August 27th 2008

We are back at Winchester Bay Oregon after coming down the coast from Washington . Planned to get to Brookings or Crescent city, but weather once again has stopped the train. We will leave Allymar here and go to the Rogue Valley and do all the stuff that will make the trip to California and then Mexico possible. Thanks to friends we have a place to stay. It is good to be home again and we look forward to seeing our friends again.

Want to thank Nina Wagaman for the great picture she took of Allymar with all her sails flying and the two of us waving.

Coming down the coast is a pleasure compared to going north. Sails rather than motor and until today warmer weather. Took a great video yesterday and will try to atttach it to the next posting.

Take care

Ken

August 17th 2008 Westport Washington

Was sitting on Allymar yesterday when a fellow walked up and said "Do you know me?" I answered "I do now". He was looking at Allymar as if he was seeing an old friend. He introduced himself as Bob Kniermien, and had sold NINFA (Allymars previous name) to the man I purchased her from. His imprint remains on her today in the interior wood and stain glass, compass binnacle, cabin top skylight and many of the things we like so much about her. It was a pleasure to meet him and see his pleasure in return. I hope to be a positive about the next owner as he was. Thanks Bob!!

We are back in the land of military customs officials, (can't go below when they go through cabinets and drawers, get lectured on all the documents we need to have, want to look at our money and etc). Yep, the good old USA. I seem to always forget how much we have moved down the road to oppressive government control of its citizens each time I leave the country. Of
course I did not mention my feelings to the officer, as we would most likely be in Gitmo by now.

Heading further down the coast as the weather allows.

live slow, sail fast

Ken

August 9,2008 Tofino, Western Vancouver Island

Aloha

Well, we have wended our way further south on the outside of Vancouver Island and are tied up to the government dock in Tofino. I was here last in 1971 and how this place has changed. What was a small isolated town is now a bustling gentrified city with art galleries, upscale and expensive restaurants and the constant drone of float planes and boats taking people to the hot springs and whale watching. It is good to walk on be on land as we have become somewhat tired of the constant water, rock and trees as our landscape of view. Although it is gorgeous up here, it is all the same, and one cove seems to morf into the next without much difference, and it is very difficult to get off the boat and go for a hike. Where the water ends the rocks begin followed by inpenetrable rain forest. We look forward to dirt, trees, walkable terrain and then water soon. Not to complain but a little diversity would be appreciated.
Harp had the trifecta on her 50th birthday. She was able to pet an orange cat, paddle a canoe and was given a bottle of red wine by the Nootka lighthouse. Spend the day in Friendly Cove on Nootka Island. Although the cake was a bit under done, it was eaten with gusto.
We will be heading further south when the weather allows (southerlies today) and then back to Oregon for a rest and reprovisioning stop. We expect to leave Allymar in Brookings and travel to the Rogue Valley and Chico California. My mother fractured her hip recently and a visit is mandatory.
We continue to meet great fellow boaters and appreciate the opportunity to have that bit of community when it presents itself. We meet and greet the same boats more than once as we all travel in the same direction at different speeds and to different anchorages. Some are even going to Mexico this winter.
If anyone wants to join us for the sail from Vancouver Island to Brookings (with a stop at Tillamook), contact us ASAP. We expect to leave Ucluelet as soon as possible after we pick up our mail on the 15th. On a warmer note the trip further south to Southern California (mid September) promises to be warmer and crew for that journey would be appreciated. Although sailing offshore is not always fun and games, the opportunity to go off shore does have that "adventure" opportunity. Let us know.

Fair winds and kind seas to all

Ken

First Mate’s LogJuly 25, 2008Walters Cove, Kyuquot Inlet West side, Vancouver Island

