 months after the purchase. After selling my optometry practice, I drove to Tacoma with a truckload of parts, and began working on the boat. Six weeks later Mark and Doug showed up for the maiden voyage. The mission was to fly every sail on the way to Bellingham, WA.

On the way we would practice docking, see some of the San Juan Islands, and try to get the new skipper (me) qualified to take his new bride on a honeymoon cruise on her new boat.

Bam Bam

We did fly all the sails and practiced docking with varying success. A large steak was obtained named Bam Bam. Weighing over three pounds with the bone in, it made a great meal for the boys.

As with most bachelor parties, the details shall remain in the murky past, so that those in attendance may amplify, or minimize (based on their audience), in the oral storytelling tradition.

The Pacific Northwest. Ferry’s and snow capped peaks.

Roche Harbor entrance

Symmetrical Spinnaker

View from Moran Mansion

Roche Harbor

Tied up at Roche Harbor

The brain trust

Straits of San Juan de Fuca

Mark surveys his world

Mark

Navigating

I’m very lucky

Lefty…

Hotel at Roche Harbor

Hard at work

Eel Grass officer was not present

Doug

Dinner at Moran Mansion

Posers

The Journey Begins

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Mom and Dad, on Shearwater

I have been wanting to go cruising my whole life. My dad spoke of building a ferrocement boat and sailing the south pacific. His words, when I was 15, gave me a life long desire to make this journey. At times, the possibility seemed dim with seasick partners, the struggles of a small business, the world seemed to conspire to make this already difficult goal impossible to obtain.

Years after the death of my first wife Sandy, I met Lisa who is open to the adventure and promise of this journey. We slowly set about putting the plan in action. We sold my wonderful Cape Dory “Shearwater” and began the search for an appropriate cruising vessel. We spent 2 years visiting monohulls up and down the coast in California with our agent, and friend, Allison Lehman. During one stop, we check out a multihull “Mantra”, a huge boat in less than pristine condition. We offer, but the deal falls through because the seller’s broker wanted both halves of the deal and pulls a buyer out of his back pocket. We look at a beautiful Catana 472, but I am too tall to stand in front of the stove…I love to cook.

After that visit we spend two hours talking to the broker in the cockpit, (we call it the porch.) We talk about cruising and multihull design. As Lisa and I walk away we realize how comfortable the porch was. The elevated view of the surrounding marina, the protection afforded by the bimini overhead. We realize a Catana is the way to go.

We visit Santosha in Ventura and offer. Santosha is a 471 with the same great deck layout as a 472 but I can stand in front of the stove! We offer, but the Seller seems to be conflicted. He obstructs every step. In the end, after a 3000 dollar survey, we abandon the deal. In our view, the seller is completely unreasonable or perhaps just not ready to part ways with his boat.

After a “cooling off” period, we offer on a 471 in Seattle. We get the deal in November 2013. The boat sits in the brokers slip while I sell my optometry practice. Two weeks after the sale, I’m off to start working on the boat. We finally found her, and later christened her Footloose!