Schooner Adventuress

We had a chance to witness the schooner Adventuress between Shaw and Lopez Islands in the San Juan Islands three weeks ago.

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Sailboat at Rest, Westsound, Orcas Island, San Juan Islands

 

“My favorite Northwest boating destination is the San Juan Islands, because somehow I am drawn, impelled, pulled by some unknown force located there – perhaps a fantasy almost realized but yet, not quite. I try to shake it, even neglecting these islands for years, but alas, when I’m back, and I always seem to come back, the islands continue to exude their charm, their beauty.” – J. R. Hudson

Schooner – Shaw Island

Schooner Shaw Island

“Schooner Shaw Island,” was the first picture I ever took inside of the San Juan Islands of Washington. In 1974, after quitting my job at a camera store in order to temporarily become a “sailing bum,” I sailed a small sailboat from Gig Harbor in south Puget Sound up North through the San Juan Islands, then back again. After sailing in pre-summer weather in June, flirting with capsizing conditions, enduring a thunderstorm, then approaching the Shaw Island ferry landing, I took this image with a telephoto lens. I have not been able to identify the ship but it appears to be a schooner.

The telephoto lens exaggerates cumulous clouds far behind the ship. Appearing to be night, this was midday. I used a blue filter and underexposed the exposure in order to achieve the appearance of night. The camera was a Nikon “Nikkormat FTn” 35mm, the telephoto a Nikor 200mm f4 fixed focal length with Kodachrome slide film. Taken hand-held from a sailboat.

Rare and Fantastic Sail

J. R. at the helm of Clipper Mac

A Rare and Fantastic Sail –
Ship’s Log – 1975 – Aboard Sloop Clipper Mac

After an uneventful morning, I found myself simply going with the motions of riding into the mid morning on the deck of my small fiberglass sailboat. No work, no commitments, at least that I can think of at the moment. I was bothered by a plugged feed to the alcohol stove which made brewing coffee a little difficult. This was resolved however by dismantling the tube from a small tank using vice-grip pliers. I was finally able to have my coffee.

With the mainsail up tight, I motored along the shore pondering how these people can afford the waterfront properties I see along this shore of the island. Furthermore, most of the houses seem to have no activity. Either most of them are at work in other locations, such as in Everett or Seattle, or they are sleeping in. Ten o’clock? I don’t get it.

The drone of the motor, the ensuing vibration through the hull and up through the deck and picked up through my posterior, and the low cloud ceiling, all, placed me into somewhat of a numb trance. I leaned on the tiller as necessary to round the point into the wind. Wind!

I dropped off the throttle to one-third power, pointed the bow into the wind, and hiked forward to where the jib sail was stuffed into the bow pulpit railing. Just as soon as I got forward, the boat pointed away from the wind. This caused the mainsail to fill with wind pressure causing a bit of a heel that made me a little uncomfortable. If I fell overboard there is no one else on board to come back for me – the boat would simply sail on. I ran back to the tiller and pointed it back into the wind which was coming around the point.

I repeated this trip to and from the bow several times before I came up with an alternate plan. I released the main sheet, the main rope that cinches in the main sail, so that when the wind catches it again it will just release the pressure leeward and I can get on with the business of raising the jib sail. My plan worked and soon I had two sails set and I could sense the increase in hull speed. The motor was not necessary any more so I shut it down.

I sat back to relax again just applying the right amount of pressure necessary on the tiller to maintain a good heading. My goal was to cross the strait into the next set of islands. That would be a good place to be for a couple of days while I contemplate what I am going to do with the rest of my life, or at least until next week.

Back home in Seattle I have a bedroom in a bungalow that a friend is fixing up to sell. He is the son of the landlord and this is what he does. He paints and performs yard work for his dad and stays in these little houses until his dad buys another one for him to move into and clean up. His dad works for Boeing, the aircraft company in Seattle. I just got off working two years managing a small camera store and got tired of working day and night and on weekends and had enough cash to hold me over for a few months if I am careful how to spend it.

Now caught up in the motion of the waves, I let my mind wander. A classic rock tune enters my head, the remembrance of a perfume from a former lover, I visualize an exotic color with an exotic name . . . hmmm, how high can a seagull fly? Nothing in particular. I let my spine oscillate to the predictable frequency of the waves. Some get sea legs, I get sea spine. I ponder heavily that I am riding on top of very deep water, hundreds of feet to the bottom.

Time seems to be an intangible concept for me. Cruising sailboats are not fast. I can barely see any wake behind me, but my craft and I are plying along at what would be jogging speed on land, and I’m not breathing uncomfortably. Nor am I burning any fuel. Yet the shoreline I left behind is fading though the shoreline on the other side is still hardly to be seen. There is nothing to do but to settle in and hang onto the tiller while leaning on it to make minor corrections to the boat’s heading every few moments.

I suppose I should attempt to increase my awareness of my current reality. One can never know what their particular future holds, and one day this will all end and I may never be in such a situation again. And, this is certainly a nice situation, at least I think it is. That has got to matter somehow, but I am sort of numb to it all. Seems unreal.

Off in the distance a crack is forming in the cloud cover. Rays of sunlight angle down to the water lightening it up with a sparkling sheen. Soon another break, and another. Multiple bunches of rays hit the water on several compass points. There is a bluff on the windward side of a distant island that is now fully illuminated by the sun. It glows a golden yellow and appears to have a tuft of vegetation at its summit.

A white sail balloons above the deck of another sailboat, larger than mine, just appearing out of the direction of the wind. Finally I get it. This is a beautiful day and I am alive doing something rare and fantastic!

My boat “Clipper Mac”

Current activities and more sailing history

“Wings” Under Sail – San Juan Islands

Summer 1987

 

“Wings” Under Sail

San Juan Islands

We chartered “Wings”, a San Juan 34-foot sloop for a five day cruise through the San Juans, her namesake. On this trip we saw a pod of Orca whales, and had barbeque salmon almost daily. The weather was perfect – sun and wind!

See: pbase.com