An historic First Nation's Treaty signing, and we were there


I hate to say it, but my mood is weather dependent. And what a difference a day makes.
Spirits were high in Walter’s Cove on Thursday July 24th, as that is the day the supply ship Uchuck III arives in Walters Cove. There is no road here, you either come by sea or by air. We also were fortunate to stumble upon and arrive on the day of a very important and historic treaty signing between the Canadian government and several West coast Vancouver Island tribes, or as they prefer, bands.
I had just got off AllyMar, and took the garbage to the dumpster and found that it was full, and had a wooden pallet on top to keep the lid closed, way too heavy for me to lift. “Now how am I going to do this,” I muttered to myself, when I heard a voice from behind offering to help me. Ken (another one!) was a burly stout very gregarious Canadian who talked to me from that moment on like he’d known me my whole life. And he was a fount of information, giving in non stop. He told me about “ a great and momentous celebration” that was occurring tonight, “and Mike De Jong is being flown in,” the Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation. Burly Ken was heading home on the Uchuck in the morning with his buddy Tom, the end of their kayak trip in the Islands. “But I see 3 kayaks,” I said. His other buddy had to be transported out because he burned his foot at their campfire. He towed in his friend’s Kayak. “Now he owes you,” I told him. Ken was so outgoing and engaging, I wondered what he did for a living. “I have a machine shop.” Such wasted talent, he could have been the Master of Ceremonies for this night’s event.
“All are invited to the ceremony,” we were told by the girl at the store, who had consulted her aunt. Even a couple of no nothing gringos , so we crossed the little cove to the res, and sat in the back of the room, trying to at least look Canadian . They had prepared a meal for all of us. We had already eaten and intended to miss the meal by arriving at 6:30, when the ceremony was scheduled to begin, but at 6:30 they hadn’t served dinner yet. We were each given a plate with ham, potato salad, pineapple salad and green beans.
The minister De Jong was easy to spot--one of the few guys with a dinner jacket on. He was a very effectual politician, playing to the crowd, making jokes when the kids were unruly and noisy. Ken introduced us to another Canadian, Glenn who owns a kayak guide business WestCoastAdventures.com. I asked him if he felt the Minister was sincere. He bit his lip and thought long and hard. “I think he gets it.”
There was drumming, singing and dancing, and then we actually witnessed the signing of 14 copies of an inches thick document, see photo of Witness Book. Thanks to Ken the kayaker pointing us out to him, I had a chance to ask Minister De Jong just what the treaty signified. “It gives back to the First Nations people the jurisdiction of their historic ancestral land, to manage as they see fit, within the context of Canadian law.” I suspected that they could have taken a cue from our forefathers, writing the Constitution on one page. Life gets complicated tho I guess, after so many years of exploitation, it takes a few trees worth of paper to make it all right.
Java the Hut
The Canadian kayaker women had told me about the one-of-a-kind drive up coffee kiosk at Walters Cove. It had even received front page billing earlier this month in a local paper. A kilometer by pathway, it was made for float by through, on the way out of the cove. A sodden path it was when I skirted the puddles on or last morning at Walters Cove. The previous day, it had been sunny, and Eric the owner, and a carpenter working with him, Ross, took a break to chat. Eric was a sweet an engaging man, former Jewish New Yorker who liked to teach the Native Americans (who were clearly fond of him) Yiddish. “they love Yiddish, it’s very similar to their own language.” Must be a Jewish-Native American connection somewhere…..
Ross’s wife was the nurse at the local medical outpost. Her contracted was for 8 weeks on, 8 weeks off, and she had to be within 15 minutes of the office 24/7, plus her regular 40 hours a week. “She’s been up all night with heart attack victims, has to medivac seriously injured out.” She took care of Ken the Kayaker’s friends’ third degree burn. I asked him about diabetes. “Oh ya sure, 60% of those people at the ceremony have diabetes. They love their chum-is, their native word for dessert, literally ‘sweet’. They’ll sit around after dinner for an hour and a half and then pile their plates high with cake and ice cream, and eat it all. It’s incredible.” He said that before the white man came, they used to eat fruit. So his wife is trying to get them to exchange chocolate cake for cherries. “It’s slow going.” They used to have apple trees on the island they lived on previously, but haven’t planted any at Walters Cove.
Here Rusty!
What’s chocolate, white and love all over? A chocolate lab named Rusty, who I had a major love fest with, see photo. “He’s not my dog, but he loves me, and follows me everywhere”, Eric said. I told Ken I was going to get a mellow chocolate lab when we return to land life. But for now, a snoring Rusty on my lap will have to do.

First Mates Log July 30 2008 Tahsis

FirstMate’s log
July30th, 2008
Tahsis Inlet
Welcome to Winter
“An unseasonably strong low pressure front of 990 millibars is stationary over central Vancouver Island” declared Environment Canada over our VHF radio station. The Canadian weather service is always correct, if not always accurate (does that sound like politician speak?) They predict that a storm is coming, but the timing and duration is not always correct. This storm was to have lasted a mere couple of days, but as I write we are well into our fourth day (Ken says it’s been atleast a year) and perhaps things will lighten tomorrow. I have made a request of God to please do something only he/she can do, and that is give me a sunny day on August 2nd, my fiftieth birthday. And a fish. I want to catch a fish. I would take nearly any good tasting retainable fish, as defined by Canadian fisheries, but a salmon or a halibut would really do the trick to mark this for what it is, a half century of birthdays. If you love me God……..I tell Ken my biggest fear is that I will catch a fish that is too big to land, but then at least I’d have a one-that-got-away story, which would certainly be a start.
Not that I’m complaining about the weather or anything, but the locals are. Except the one and only waitress here. “Good tips. When the fishing is bad and the weather is worse, the drinking increases and the tips great.” Ah to be young , have nice hair and be tipped for it.
The folks that own this resort have a condo to which they retire to every November in Las Barillas in the Sea of Cortes. On the wall of their restaurant they have 2 plaques with what appear to be giant golf tees mounted. Look a little closer and on the plaque there is a photo of him and her and their guy-normous finfish--a sailfish and a sword fish. She caught the biggest one, within 10 pounds of the women’s world record. The ‘golf tees’ are the bills off these trophy fish. They caught them in the Sea of Cortes in 2004. What an accomplishment.
I spoke with John the owner, bemoaning my poor success at fishing. We went through it all again, how I need to rig our gear and where I need to go where the fish actually are (did you hear the one about the man who lost his watch? Where did he lose it? ‘Over there’ Then why are you looking here? ‘Because the light’s better). Sometimes where the fish are is not always the most convenient location for the sailboat eg a lee shore. So dear readers, if you wish me a happy birthday, say a prayer for the nee fisherwoman on her birthday--may she catch a fish in the sun!!